After six flights in two weeks through Hong Kong, Shanghai and various cities in Taiwan, I'm back at Amherst. I've posted
pictures. I suppose we mostly ate and shopped. Also took a day trip to Suzhou - for the gardens - and Zhouzhuang - for the canals - for some culture while we were in Shanghai. Both were really beautiful and interesting. Our tour guide was pretty pushy though; he picked out and arranged every photograph we took and yelled at me when i would take pictures when he didn't tell us to. It's a shame we couldn't spend more time in Suzhou, the gardens were pretty amazing. We also had some ice cream chocolate fondue in a Haagen-dazs on Nanjing donglu in Shanghai, which was incredible. It's a shame they don't have it here in the states.
As fun and interesting as HK and Shanghai was, I think I still like going to Taiwan better. I'm certain it's an issue of comfort, since I've been going to Taiwan my whole life. I think I also benefitted from the fact that China is probably the only place I've been to with more spitting and crazier and pushier people than Taiwan. If nothing else, I regret spending so little time on this trip at my grandfather's home in the mountains around Taichung. Everything there is tied to so many different parts of my childhood. It sounds so cheesy, but being in that town really makes me feel so at ease and just happy. I don't know why that is, but I really love it there. I complain about my parents alot, but everytime I go back to Taiwan, I remember how nice it is to just be surrounded by family.
On the way back to Taipei from Taichung, my parents helped my sister, Bernice and I finally figure out all the titles for (immediate) familial relationships in Chinese, which is actually a rather arduous task (e.g. a younger cousin that is my father's sister's daughter would be my
biao mei but a younger cousin that is my father's brother's daughter would be my
tang mei [i think?]. But my younger female cousin on my mother's side, no matter whether its from my mother's brother or sister, is always my
biao mei. Since there're also different names depending on whether someone is older or younger than you, there are really eight different titles just for cousin). Back in Taipei, we went to the zoo (hooray for koalas and penguins!) and also to my aunt's weekend home in a hot springs area in the mountains around Taipei. Took a nice relaxing bath with sulfurous (read: smelly) hot spring water in my aunt's home with a beautiful view out the window of the mountains.
It was a pretty lovely trip overall, kind of exhausting, but I'm glad we did it. It's been awfully hard to readjust to working on my thesis. Somehow, standing in a dark room weighing and injecting rats isn't as appealling as soaking in a privath bath overlooking the mountains. Don't know why that is... Well at least Amherst has been pretty mild considering it's january. i've been warning freshmen and exchange students all year about how nasty the interterm atAmherst is, but this weather is making a liar out of me. Tomorrow's supposed to be 20 degrees with some snow, but still a far cry from the single digit highs of the past few years.
The view from my aunt's weekend home:
