Orietation

Sunday, my family and I joined my Rotary Club, Taoyuan Fortune, for an awesome experience of making dumplings at a flour factory! It was so fun to meet everyone from my clubs families and learn how to fill and shape dumplings. I will defintely make them often back home, I love dumplngs! Then at noon all inbound students from my district sat through a long day of lectures and we had to introduce ourselves. I was one of the only people to intorduce myself in Mandarin and English, most just did it in English. We went over all the rules and plans for the year, some of which I might not be able attend but I hope I am able to. We had dinner in a buffet where they had a section for foreigners which the exchange students called "the white people section." Which I only saw white people go to so... makes sense. At the buffet I had my first piece of cake here that actually tasted sweet. My family sometimes tells me to try things that are "sweet" but trust me, compared to Canadian dessert, its never sweet. I've now realized how much sugar we put in literally everything. I always ate an exsessive amount of sugar also, so I will need to get used to not eating so many sweets. We took group photos and made a huge ruckus while playing games on the little stage area of the restaurant. It was around nine when I got home but I didn't fall asleep till around one in the morning, as usual.
Monday, after barely any sleep, I had to wake up at six to be at the couch bus for seven thirty, to go into the mountain area of Taoyuan for a long day of games with all the inbounds, Rotex and Ryla students from Taiwan. I wish we had gone on a hike or something, but it was still a veryy fun day with everyone. I met so many cool people and hopefully made a lot of friends. I like hanging out with people from here a lot. They also really help with Mandarin. But when I bent down and pet a toad, I think I freaked some of them out, one person even yelped when I did. I guess thats not so normal here. I love finding creatures though, so they will just have to get used to me a little bit as well. We played this game called running man, where we were chased my black shirts with water guns and had tasks to complete, but every game people just lasts till the end and won that way instead of completing the tasks. I won the first round that way but by the end of all the running half my hair was soaked with sweat. The humidity here always makes me drip in sweat. So much hotter than West Kelowna, to say the least. We ate lunch and dinner with all the inbounds sitting together, and laughed at all the ways we speak differently, and eat differently. There were a lot of complarisons between Australia and Canada made that day. Apparently I am the most stereotypical Canadian ever, according to the adorable Ausies. Me and Ghabriel, an inbouond from Brazil, took a lot of cool photos and get along very well, which is awesome because he also goes to my school. We saw such amazing views, with a gorgeous green looking river in the mountains. There were a lot of mosquitoes but their bites are not as itchy for some reason...or maybe I'm just more disraccted. There were so many noises in the trees also, apparently they are made by different species on beetles and get louder and louder around seven at night. I will eventually get pictures of those somehow as well. I am very curious about them.
Today was Tuesday and I finally set up my phone for soo cheap, thank goodness, and went to our grandparents house for dinner. Where for the second time, I rode on the back of a scooter, and it was a little less scary, but the traffic is scary even in a car sometimes. I finally tried sticky rice, which tasted amazing, but I kind of thought all rice here was "sticky rice" but no, just compared to our rice. They found it odd that Canadians eat loose rice. I like loose rice though, but I loved what they call sticky rice. I'd prefer that over the rice we eat here everyday but rice is rice you know. There are usually around ten different dishes to top the rice with too, so it's always enjoyable. After dinner I walked around my neighborhood with a Rotex student in university, who will hopefully continue to help me with my Mandarin, and he also suggests that with what I want to do, I should look in to his university, and I agree, it seems to be a very good school. We went to my favourite bubble tea place so far, where I don't even buy buubble tea, Coco and I should've tried to order for myself because I know how to say the drink I like in Mandarin, but I will next time.
Tomorrow is my first day at school and I leave for shool at around six fourty, until four in the afternoon, high school is much different here. I am so excited to learn Mandarin a little faster though, many more people to help in a classroom setting. So much to learn! So little time!