Top 10 from 2012

I am a lazy teenager. I know it, and i can admit it. It has been over a year since i have last updated my blog which is pretty pathetic! But hey here i am! The last year has been a crazy and busy, but it was one that i will never forget. So here we go, my top 10 memories from 2012

10. I started out the year in Thailand with a family that I babysit frequently. The trip was a surprise Christmas gift from Santa, and i got to go with them! It was an awesome trip filled with playing on the beach, swimming, visiting aquariums and seeing parts of Bangkok! My favorite part was the elephant riding 🙂

9. Crazy adventures at school. I know this might sound weird as this sounds some of the best memories that i have from Taiwan have been at school. I love to be involved so i stay generally busy. This past year some that stand out include: Cross Country, Track, Frolic, Free periods with my friends,Fashion shows spirit week, being on Student Government, and all the little memories! I am a total nerd but i like school!

      

8. Thailand with my family! We flew to Bangkok, and did a few things there. After that, we drove 3 hours north to a little town where we played with tigers and elephants. It was so cool! Next we flew down to Krabi and played on the beach for a week. It was so nice and relaxing. While we were there we played with monkey’s, went on canoe trips and snorkeling trips. Overall it was a very fun trip!

  

Here is the video for this trip:

 

7. Basketball! I have been on two basketball teams this past year and i loved it! My team mates were the best! I have had so many great memories with them.

    

6. Hong Kong and Kenting. I put these two together because we went with the same family on both of these trips. They were so fun! Kenting is on the southern tip of Taiwan so we drove for about 8 hours to get there. While we were there, we went to the beach, cool look out spots and of course the night market! Hong Kong was over Thanksgiving. We went to Disney land, downtown, the light show, Forever 21, and the temple. It was a very fun trip!

Videos that were made by my dad 🙂

Hong Kong:

Kenting: (this video was inspired by the “Where in the Hell is Matt videos on youtube)

5. Cambodia Chinese New Year! It was so fun! I love Cambodia. I am now convinced that i am going to move there. For this trip we flew into Bangkok and then drove to Siam Reap. While in Cambodia we went to Angkar Watt and other surrounding temples. My favorite day was the day when we went out into a local village with our guide and just walked around. I had recently received a polariod camera, so we took it and took pictures of the little kids and gave them the photos. The kids were priceless. When we handed them the photos, they would look confused because they were blank, but when the picture began to show, they were so excited! Most of them ran away to show their parents, but a few of them asked us for more. I loved Cambodia!

Here is the video that my dad made:

4. Summer! This summer we went back to Utah! I love going back home! We gorged ourselves with Mexican food, 5 guys and lots of candy. It was so fun seeing my friends and I got my drivers license! Yes i am now a licensed driver!  I cannot drive here in Taiwan, but i can in the state of Utah! Also this summer i got to go to BYU basketball camp and girls camp!

      

3. Indonesia. For Christmas we went to Indonesia and Singapore! This trip was so fun! We started off in Bali where we did a bunch of cultural things (which i loved). Next we went to Jojakarta where we saw ancient temples. After that we flew to the island of Borneo where we lived on a house boat for 5 days and played with Orangutanes! I loved it, but i got bit! Yes it bit me! It was pretty scary but hey at least i have the scar to prove it.

        

The monkey biting me:

Be Bali day:

2. My friends. I have the best friends that anyone could ask for. This past year we have had so many crazy and exciting memories! I love them to death! Some of the things include: going to night markets, eating lots of food, baking, sleepovers, school dances, going to the beach, and dance daring people in downtown Taipei. Lets just say that we have had a crazy year!

      

 

1. IB Cambodia Trip.  This was the best experience that anyone could have asked for. I saved for this trip for about 8 months. For this trip i went with a group of 20 students and 4 teachers to Phnom Penh Cambodia. While on this trip we visited many of the museums from the genocide, played with orphans and built 10 houses. I loved this trip. After having been on this trip i have decided that i want to get a nursing degree and then move to Cambodia and help all the little children there. It is basically my dream.

