Wow....haven't posted for quite a long time =/
Truth be told I tried to post two days ago, but I accidently logged off and lost like...FOUR BIG LONG BUTT PARAGRAPHS ( and pictures!) of hardcore typing. T^T
Bitter, I was!
ahem...now i shall start ...again
dsl;kfja;sldkfjalsdkfj
oh and just a warning, im feeling kind of spazzy cuz i had a hugeomongous cup of milk tea this morning for breakfast ( they load EVERY tea with sugar here....ugh) so.....if the following sounds really... here, then there, and suddenly everywhere, ..well....now you know why
Choir Trip: Taiwan 6/29-7/1
Day 1
- Depart from SFO airport at 6:30 p.m
I was pretty excited...and nervous. I kept wondering if I forgot anything ( which later I realized i forgot my black performance stockings. crap) My mom, dad, and sleepy/cranky aaron also accompanied me to the airport ^-^ I can't believe how much I miss them right now.....=[....anyway, the airflight to Taiwan was LoooOOOOooooNNNNG The sad thing was that I COULDN"T SLEEP AT ALL. T^T It was't because the airplane was uncomfortable...but I'm guessing it was a combination of the dry air that made my nose clog and the fact that my hair stood on ends like medusa because of static >[.
So, my wonderful WHAP book kept me company.....yyyaaaay -__- Thankfully someone invented T'Vs and Movies so I wasn't all too bored....I think they played uh.... King Kong ( it was way more entertaining when I watched it with my groupie hahaha) , Last Holiday, some French Movie, and Tristan and Isolde. <---- that really annoyed me. I didn't like it all that much >/
- Arrive at Taipei airport around 10:10 p.m their time....I think.. and take bus to "Big Family Center"
It's SO SO HUMID here. It takes a couple days to get used to it. THe first time I stepped out of the airport, the humidity hit me like a brick wall! WHABAM!!!! It felt like you were swimming in the air......what's even worse is that you sweat just by standing still for five min in the sun. it's really really gross. so thankfully there's A.C. without it, i wouldn't stand a chance in this country
Oh and since we arrived TaiNan around 1:00 am in the morning, we slept at this school center called the " Big Family". The classrooms aren't like the ones in the U.S ...they don't have nasty colored carpets that hide 1000 years of bile or dust floors with dried mud or some other suspicous brown plop from the bottom of dirty shoes.
In fact, there's a rule about taking off your hoses before entering =] so the floors were alll really clean ^^ It was like kindergarten all over again, taking a napnap in the classrooms on a simple litle mat.
Bein that i recived no manner of sleep for almost TWENTY SEVEN HOURS......i slept like a rock. ^^" No more jetlag for me ! ^____^V YES
Day 2
- Arrive at Evergreen Plaza Hotel
This has to be my personal favorite of all the hotels we've stayed at. Loved my roomates too hahahahaa They're so hilarious. I'm so glad I got to know Tiffany and Bird better =] ( To BirdieShmirdie: if you're reading this..HAHAHAHAHA *raises hands up * and the bathroom banging HAHAHAHA xD OMG )
The breakfast buffet there is fantastic too! I had my first bite of Dragon Fruit there. yummy yummy
the seeds are like crsipy sesame...haha and well...it's like a kiwi really
=] MmmmMMmmmM
- Sightseeing at the Yi Zai Stronghold and a Temple somewhere around TaiNan
It was really HOT outside. It think we got the record temperature or something i don;t know bleh.....
and what's really annoying is that the guys decided to try be athletic and buff, and play " throw the tennis ball high into the air and see who catches it "...................ahhhhhhhhhhhhh >[
can you imagine how they lookd like after just ten minutes in that weather?? lasdkfa;sdf The phrase " beads of sweat" doesn't even come CLOSE to describing them ...it was more like " RIVERS OF SWEAT"
....you can guess that the girls on the either of the buses weren't all too happy with their conditions......nor with the smell they brought in >m<
Doesn't it remind you of the entrance from Spirited Away?
hahahahaha
Collapsed in an Earthquake =/ pity
Day3
- rehearsal, Rehearsal, REHEARSAL, aaannnnnnnd PERFORMANCE
Basically we had a rehearsal for two hours from 10 - 12, short lunch break with way too much food as usual ( last time we had a TWELVE COURSE meal!!!) and then another two hour rehearsal from 2-4.
