Host Family 寄宿家庭 part 1

This one is going to be too long to attempt to write in Chinese, sorry :( I really need to catch up on these things, almost two weeks behind now. This post was going to be three days worth of stuff, buuut as soon as I finished the day I decided I needed to nap and study for my exam tomorrow. So just day 1 of three, hope you enjoy.

 Started off the day with 蛋餅/葱油餅/I'm not actually sure what it is from Baozi guy. It has egg but also veggies and this ketchup like sauce. Anyway, it was good. I probably look quite interesting stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to take a picture of my breakfast haha.

 

Lunch time, one of my favorite go-to places as some of you might notice the food looks similar to some of the earlier post's meals.

 Anyway, got through class and did laundry real fast to have clothes for the host family weekend. I was quite nervous at first to be spending two nights with a Taiwanese family because I just didn't know what the expect. Also the TUSA program paired the Americans together in a lot of the host families because they had a hard time finding so many places for us to go. I was a little bummed at first (being an only child my whole life :P) to be paired, but ultimately I believe it was for the best. Matthew and I used our strengths to step up in certain situations and I will forever be grateful for his skills at breaking the ice as soon as we got in the car with the host family.

First new family picture haha. We'll meet the wife later. The daughter (Peggy) was super excited and also speaks really good English, which made it easy for us to fit in, but slightly unfortunate because we really didn't have to speak much Chinese. The dad (Arlong) also has really good English. The son warmed up to Matt a little bit later in the homestay, but ultimately didn't really seem to care for us much haha (it's ok Sam).

 They live about 45min drive north of where we say in Tainan in Liujia District 六甲區 which only has about 23,000 people (wiki said so) so it was pretty rural. It was a really nice change of pace compared to inner city Tainan.

First thing we do? Go to a night market of course!

 

 Thought this shirt was pretty brutal "I can't breathe".

 Coconut water                             

 

 Did some fishing!

 

Almost got a bastard but as soon as I pulled him out of the water my line broke.

Sugarcane drink. It was actually really good and not as overly-sweet as one might expect

 Fried and sweetened sweet potatoes. One of my favorite night market foods for sure.

Chinese lesson: 地瓜 di4gua1 = sweet potato = ground melon

土豆 du3dou4 = potato = earth bean

Found that kind of interesting.

 The dude in the bike outfit is Arlong's nephew Jay. He's on a cycling team and walked around the whole night market in chamois shorts. I applaud you sir.

 

 Played a balloon shooting game, took me back to my airsoft days heh.

 Peggy wanted us to try spicy duck blood pudding. The texture was a little weird because it literally just melts in your mouth, but was surprisingly tasty, I would totally eat it again.

I also finally ate Stinky Tofu... I'm sorry Taiwan, I love you and all, but I did not like chou dofu. I can eat anything else you throw at me, raw oysters, sea snails, spicy duck blood, coagulated pigs blood and rice, but chou dofu.... I'm sure it's an acquired taste, and I am willing to give it another shot, but I'm not rushing out for it lol. 

加水站 - Water station

So we headed back to Arlong's place with our goodies and chilled out for a bit. Pineapple beer. Yes.

 

 Chillin hard

After our meal we walked around the neighborhood a little bit. The sights and smells were very Arkansan, so I both felt at home and missed home a little bit, a very interesting feeling.

 Rice country

 A real bed! Of course I took the SpongeBob one lol. This was without a doubt the best sleep I've gotten in Taiwan so far. The Taipei hotel was pretty nice too, but here I got to sleep in a little bit.

Awesome cat picture in the hallway.

I thought I was going to write multiple days in one blog, but I actually need to be studying for my exam tomorrow instead of blogging all day lol. So this is just day 1 of 3, but at least I'm getting somewhere eh?