Life Without Sound

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my adventures in Asia - I’m currently staying in Taipei, Taiwan with my boyfriend’s family and our friends. We’re leaving in just a few days to go back to the States. I’m sad to leave, but also excited to go back home and to Baltimore. I won’t deny that I’ve missed my family, friends, and of course American food and my favorite restaurants in Baltimore. In the last couple of weeks here in Taiwan, I’ve learned even more new things about Taiwan and their culture.

1. Noodles. Always more and more noodles!

Spicy beef noodle soup

Thai peanut noodles - another favorite!

2. Dumplings are also another favorite (and mine!). They have a bit of broth inside too. So yummy.

Dumplings!

Making the dumplings

3. There are lots of memorials to honor prominent leaders and people. The buildings are so beautiful!

We like being tourists

Chiang Kai-Shek memorial

Changing of the guards at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's memorial (the founder of democratic Taiwan)

4. Bridges. Lots of bridges!

Little bridge

Big bridge!

5. There are also many temples for people to honor their loved ones who have passed away. The temples are so beautiful and intricately designed. There is often incense sticks, so the aroma is also very pleasing. That’s the reason why Chinese people never leave their chopsticks in food because it looks similar to incense sticks, thus symbolizing death.

The exterior of a temple

A temple we stopped along our bike ride

Dragons on dragons

6. Biking is a fun activity to do in Taiwan; you can bike along the coast!

Before our bike ride

7. It’s impossible to find your shoe size in Taiwan if you’re a tall person. Jane and I had absolutely no luck!

See how tall my boyfriend and I are compared to the people?!

8. There are lots of versions of ice cream here. Gelato, Turkish ice cream, jumbo ice cream, shaved ice…

Jane and her jumbo ice cream!

Shaved ice - lime jasmine tea flavored!

9. Paper lanterns are a very special tradition here in Taiwan. People often go up to the mountains and write their wishes and prayers on paper lanterns. The lanterns are then lit up and float up to the sky, so high that you can’t see the little specks of light anymore. This was one of my favorite things to do.

Aaron and his dad about to let go of theirs

Jane and Rich with theirs!

Bye bye

10. The drinking age here in Taiwan is 18. It’s been a super fun month because I turn 21 right when we come back to the States too!

Enjoying freshly pressed orange juice!

Clubbing with my Alpha Phi sisters!

11. Many people get really excited when they see us, because we’re Americans (and blonde!). There have been several times where strangers have asked to take a picture with us!

Our fans

12. Tea time is highly valued in Taiwan. There’s lots of tea houses here, especially up in the mountains. The tea is often served in extremely tiny cups, because it is nice to take your time and enjoy the tea as well as company. People often take 5 or 6 hours sipping on some oolong and jasmine tea.

Tea time!

Sitting on the floor for tea...poor Aaron

Inside the tea house - we had to cross a fish pond on stepping stones!

13. Snake venom shots are popular here. You can take a shot of snake venom, snake blood, and snake gallbladder. I gladly abstained.

Lovely.

Heroic

And lastly, I’ve had so much fun with my boyfriend and best friends. I’m incredibly lucky to know them and they have made my trip a thousand times more fun and enjoyable. I’m going to miss Taiwan, but I’m especially going to miss the times we’ve all shared together. ‘Til next time!

Dancing in public

A five-year old

Don't fall off!

Often always too big for the average chairs in restaurants!

Fitting is a huge struggle for Aaron

Asian tourist

And again

And again

Grandpa Hsu's a Hopkins fan!

Greetings from Taiwan! Instead of doing intersession at Hopkins, I’ve been staying in Taipei with my boyfriend’s family. I’ll be here for a month and will be back before the spring semester starts. Even though I’ve only been here for just a week or so, I’ve already had incredible adventures. I’ve learned so many new things about a brand new culture. I’ve never been to Asia before, so this trip has been extremely exciting and fascinating. In just a week, I’ve learned that:

1. The Taiwanese love rice. Expect to have it almost every meal – breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even dessert!
   

   Rice "burrito" for a snack!

   

   Rice for breakfast! My favorite is to have rice with a runny egg. Yum.