Afterwards we go back to the hotel, rest and get ready for the performance at 7:30. w
What a day.....so much anxiety and tension. drove me mad ><"
That's the outside, the green is actually a pond...
Day4
Arrived at the Lakeshore Hotel. They say it's one of the best .....TCH yea right *grumble*
For one thing. the whole room was so cramped because they tried to fit two queen sized beds into that thing along with a closet, a desk, and a television cabinet. No walking space at all >[ bleh!
AND THEIR TOILETS WOULDN"T FLUSH
we had to call the stupid plumber twice...the first time, the toilet seemed to work at his magic touch....-_____- ( i bet if toilets had genders, that one would have been a very very very very man deprived female ) grrrrrr
then, right after he left, we tried to flush it annnnnnnnd
it just gurgled .....a;sldkfjasdlkfj
stupid stupid
and the only thing i would eat for breakfast there would be there omelets hahaha. I think I have a really wierd " taste" ...like..other ppl thought it tasted really mediocre or downright disgusting..but i thought it tasted really...yummy ahhaa ^^"
- Sightseeing at Pu-Li and SunMoon Lake. <3
Sun Moon Lake was so ppprrreeety. I think that has to be the prettiest place.....and one of the most " nature-fied" places in Taiwan that I have ever been to.....or SEEEN for that matter 0.0
it was like one of those places you see in National Geographic haha =P
....aannnd i;ll write about Pu-Li when I remember it...
FUUNNN STUFF lol,
I have to say, my mini golfing skills are way more ..." pro" than my " let's hit it high and far skills"
;dlafkjasdlfkajsdflkj
but i had fun hahah, most of the time we were just getting high off the HUGE cup of tea they gave us.
ooh and speaking of tea, EVERY TEA DRINK in this country has A POUND OF SUGAR or something 0.0....but somehow or the other, these people remain SKIINNNNY as hell. ads;flkajsdlfkj wwhhhhhyyyyy , hooooooow?!?!?!? T^T
their size " large" here...it;s like a small back home. it's creepy. every time i go into a mall, i feel like im twenty pounds overweight compared to those people. GAH
;daslfkjas;d
ahem, anyway back to golfing,
yeah.....it was one of those times where everyone was kind of foling around hahaa. fun though =]
and i thought i would be the only one swinigng the golf ....thingy ( .......omg...i forgot what it was called...uhoh) in a very foolish manner ..only to miss it a few milliseconds later
bleh bleh
Happily, i was part of the 70% that were doing that hahahhah!
Day 5
Have any of you heard of these people before? If you haven't...YOU MUST
they're really really really good. The style of music they produce is reallty interesting. It;s purely percussion intruments like Marambas, Drumsets, Funky Soundeffects, etc
I think I've seen one of their performances at SanJose State once, it completely blew me away
the stuff they play is very rhythmic ( no duh haha ) and you won't feel like going to sleep with each passing song. gooooodstuuufff
*singsong voice* guessss who saw the Mayor of Taipei??
WE DID
haha im such a hobo, i've been bragging about this ever since when really it's not that big of a deal lol
but hey, i've seen this guys a gabajillion time on the taiwan neschannel in the U.S o it was pretty cool to actually see/hear him in person.
His English is amazingly good. It was only until later htat I found out that he came from Harvard. pretty amazing yea? ahahha
wanna know something else pretty amazing?
.....dun dun DUN I SHOOK HANDS WITH HIM! whhheeee hahaha
xP one of my life's small accomplishments
All I can say is,.......I'm Ohhhhh So Glad that I'm part of the Crystal Choir from the U.S...........>.< hahah
I mean..they're not bad.....it's just,.....not all...of them...sing...on key >M<
yeah................and some of them have pretty spoiled attitudes.
Ok, so there was this one girl who majorly pissed me off wither her MAJORLY BAD ATTITUDE toward the teachers
d;slkfja;sldkfjalsdkfj
frigginl.l.asd;flkajsdflkajs
i think all she was interested in during the whole "exchange" time were the guys from our choir. -_- the little booger.
and when the teacher told her to sing, she was giving her a bundle of spoiled attitude. ads;fklajsd;flkajs;dlfj what. the . hec
if you're a SENIOR ( who's like....five feet tall) at least ACT like one and take up some responsibility for JOINING something.
* fuming*
but not all the people were like that, some of the girls i talked to were quite nice. ok so basically everyone was except her .
