Today is the first week of school at the National Taipei College of Business. In the morning I take Chinese language class, and in the afternoon I have gym and English class. I have already made a lot of friends and met a lot of nice teachers. In the morning I am going to kung fu club, so I have to get up at 6:30!

Golden Eastern Arborvitae

Today I went to the flower market with one of my classmates and bought some materials for a bonsai tree. This was the end result: a wind swept something-or-another tree (I really don't know what kind of tree it is, but it caught my eye and was only 5 USD). I wish I had taken a before picture, because it was basically a giant bush (I removed probably half of the branches and half of the root system).

Yesterday we went to Yilan (pronounced ee-lahn). This town is about maybe fourty-five minutes away from where we live in Taipei. We got an early start for Yilan at seven in the morning, but thankfully the first thing we did when we go there was eat dumplings (picture 4). After that, we headed off to a hot spring, but before we did that we stopped at a general store and I bought a traditional Taiwanese hat for about 3 USD (picture 3). At the hot springs, I got to see how hot the magma-warmed water actually was. At the actual spring itself (picture 2), you can see steam pouring out of the ground. The water was actually so hot that we were able to hard-boil eggs in it! After the hot springs, we were off to eat some delicious sweet pork and then go to a museum for Taiwanese Traditional Art. There we saw all sorts of cool things, including the traditional puppets (picture 1). All in all, it was a very cool day!

Today I went to the Eslite Bookstore, the biggest bookstore in all of Taiwan. I wanted to buy a book on bonsai, but most all of the books were in Chinese. After that, Justin and I burned some more paper money (we do this the 2nd and 16th of the lunar calendar, as well as on major holidays to honor the gods and ancestors and to bring good luck to the home and business). Then we went to the traditional market to buy some vegetables. It is kind of like a Farmer's Market, exept the meat and fish and vegetables are layed out on the street. Now I'm off to help Justin pack because he is leaving tomorrow early in the morning. 再見!

Today is the last day of July on the Chinese lunar calendar. July (on the lunar calendar) is known in Chinese as "gway oo ray" or "Ghost Month". According to tradition, this is the month that the deceased wander the earth. The ghosts you especially want to look out for are the ghosts of deceased ancestors that have not been properly honored. Due to Ghost Month, we have not been able to go into the ocean since I arrived because that is where the most ghosts reside. The last day of ghost month is especially important because this is the day when the most ghosts are out. Today, as is customary for many and most people in Taiwan, we left out food offerings for the ghosts with incense attached to them (as seen in the picture above). After that, we burned paper money, which isn't real money but paper stamped with silver and gold, origami flowers and gold coins, and pictures of clothing and other necessities that the ghosts need. This is different from the normal burning of paper money, which goes to deceased ancestors, because instead it goes to the gods of the Chinese folk religion as well as the ghosts that wander the earth. The best part, after the paper money is burned and the incense dies out, we got to eat the food! All in all it was a very interesting day.

Yesterday we went to the flower market. The market is located underneath the freeway and is filled with all sorts of beautiful things. Basically the garden section was every gardener's dream. There were beautiful pots, soil, seeds, watering cans, and an assortment of flowers to choose from. My favorite part of the market were the bonsai trees. They had every sort of tree you could imagine! I wish I could have bought one, but they are far to expensive. Maybe I will buy an unfinished one and grow it while I'm in Taiwan?

Today Engrid took me to a second-hand market. For 200 NT, you can rent a table for the day and sell all sorts of stuff. There I bought a feng shui compass and a small jade carving for a grand total of 120 NT (4 USD)! Afterwards, we all went to go eat really spicy noodles.