            

Cross Country 2011

So by the title of this post you might be thinking oh this girl is a runner. Well let me start off by saying that I am NOT a runner. I try but the truth is I am no good. Its all right though, I never really wanted to be a runner.

So this whole idea of doing cross country started off last year when me and my friend were trying to think of ways to get into shape for second season sports( she does touch rugby and I do basketball), and since both of our sports require a fair amount of running we decided to run over the summer and then do cross country for first season to get into shape for our second season sports.

Well my summer running did not go to well. I would only go if it was the right time and weather and when i did go i only went for about 15 minutes. I will admit it, i am pretty lazy. But hey it was summer! And it turns out that my friend did not do much running either.

So on the first day of school i showed up to try-outs where my friend was mysteriously missing and we did 5 laps (about 1 mile and a quarter). I thought that i was going to die the whole time. After the try outs i thought that for sure i was not going to make the team. So on the second day of tryouts we all showed up and our coach said that there were going to be no more try outs because he was making no cuts! I was so happy! But then we went on to do 5 more laps.

So as the season went on we continually lost and gained people and our team ended up being 21 girls strong! We had a really good team and it was a lot of fun! But then i started having knee pain and to make a long story short after an MRI the doctor confirmed that i tore my Meniscus. So i started running less and less.

But even though i could not run I still went to practice and helped time girls or stuff like that( i swear that on the day when they were doing speed laps around the track i would get a couple of dirty looks when the girls would pass me and I would yell out times) So I did end up racing 2 races and my final 5K time was 31:27(or close to that). I was pretty happy!

But now 7 of the 21 girls are in Singapore at a big international school competition (IASAS) and I hope that they do well!

Just a side note:

We had the best team cheer ever! We whispered balderdash (because it is a cool word) and we would yell SHARON (because she is our captain)!

(Yes i am the only white girl on the team)

Happy 100th Birthday Taiwan!

This past week end was the 10/10 holiday which so happened to be Taiwans 100th birthday! It was a really fun holiday! The best part about it was that we got 2 days off of school.(Also my 2 brothers were gone!) So on Monday morning Me, My parents and my little sister packed up and went down to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial were they were doing a huge military display. There were these really scary guys that looked like zombie-army men. 

After we watched a little bit of the military demonstration we decided to go to this big festival and check out all of the shops and food stuff.

So all in all this was a pretty crazy day but we had a ton of fun! And the best part was when we were walking back to our car we were at a stop light and when the light turned green for us to cross, all of these scooters started cutting us off and the old man in front of us was so angry that he tried to KICK one of the scooter drivers in the HEAD! No joke. It was very, very funny!

 

My Photography Blog

So this year I am taking a photography class at school. It is a fun class and we do a lot of stuff.

We have to have a blog that has all of our pictures and responses so here it is!

http://tasblogs.tas.edu.tw/wpmu/cecilyh14112566/

Hope you enjoy!

Fortune tellers Alley

On Saturday my dad decided that we were going to go on an adventure. After much contemplating we decided to go to this confusion temple. The temple was really cool. We got this little old lady to explain some stuff to us and it was cool to know what the different rituals meant. After we went to the temple we sent off to find the fortune tellers alley.

This is an underground street that is full of fortune tellers. As we were walking through people kept asking us if we wanted to have our fortune told but we said no and kept walking. The whole time my dad kept saying that if would be so cool if one of us had our fortune told. But me and my mom just kept pointing at each other and so neither of us did it. Until the end. We got to one of the very last fortune tellers and there was a sign that said that she knew English. Then my dad said that he would pay for me to get my fortune told. I was a little freaked out but I said yes.

So we went into this little tiny stand and she read my palms. She said that I have a very long lifeline, but i would get sick and would need lots of medicine. Then she read my marriage line. She said that i wouldn’t get married until I was 35 and if I got married before that we would fight a lot and break up. This part was a little weird. Then she said that I had good ear lobs and that meant that i would buy a house when I was 35.

This whole time she would look at me and then read something off of a computer. So I am pretty convinced that she had a script and was just reading it. Even though my fortune was pretty good I still think that it was a bunch of Hocus Pocus.

