[Trip Three To Taiwan] Kaohsiung Kurisumasu
(Written back around 2003)
This year, I decided to go to Kaohsiung for my Christmas / New Year’s holiday. It was a decision I made shortly after returning from my last trip to Kaohsiung back in October. Because it was such a rush booking, the air ticket ended up costing more than double what it normally would - but the trip was well worth it and I don’t regret not going. I got to see much more of Kaohsiung as well as hang out with my cousin and his friends. During my 4.5 year stay in Japan, I’ve stayed in Japan for 2 Xmas/New Year’s; gone back to Canada twice. Going to Kaohsiung was definitely more exciting than staying in Japan (mainly because most of my friends go home for the holidays).
Those people who know me will probably know the reason why I went there again. For all others, let’s say that it was a good chance for me to check out the local culture / living conditions — find out about accommodations / cost of living / transportation / language school / etc. During my visit there, I came to some sort of conclusion that I would like to gain some degree of proficiency in Mandarin (hopefully business level) and that I’d consider studying either in Taiwan or in China. During my trip, I checked out the bookstores, picked up an interesting book with cassettes which I can listen to in my spare time; went to the Taipei Language Institute (TLI) (this school has a branch in Tokyo, but the tuition is more than double/triple!).
Not wanting to throw what little Japanese I know away, just before my trip, I bought a book that included a CD, which is in Mandarin / Japanese (ie. the explanations are in Japanese) - it’s a basic book so the Japanese is comprehensible. A loose translation of the title of the book is ‘3 seconds talk chinese language’ and includes a 55 minute audio CD. Cost is 1400 Yen at the Junkudo bookstore in Ikebukuro. The explanations are in Japanese with pronunciation guides using the standard pingying and japanese katakana. A nice thing is that on each page it compares the Japanese kanji with the Chinese characters so that you can see the similarities and differences. It’s a good book and I hope to find other books in the series. I’d say the Japanese used is about Level III on the Japanese Proficiency Test - so a good review as well.
Anyways, I flew in on Christmas eve. Exchanged gifts with my cousin / friends. The next day, I volunteered to dress up as Santa Claus for my friend’s english school. It was quite interesting - I didn’t really know what to do at first, but I only had to say ‘ho ho ho’ / ask the kids their names / ask the kids their age / and give them a candy. Afterwards, I played with some of them a bit. Later that day, I enjoyed a shrimp lunch - it was interesting - we had three different types of shrimp - one was in a pot - one had a lime type sauce - and one had a szechuan type sauce. I probably had more shrimp that day then the whole year!
For New Year’s countdown we hung out at the Pig and Whistle. My cousin and I were buying each other Doctor Peppers (basically you drop a shot of amaretto in a cup filled with coke and beer and drink it really fast).
During the other days I just drove the scooter around; explored the neighbourhood; watched a movie - Lord of the Rings Part II; went to karaoke (KTV); got a haircut; got lost on the scooter (took me 30 minutes to get downtown from my cousin’s place; spent 3.5 hours trying to find my way home and ended up having to be picked up!); had a bbq; went for hot pot; etc… The other thing I spent ALOT of time on was playing this new online racing game called Midnite Challenge - it’s soo cool and very addictive. I’m not too interested in cars, but during the past 10 days, I must have invested at least 50 hours playing the game - and I’ve even upgraded to Gold Membership! Check it out here: http://www.midnitechallenge.com/. You can probably guess who I am - Wasabi Power !!!
Anyways, hope everyone had a good new years, all the best in the upcoming year
Filed under: Taiwan
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