It was really confusing to be woken up by a shaking bed, you have no idea what’s going on and before you can have a clear thought it’s already over. The earthquake hit Tainan around 4 o’clock on Saturday. In our apartment was no damage, nothing fell of the walls or tables, so we went back to sleep. The next morning I had a couple of messages on my phone. Friends from all over the world asked me if I was alright. I had no idea how severe the earthquake was until I had a look at the newspapers. Taiwan normally doesn’t appear in international newspapers, the only incidents were of a sad nature: the stabbing in Taipei, the pipe explosion in Kaoshiung, and the fire in the amusement park close to Taipei. I’m glad that none of my friends or there family are directly affected by the earthquake. I hope that the Taiwanese army, police, firefighter, doctors, nurses, and other helpers manage this difficult time, right as Chinese New Year begins.
Only damage I saw close to the Tainan Station.
On a happier note: my dear friend Kelly is back from Switzerland to Taiwan during the holidays! We met twice already to catch up and it’s so amazing, we haven’t seen each other in such a long time, but it’s like someone just hit the pause button and we continue right were we left off.
Welcome back! Enjoy the time with your family!
Today we to a small artist village that’s close to our home. I never knew! During the next week they’ll have a creative night market with small handmade goods. I’m looking forward to it opening and also to take some more pictures there.
I know most people think this blog took the same fate as many travel blogs do. At some point the author get’s bored and just stops writing new entries. That might be partly true for this blog but the bigger problem was, that I was lacking the time to sit down and start writing. I was busy with university, friends, food, yoga, and life. A lot happened in the past months and now we’re already in the first weeks of 2015. So let me bring you up to speed and tell you a bit about the time between my last entry and now.
In the days past my last entry I met a really interesting person. I don’t know what you’ll do if you meet someone who’s funny, intelligent, and you have a wonderful time talking to that person. When I met her, we spend a lot of time with each other. We went to different restaurants together, the night market, and later for a day trip to Kenting. Even though it wasn’t planned but we wanted to do something special on the national holiday. First we planned on going to Xiao Liuqiu, but the ferry had a long line of people in front of it so we decided to go further south and ended up spending the days on Taiwan’s beautiful coastline. Nice side effect of this unplanned trip: I was able to go to the hostel I staid at before and got my towel back (yes also Germans lose their stuff sometimes).
Apart from a few unforgettable nights at Muse and Red Wolf in Tainan and Paris Dance Club in Taichung, Halloween was even more special. I’m really happy that Nelida and Nadir decided to drive down to Tainan and make this an awesome night! We didn’t put that much effort into our costumes but as a group we looked amazing and a lot of strangers wanted to take pictures with us. After watching the Halloween party on the streets of Tokyo (Shibuya to be precise) I already where I want to celebrate Halloween 2015.
Of course I ate a lot of delicious food during the past month. The most important one would be the food at Imma, since we ate there for the first time, I already came back twice. Imma is an Israeli restaurant that serves the best hummus I ever had and so many great dishes that it’s really hard to pick a favorite. The owner is super friendly and welcoming and he’s partly the reason why people keep coming back. Every time we went there we were lucky enough to get a table but many people arrived a few minutes after we did and he had to tell them that the restaurant is over booked today. He wouldn’t let them go without apologizing and giving them a free sample of the restaurants baked goods.
Many days were spent either at the university or studying at different cafes, at the library, or at home. The education system here is definitely different from Europe. Here students have to do home work, participate in quizzes, attendance is important, they have two midterms, sometimes presentations, reports, and a final exam. That sounds like a lot of work and it kinda is, but for each exam you don’t have to study as much as you do in Europe which makes it easier to pass the course. It’s extremely popular to go to a cafe, order a coffee and stay there for a couple of hours till you’re finished studying. When people get sleepy, they simply take a nap on their books and as soon as they wake up they’ll go back to studying.
How do you cope with the stress and all little things that start to annoy after being here for a while (like the traffic or people standing in the way)? The answer is: exercise! Many of us live in the same dorm and we’re lucky that we have a multi-purpose room which we can book and we workout together. Often we did yoga together, other times we did an intensive workout (it really is intense, actually it’s a bootcamp and you won’t leave without sore muscles). Once finished with exercising we were full of energy and it’s really a good way to sort your thoughts and start fresh into a study session.
December went by really fast without the usual christmas songs all around me, no sign of santa, and no people saying “merry christmas” when you enter their store. Apart from a little incident on Christmas Eve every thing was really quiet but then came 2015! What a change! The first days of the new year were such a blast. First a superb New Year’s Eve party at Armory, Tinpan, and Red Wolf, the next day a delicious dinner at Imma (Nadir’s eyes were gleaming!) and a spontaneous trip to Kenting (not without stopping at the wet bar I mentioned in the previous posts). The second day of the new year was very special because it was my first time at a hot spring here in Tainan. Guanziling is worth a trip, but make sure not to pick a day when everyone from the area is going too.
That’s it so far. Next week I’ll write my final exams and then it’s time to fly to Japan! Yes, we’re going to Japan. Two and a half weeks, not enough to explore this fascinating country but I guess that it won’t be my last time in the land of the rising sun.
I guess once I’m in Japan I’ll post more and in February my family will visit me (yeah!).
TianTian in Taiwan 