Taxi’s

So living in a big city means that there are a ton of taxi’s. They are everywhere. They also come in a wide variety of very nice, to very scary.  When we are in America i hate taking taxi’s because i think that they are just playing scary. But here in Taipei the drivers are nice and they generally dont rip you off. They are also very cheap.

So after our last exam at school, My friends and I decided to go to the American club and go swimming. We swam and ate really good food. It was pretty fun. Afterwards we were going to go out to eat but i had to go back home because we were having a neighborhood goodbye party. So as i left my friends i got into the taxi told him where to go and we set off.

So when I get into a taxi I just say “Yangmingshan” and he knows right where to go and then usually he does not say another word to me. One day a taxi driver tried to give me a Chinese lesson, but he failed miserably. One thing that does happen quite often is if there is someone in the car who can communicate with the driver he will ask if i have a boyfriend. I also laugh and say no and usually that is where the story ends. But not this time.

This taxi driver asked if i had a boyfriend, i said no, and then he proceeded to ask for my phone number. I was very freaked out. I said no and that my dad would not like that. Then he told me that he was a nice guy. So after this very creepy conversation I had him stop a little ways from my house and then i ran the rest of the way home.

So after this i made up a new life story for taxi drivers. It goes like this: I go to the European school, my dad works for the CIA and has a gun, and i do have a boyfriend ( none of this is true i swear)

So even though i had this very creepy experience i still had to take a taxi home the very next day and nothing bad happened. ( but I think my dad was a little freaked out by this whole thing)

Going Home to Utah

Yes this summer we are going to back to Utah. I miss Utah so much and i am very excited to go back! I have had a countdown clock on my laptop for some time now so as you can tell I miss Utah a lot. Moving here to Taiwan has made me think about the things that I miss in Utah so here are my top 5:

1- Snow. This may sound a little crazy for those of you who have 6 inches of snow outside your door for 6 months out of the year, but when you live somewhere where there is no snow at all you begin to miss it.  My favorite memories of the snow are going sledding at our local church and then going home and drinking hot chocolate by our fake fire place. Or waking up on Christmas morning and seeing a fresh layer of snow that has not been touched. These things are what make winters so fun and magical.

2- Food. Chinese food can be good but it can also be very scary. One day we were walking through a local night market and we saw a lady with a live turtle in her hand cut off its head and throw it into a pot. Now that was scary. Things like this seem to happen a lot.

I miss walking down to the wal-mart and getting all the candy and junk that i wanted. Now we go to our local Wellcome ( yes the store is called Wellcome, with 2 L’s) and they have some American stuff but it is always expensive and not very fresh. Another thing is the Utah Tomato’s. Utah has AMAZING tomato’s in August and September. During those months all we would eat were BLT’s, Bagels with cream cheese and tomato’s and tons of fresh Salsa. Tomato’s, to me are like summer. But the tomato’s here are hard and kind of gross so we don’t eat a whole lot of them.

3- Friends. Since i lived in Utah for almost my whole life, naturally i miss my friends. When we left i was on the Jr. High basketball team, on Student Council and part of a audition choir. So i am really excited to see all of those people again.

4- Family. Almost all of our family lives in Utah. Since we have lived here in Taipei we were lucky enough to have my dads cousins come and my cousin. We had a lot of fun but going back and seeing all of my cousins will be really fun!

5- English. I miss being around people that only speak English. No offense to all of you people out there who learned English as their second language but it is nice being around people who dont know another language. I also miss people that we meet on the streets knowing English. Believe me i have played enough games of charades to last a life time.

So as you can tell i am very excited to go home and I cant wait!

Me a model? What?

So one of the best things that TAS has to offer is all of the after school programs. They have everything from soccer, glee and Spanish honors society. Now since I have only been to the school for 3 months I have not had the opportunity to join these clubs but I was involved in one, the I love art fashion club.