Day 6
- Rehearsals and more Rehearsalzz/ZZZZZZzzzz
that' really all there was, haha and then another peformance at HsinChu Performance Hall at 7:30
antoher long and extremely anxious day xP
Day 7
- Drive to Taipei and arrive at Taipei Grand Hotel
That hotel is amaaazzzing 0.0 I wonder how long it took for them to construct the place!
What's really wonderful about the place is that you can " balcony hop" hahahahahaha
The roomservice ladies also give you very azn styled bathrobes haha. Some of the guys bought these wierd astroboy masks and they decided to don the bathrobes and totally scare the hell out of whoever was on their floor by balconing hopping to other people's rooms and scratching on their glass windows.
I remember that when they did it to my room, I first heard the scratching. I was a bit confused and uneasy at first, so imagine my shock when i pul;l back the curtains to see a freaky looking astro boy pressing his face to the glass
not exactly something i would want to wake up to.
Tell me that that isn't the craziest AZN hotel you've ever seen
WooooooW
SO MANY BRAND NAMES
Many of which I've never even heard of before! Now this place was really really really expensive. So of course, I didn't buy a single thing...which I later regretted because I realized that I should have bought one of those ice cream gelatto things T^T they had green tea flavor toooo
But Bird and I did make one observation: the people who go into Taipei 101 dress NIIIIICCEE. We weren't being shallow or anything, really! but it's just such a big contrast to what ppl where outside! ( again the whole brand name deal ) ....espescially the guys. o.o Some of them looked like they could be models.
But we had a couple of those in our group as well hahaha, two of my roomates were picking out outfits espescially for this day. ....Bird and i just slapped something on...=/
Whoever did the interor and exterior design did a GOOD JOB
- Two Hour Rehearsals at another choir's facility where we met up with one of the composers of the songs we were going to perform ( and he specially composed that one for us!)
The Composer ended up giving and hour and a half lecture about Life. It was actually actually prettu interesting ^^" He's a very entertaining person from my point of view haha. Kind of like one of those very grandpa-ly kind type of elderly men.............yeah...
ha
Day 8
- REHEARSALS AGAIN and the LAST/ MOST IMPO PERFORMANCE! AT TAIPEI NATIONAL CONCERT HALL!!!
I think this was definitely our best show for this whole trip. Thank goodness! And I think they said that we broke the record of their house seating for a choir group!!! ( Meaning that they never had so many tickets sold for a foriegn choral group ) YEEEESSSSS!
The place is soooo pretty and majaestic! I loved it!
Isn't that "GooooRgeous"?? <-- word of the whole trip hahah
Day 9
- Sightseeing at some Harbor I think...DanShui or something...
I don't know if this place was interesting or not, ^^" hehehe,... I didn't get off the bus, too tired from last night hahaha
Heard it was pretty though....darn...........=/
I can't belive how crowded the place was. Very intersting stuff they sell there though. Bunch of little trinkets such as hair accesories, bracelets, ncelaces, clothes, gamer stuff, China pirated vcds and dvds, etc
I bought a a necklace and a bracelet there...but it broke witin two weeks T^T the chains were very stable. but the designs are so intricate! =[ I couldn't resist
OH ahaha I also found something really intersting here too: BABY COLOGNE
Johnson & Johnson's Baby Cologne: Summer Splash!
hahahaha I plan to give it to my brother, that way he can smell all nice and baby-manly when he goes to the park! ^______________________^
AHH we almost got lost in this place!! It was like walking into an ant hive!! I can't believe that so many people can be packed into such a small space!!! Everyone was literally pushed up against each other in some areas, and being that it was an open air market, the humidity combined with the massive overload of CO2 was NOT something I'd like to experience again .
We even had to cling onto each other's backpacks so that we wouldn't be separated by the crowds!
..but it was fun hehe =D
Day 10
Finally got picked up by my relatives in the morning. Lots of people already left with their families too byt the time my relatives got here.
Overall, this trip was definitely one to remember. Lots of inside jokes and fun times, I'm glad that I at least met a few new people and got to know some of my friends a bit more as well.
THANKS TO ALL THOSE THAT MADE IT HAPPEN <3333
------------------------------>
and to my wonderful friends in the U.S: ( and Australia. China, or that azn country you are now in bonnie)
I miss you all verry veery much! and I hope that you are enjoying your summer as much as I am! | 
oh we have fun during free block
EH WHHHAA??????