2. Even more so, noodles are actually more popular and loved by the people.
   

   Having noodles for breakfast!

   

   Pig's feet, soup, and homemade noodles with cabbage

   

   Beef noodles for dinner. So good.

3. “Hot pot” is also really common. You basically boil meat, veggies, and bean noodles into boiling broth. It’s my favorite.
   

   Hot pot!

4. Like hot pot, you pick out what you want from the pot and put it on your plate. There is often a rolling circle in the middle of the table with lots of different dishes you can pick from.
   

   Lots of options!

   

   Us at dinner!

5. Taiwan is literally the country that never sleeps. The country is most alive at night – flashing neon lights, light decorations everywhere, and most of all – the night markets. At the markets, you can buy all the yummy food you want and do lots of shopping.
   

   One of the night markets!

   

   So excited to shop! (And eat)

6. Spas are really popular. There are even rooms for you to take a nap after you take a hot bath. I’m liking that.
7. If you drop your chopsticks, it means that someone will buy you dinner in the future.
   

   Haven't dropped my chopsticks yet! Having an Asian boyfriend who loves to eat gives you lots of practice.

8. Taipei 101 is the second tallest building in the world! It is called 101 because they want to strive to be more than 100%. The building has a unique shape – it is to reflect stacks of Chinese fortune boxes, to bring good fortune to the people. The building also has the fastest elevator, traveling 17 meters/second.
   

   Taipei 101 at night

   

   During the day

   

   View from the top!

9. There is a lot of respect for elders. Do what they say. Respect the word.
   

   Aaron's family, including his dad, uncle, and grandparents (and the cutest little cousins ever)

   

   With Aaron's grandparents

10. Mopeds. are. everywhere.
    

    Mopeds!

11. With that being said, the chances of me getting into a car accident if I drove on the hectic streets are 99.9%.
12. Badminton and basketball are the most popular sports.
    

    Badminton!

13. There are so many tropical fruits available. To only name a few, papaya, honeydew melon, cantaloupe, guava, passion fruit, Buddha’s head (it’s literally shaped like Bhudda’s head!), apples, dragon fruit, strawberries (the best strawberries on the planet), bananas.
    

    Fruits galore!

    

    Buddha's head and dragon fruit

14. You will find a 7-11 on every corner. Not joking.
15. McDonald’s is a huge deal and they’re actually kind of luxurious.
16. New Year’s Eve is a bigger deal than the Chinese New Year. And the people like to do the countdown in English, not Mandarin.
    

    Taipei 101 with fireworks on New Year's Eve

17. Christmas is also a big deal. There are always life size Christmas decorations for people to take pictures of. It’s pretty amusing!
    

    Igloo!

    

    Reindeer!

    

    Sleigh!

18. The license plates are really simple (nothing on it except numbers/letters) because Taiwan’s an island and there are no touching countries. So the people like to “decorate” their license plates by putting European license plates behind their Taiwanese plates. We’re from “Sweden.”

It’s been a blast and I can’t wait for more adventures. So stay tuned for my next blog!

It’s hard to believe that this year is finally over. It was certainly a tough year. Regardless, I ended up with a 4.0 gpa for sophomore year – I had some phenomenal professors as well as great classes; in fact, I will be a TA in the fall for one of the classes I took. But I’m glad this year is over and now I finally, finally have some downtime. Ever since the beginning of freshman fall, I’ve been constantly on the go. Tragedy hit home right after my summer classes ended and ever since then, it’s been quite a roller coaster ride. But now, as I write this blog, I’m laying out by the pool and getting lots of  well-deserved sleep. I’m in California right now and it is absolutely wonderful. My internship hasn’t started yet, so I’ve been on a mini-vacation in the best place in the world!

My friends and I have mostly been just hanging around the pool and exploring different places of San Francisco. So far, we’ve gone to a rave (featuring some of my favorite artists – Tiesto and Guetta!) and to Half Moon Bay. Today marks exactly one week until The Overnight, an 18 mile walk in San Francisco from dusk to dawn that my dad and I will be doing to raise funds for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in honor of my mom. So far, we’ve raised about $14,000 – absolutely incredible. I plan to write a blog about the Walk afterwards as well as my other plans in store for the summer, so stay tuned!