This club does a lot of things that I do not really know about. It is a new club and the thing that they did that was really cool was a big fashion show. A bunch of people from the club became designers and made cloths for models to wear. So you might asked how I got involved in this club well it went a little something like this:

One day I was sitting in the lunch room eating breakfast before class. It was probably the 4th or 5th week of going to this school so I still did not know anybody so naturally I was sitting alone. Then all of a sudden this random guy came up to me and introduced himself. Know when he first started talking I thought that he was talking to somebody else so I was not paying that much attention but then I realized that he was talking to me! He said that he was in this fashion club and he wanted me to be his model.

Now I have been interested in modeling for a couple of years and I am 5 foot 10 so I do have the height for it but I just never really got around to doing anything. So when this guy asked me to model for him I was pretty excited and I said yes. As I ran over to my friend to tell her about my good news, another girl overheard us and asked me who my designer was. I told her and she just gave me this look that was the ” i feel so sorry for you look” she proceeded to tell me that my designer was the president of the fashion club. I was pretty frightened.

So over the following weeks we had just briefly talked and I had been to a couple of rehearsals and a couple of fittings. Every time that I saw the dress I was pretty excited to wear it, and every time I saw it, it kept getting bigger and more extravagant looking so naturally I started to get more and more nervous.

The day finally came and my dress was done. As I reviewed the model list I realized that I was to go last. Again I was pretty frightened. After I realized that I was going last I also realized that I was last of 37 girls. Wow that was a lot more than I was expecting. So over the next few hours I sat through make up and hair and squeezed into my dress.  As I neared the front of the line as the show proceeded I could finally see the crowd and it was HUGE! There were about 150 chairs set up and not only were all of the chairs filled but there were people standing around the edges of the gym. This was not any old high school fashion show this was a pretty big deal. So when the girl told me to go I sucked in my gut and walked out into the gym. It was weird to see every one turn to look at me but at the same time it was pretty cool. I was kind of frightened by all of the cameras but I just looked ahead and made no eye contact with anybody who looked familiar.

So now that it is over I wish that I could do it all again!  I thought that it was so much fun and I am so grateful that I got to be apart of it!

The Public Bus

So every morning I get up at 5 30 and go to early morning seminary ( a class that I take through my church) The class is at my school which is nice, but the school is a 30 – 45 minute ride on the public bus.

Now, when you get on the bus that early in the morning one of two things can happen:

a: There will be hardly anybody on the bus and everything goes perfectly.

b: The bus is super crowded and half the people on the bus are a little crazy.

The other day me and friend were riding the bus and a random Chinese man came up to us and asked if he could take our picture. I turned to my friend ( who has been living here for about 10 years) and asked if that happens a lot and she said that, that was the first time that, that had ever happened to her. So we let this random man take our picture.

Another experience that seems to happen a lot is this: We get on the bus and a couple of stops later a man gets on the bus. He came up to me and two of my friends and asked if we spoke Chinese. I said a little and he proceeded to talk to me in Chinese. Now the only Chinese word that I know are: Nihao and Xie Xie. These mean hello and Thank You. So I just gave him a blank stare. After a couple of minutes of him talking to me and me not understanding he asked me and my friends if he could touch our hair! I was so creped out! Luckily it was our stop and we hurried and got off the bus. When we got off the bus my friend told me that you never tell a Chinese person you speak Chinese. Lesson Learned.

My New School

Ok so I am officialy a Taipei American School Tiger! I love Taipei American school( sorry Mountain Ridge). The school is really big and I get lost almost 5 times a day but it is really cool! It is so wierd going from a little Jr. High in Utah to a huge k-12 school! It has 4 floors and about a million staircases! I think i find a new one every day.

So something that I thought was kind of cool is that Taipei American School is really Eco freindly. This pas week every one in the High school got these really nice water bottles! We were told that we could use them whenever and put whatever we wanted in them( then we were told if we brought plastic water bottles we would recieve detention. oh well!) Another ecofriendly thing that they do is when you graduate from the lower school and go into the middle school you have to get a laptop! So that means that we recieve very little paper!

Another cool thing that would never happen in Utah is that there is a swimming pool in school! Not only that but it is on the second floor! It is so cool! I have not been in it yet but, this week in PE we are starting water polo. Which means that every other day we have to get in a swimsuit and play water polo! This will be interesting!