The Apartment

So I live in Taiwan and I currently live on the top floor of my school. I say currently as if I am planning to move soon but I won't be leaving the top of the school until I move back to America. So living on the fourth floor of the school sounds like it would be a little boring, but let me tell you, we can do a lot with four bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1 lounge, 1 kitchen and a laundry patio. We have been here for two months and still we find things that surprise us. Let me share a few of the things which manage to keep us busy while residing on the fourth floor.

This picture has a few different meanings. Of course we spend a lot of time in our rooms, sleeping, although perhaps not as much time as we should because we tend to go to bed late. The girls also like jumping on Joseph's bed while he is trying to write in his journal, I think that the girls all have a crush on him and want to figure out which girl it is that he likes. Joseph, always the ladies man, if only he could find a girl to settle down with. While looking at the picture we may be concerned that jumping on the bed could do a little bit of damage, however the beds already feel like your sleeping on the ground so no harm done really.

As you can see we all enjoy one another's company and this is no exception. I was blogging at my desk and Sara came in to work on her computer. Then Tammy showed up to prepare her lesson for Sunday. Laura followed us in shortly after and in this picture she has resorted to reading a mouse pad. We are willing to have a party wherever the people are, simply because we don't have a wonderful gathering place, although we tend to have a lot of parties that begin in the kitchen. People start cooking and everyone gathers around to make their meals and then one thing leads to another and we are either making treats or playing games.

This was the evening that girls decided to make fortune cookies to bring to church the next day. Apparently fortune cookies really aren't too popular in Taiwan. Some of the teachers made them with their classes and the kids had never seen them before. I am beginning to think that everything "Chinese" in America is really just America's belief of what the culture is. Taiwanese food tastes nothing like the food we call Chinese in America. Strange but true, although they Taiwanese eat a ton a rice.

Some of the most popular kitchen games include Phase 10 and Canasta. I'm not sure if it is because we enjoy playing them or because we really don't have any other games to choose from. Sometimes I try to make things interesting though and I will break out my laptop to keep score for us. In the photo below you can see the bottom half of our graph along with our nicknames. If I recall correctly they were as follows: Pain Threshold, Dollface, Sweet Checks, Deathstar, Forever Cache and Poison Dart. I will let you decide which nickname belongs to each player. At this point in the game though, Mary or Posion Dart was ahead, hence why her beautiful face now graces the photo. Some of the games aren't the most exciting, but watching someone's score jump from 80 to 230 if really quite exciting and there is no math involved.

The photo below was taken last night. After a hard fought battle, Sara and I lost Canasta. We kept score on the cardboard that held my Costco chocolate muffins, we are kind of into recycling here, and a little short on paper. Mary and Whitney managed to slaughter us. I always say that it doesn't matter who wins of loses as long as we have a good time. Last night was no exception, however I usually follow up with, "It doesn't matter who wins or loses as long as I win." I'm a bit competitive I'll admit, but I never brake things when I lose.

Other kitchen activities include sorting the garbage and washing the garbage. In Taiwan we have to separate everything and clean the recyclables before we throw them away. Living in Utah this is not something I am familiar with but I have grown quite use to it, in fact it is almost fun. Well not really fun, but manageable. On the far left of the photo you can see the general trash can follow by the bag for paper and then two more for plastic. Metal and glass comes last and the little round one in front is for left over food. Throwing trash away becomes more of an experience in Taiwan and not something to be done absentmindly. When I move back to America I'm sure that I'll still wash my trash and maybe even try to sort it out.

The last activity that usually occurs in the kitchen is the trip planning sessions and the blogging sessions. I believe this picture is from the evening we spent planning our trip to Taroko Gorge. Although it looks like all of us were hard at work, in reality Sara planned out most of the trip for us and the rest of us just sat there and surfed the net and wrote emails. Actually I'm not sure if everyone did that, but I know I wasn't really much help in the planning department.

Other games that we enjoy playing include murder in the dark. Except we enjoy playing all over the apartment. We dress in dark clothes and walk around the apartment, roof or in the stairwells and kill people. Then we accuse people and the detectives try to find out who it was that committed the murder. It really is an exciting game and you can read more about it on Joseph's blog.

In the lounge we have played other games such as the fruit or vegetable games. The rules for this game require everyone to pick the name of a fruit and then cover their teeth. Whoever begins the games says the name of their fruit/vegetable and then the name of another players food item, all while covering their teeth. The game could have gone on forever, but being adults and because having a fun time is more important than winning, we stop before a final winner was declared. As you can see we also have a few books to entertain us while here, although I find a lack on non-fiction titles which I would perfer to read. However I did pick up a fiction book and I am pleased to say that I am both almost finished with it and have enjoyed it. We also watch a lot of movies and recently we have all become a fan of the Japanese movies "Death Note."

What apartment with girls would be complete without manicures and pedicures. The girls thoroughly enjoyed themselves while I looked on. They tell me that sometime they will make me go through the process but so far they have only convinced me to buff my nails. We'll see how far they go over the next few months.

Finally last but not least, no foreign apartment would be complete without the bugs. We tend to have a surplus of mosquitoes here on the fourth floor. The wonderful thing about the mosquitoes here though is that they are really stupid. They fly very slowly and they do not run away from people. It is quite easy catching them in your hands and killing them. I have gotten quite good at, however, sadly no mosquitoes were harmed in the taking of this picture.

And so ends the blog of our wonderful apartment. If you have anything else you care to see please let me know. Also any other blogging ideas would be greatly appreciated. It seems that the longer I am in Taiwan the less exciting the environment is. What is still strange to most Americans I now find normal, like throwing used toilet paper into the garbage instead of into the toilet.