My friends and I at the rave

Pooltime

My boyfriend and I

The luminara bag for the Walk

Intersession is a month long break in January for all Hopkins students. Some choose to take interesting 1 or 2 credit classes at Hopkins, travel and study abroad, do research, work, amongst many other options. I chose to stay home to be with my family. I’m grateful for that opportunity – intersession allowed me to rest up, spend time with my family and friends at home, and most of all, travel. In only a month or so, I traveled all over the Caribbean and later flew to California to visit my boyfriend from Hopkins.

For a couple of weeks, my family and I went to the Caribbean, specifically the Grenadines. It was absolutely beautiful. We stayed on a sailboat and went island hopping. We visited little islands such as Becquia, Palm Island, and Grenada. Fifteen years ago, our family did a trip like this, so it was a fun experience to re-live it again.

My brother and I on the boat

Swimming in the ocean!

Aaron and I

Paradise!

We returned just in time for New Year’s Eve and started 2012 on a bittersweet note. A couple weeks later, for my birthday, I flew out to San Francisco to visit Aaron. I spent time with his friends and family and, not to mention, got a personal tour of San Francisco! I absolutely LOVED the city and it’s now one of my very favorites. We visited the world famous Golden Gate Bridge, the Muir Woods (home of the redwood trees), Pier 39, and several other places.

The Golden Gate Bridge!

Pier 39 with the sea dogs

Such big trees!

I flew back home on my mom’s birthday and it was emotional to say at the least. But at the airport, my brother surprised me! He flew up from Georgia to join my family to celebrate my birthday early (my real one’s actually tomorrow). It was so good to be with my family.

My aunts and my best friend

20!

All in all, this month has been a wonderful time. If not for intersession, I wouldn’t have had time to travel to all those beautiful places, spend precious time with my extended family, catch up on much needed sleep, and most of all, heal.

Tonight is New Year’s Eve and I have to be honest, I have pretty mixed emotions. First, I just returned from a trip in the Caribbean. It was absolutely wonderful. Many memories were formed and I will never forget them. I went with my family – my Dad, brother, and aunt. My brother’s girlfriend and my boyfriend also joined us. The six of us sailed around the Caribbean, visiting many islands and the locals. It was such an experience! We didn’t quite celebrate Christmas like usual at home. Although it was sad, the company with us counted. We also celebrated my boyfriend’s 20th birthday. I plan to write more about our travels in my next blog, so stay tuned. Here’s some of the pictures we took:

Beautiful beaches in the Grenadines

Obligatory Hopkins t-shirt photo in Grenada!

I spy an iguana

A Caribbean sunset

The end of 2011 also marks a year that was full of grief, confusion, sorrow, and pain. So, I’m ready to say goodbye to 2011 but at the same time, I don’t want to let it go. 2012 also represents change and time moving forward. In a way, I don’t want to move on. I will have to celebrate Mom’s birthday without her in 21 days. I will have to celebrate mine without her in 27 days. It feels like I’m leaving her behind.

But regardless, I have to go on. It’s not like I can freeze time or even rewind (which I would give anything to do that). The most logical thing to me is to look at 2012 with optimism and hope. However, it’s much easier said than done. It’s excruciatingly hard.

So, cheers to 2012.

The past few weeks have been an absolute blur. There was Fall Weekend, Family Weekend, and of course, midterms. While many kids went home to spend time with their families over the fall break or had the whole family crash the campus for Family Weekend, I went home to be with my dad. Just me and Dad.

Us

Sometimes it feels lonely that it’s just us. My brother’s down in Georgia finishing up his last year in school. My mom’s not here anymore. It feels like my family shrunk by a thousand times with the loss of mom. But regardless, my dad and I have grown so much closer together out of this time. It’s wonderful being home with him, being surrounded by all the memories of mom. It’s bittersweet, but I love being home. And most of all, I love being with dad.

