As I mentioned before, I'm no good at keeping up with blogs, possibly because I write too much when I do make a post. So my goal this time will be to make shorter posts when I am short on time, and make longer posts when I do have time.
So right now I am in Taiwan for the 3rd time in 5 years, and the 1st time back since my summer teaching program two summers ago. All I could think about as I was walking through the airport was memories from the summer program, and how much I still miss all the people I met at the program and everything we experienced together. In fact just today, I went to back to 北埔 (Bei pu), which is a small Hakka village, to have some traditional Hakka tea 擂茶 (lei cha), which I had gone two times previously during the summer program. Although we couldn't find the place I had gone to last time, the whole going-back was very nostalgic. After we got back to my aunt's apartment, I searched all over the internet for the place that i went to and finally found a picture of the outside on some random person's pictures. In anycase, the whole program still stands today as one of the best experiences of my life. GLOBE is definitely on its way up there.
As much I call Taiwan " the homeland" it still feels so foreign, mostly because of the language barrier. I always feel really inspired to improve my chinese after visiting my relatives so that I can converse more smoothly and not have so many awkward silences. I really want my kids to be bi-lingual.
Here are some pictures of my experiences in taiwan from the summer program and this time:
So now in a couple of days, I will be heading to Hong Kong for the rest of the semester and for the last study abroad part of GLOBE. I haven't even quite processed everything, which includes the 4 months in copenhagen, 10 days at home, 3 days in taiwan, and now preparing for hong kong. its strange because i miss copenhagen so much, but have not thot about it much over break because i was so happy to see my friends and family. And now that i'm in taiwan all i can think about is taiwan and haven't quite thot about hong kong even tho i'm so excited to be going there. Traveling in Asia is going to be sooo different than in Europe, and since i haven't quite prepared mentally for going to hong kong, i know the culture shock will be pretty hard.
Here are some pictures from the rest of my time in Kobenhavn and Europe after Berlin. I ended going to Italy (Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome), Paris, Oslo, Madrid, Brussels, and Vienna. as always, GLOBE has been an amazing program so far and I am so grateful to be able to get to know the people on the program. Over my time in Copenhagen, I've gotten a lot closer with the Danes, the CUHKers, and the American globers, and hopefully you all will be able to meet them in the fall of 2009!
so until next time...
~Jenny