A couple of weeks ago, I was having a really hard time. But Hopkins helped me get through it. With the permission of the Dean, I was able to go home for a week as well as a couple of long weekends. All of my professors were so helpful. Some sent me their lecture notes, some gave me extensions (thanks!), and some even just let me off the hook for assignments (more thanks!). It was unbelievable. It means so much to receive help because dealing a loss so immense like this, it’s really emotionally draining. I find myself tired a lot more often. I find that it’s difficult to concentrate on things. And whenever I find something that reminds me of mom, it throws me off for the rest of the day or even for the week. So, in the past weeks, I’ve probably been home more often than at Hopkins. When I first went home in October, as soon as I saw Dad on the platform, we both started crying. It was then when I realized we had such a bond because we both went through the tragedy of that night together and have pulled each other up on the way. While things like that have sometimes been heartbreaking and immensely sad, there have been really good times too.

For example – my suitemates. They are AMAZING! They always manage to put a smile on my face and we’ve had such fun times. We sometimes cook dinner together, which can either turn out to be a masterpiece or a disaster. Two of my suitemates are in a sorority and I’ve gone to a few of their events (I’m rushing this year as a sophomore yay) and they have turned out to be really fun times.

My beautiful suitemates!

At my suitemate's birthday dinner in Fell's Point

Powerpuff girls at Alpha Phi themed date party

Greek Weekend!

My friends and I have also gone to D.C. which has also been great (again, it’s just 7 dollars to take the MARC train from Penn Station to Union Station in D.C.!). My friends and I went back to the same place that I visited over the summer – Georgetown. A couple of my friends have siblings at Georgetown and through them, we’ve met really awesome people. As a matter of fact, we’re all here in D.C. right now this weekend to celebrate Halloween (a snowy Halloween, that is)! My dad’s birthday (happy sixty something, dad!) is also this weekend and he’s here with my aunt. It’s really nice having him down here – just me and dad.

D.C. lobster! Ahh!

D.C. love

Because of my mother’s passing, I never really got to write about my summer. In the beginning of August, I finished up classes at Hopkins, nabbing A’s and B’s in micro, chem, and chem lab. I’m pretty glad I took those classes. It feels really nice to have them out of the way and I probably would have not done as well during the school year. I actually used to really dislike economics, but now, after taking micro, I’m really loving it. I had this awesome teacher who is a grad student and he was unbelievable. He’s one of the examples that show you how much the Hopkins faculty care. Whenever I had a question or two, I simply e-mailed him and he responded within a day with a page long response. He was so helpful and really wanted us to understand the material, and, even more so, be “inspired” by economics (as lame as that sounds, it worked). I am now considering minoring in economics depending if I am able to graduate on time. My mother’s death set back a couple of goals, but as they say, it’ll all work out in the end somehow.

A highlight of the summer was going to the District, or, commonly known as D.C. My brother’s girlfriend lives down there (she goes to Georgetown) so I decided to pay her a visit with my boyfriend. The great thing about Hopkins is that it is a 5 minute taxi cab (or a free shuttle ride) away from Penn Station. Penn Station is the perfect location – right in between Philadelphia and D.C. Speaking of which, I plan on going to Philly this weekend to see the Eagles vs. 49ers football game (go Birds!). Anyway, the MARC train from Penn Station to D.C. is just $7. That weekend also happened to be the huge heat wave of the summer. D.C. broke the record for peak heat index: 121 degrees! Nevertheless, we walked around the Mall and visited the monuments. We ended up only staying outside for about 45 minutes before we took shelter in the museums. We were absolutely drenched in sweat!

Washington Monument!

New Jersey represent

My favorite part of D.C. were certainly the museums. They were free (!!!) and had so many cool exhibits. We ended up only visiting the Smithsonian’s National History Museum and Natural History, but they were so huge that it took the entire day to see both! Another favorite of D.C. was M Street: tons of shopping. It was like paradise! My boyfriend and I spent one of the days just shopping and eating on M Street. Many of the stores and restaurants are very famous (like Georgetown Cupcake) and there’s a high chance you’ll bump into a celebrity.

Georgetown Cupcake (note the long line)

Out to dinner

I had so much fun in D.C. that my boyfriend and I are going back to the District (with all of our friends!) for Columbus Day weekend. JHU has no classes on Columbus Day, so it’ll be nice to go down to D.C. and have some downtime after the midterms. Stay tuned for another blog on the District!