spring is here

i'm not sure when the official first day of spring is/was, but it seems to be here. i've seen plenty of rain here in taipei, but friday morning was the first time i could recall hearing thunder in a long time, perhaps the first time in taipei. this weekend was the azalea festival at ntu. a lot of color all over the campus. it's a shame my camera has broken recently.

what else? a couple of weeks ago i was fortunate enough to catch the sky lantern festival in pingxi. my classmates and i even flew one of our own sky lanterns. it was a great sight, if not quite dangerous. every thirty minutes or so, a big group of sky lanterns would be released into the night sky. meanwhile, people were flying theirs wherever they could find enough space and whenever they wanted. many people tied firecrackers to their lanterns and lit the fuse as it was taking off. i saw more than one lantern catch fire and float down into a crowd of people, but fortunately it doesn't seem like anything major happened.

today i was part of a performance to promote our kung fu club during the azalea festival. our demo was quite short and went well. i spent the rest of the afternoon checking out the other clubs, watching some other performances, and taking a long planned walk through the side gate area of ntu.

since coming back from vacation, every day seems to be longer. it's true i have more homework these days. the other thing is that i can see the end of this little adventure in sight. i don't want to waste any days sleeping in. how many spring days have i seen in my life? how many more will i get to see? this sort of thing i never really thought about before, but really you don't get any days back.

lately in kung fu we've started sparring (對打，literally "opposite hit"). i didn't think i would enjoy it but it's kind of fun. i guess the best part is that at the moment i don't have to worry about anyone hitting me, hahaha. all that i'm doing is practicing combination attacks.

i played squash for the first time the other day. it cost $50NT for one hour with a racket rental. it's a pretty fun game. i was playing with a japanese girl i had met through my classmates. she has a friend in houston. the more people i meet here the smaller this world seems to get.

a little rest (休息一下）

it's been quite a while since i've written. since last time, i've finished my semester, gone back to america, and come back to taiwan to start school again. i've found that i feel much better after the break. i've also found that i experienced something like reverse culture shock in america.

i think it started on the plane from san francisco to houston. i was suddenly able to understand the people around me and my first thought was how obnoxious some of them were. i don't know why. they're probably not obnoxious, but i had grown accustomed to not understanding people around me, so maybe i felt they were being intrusive by speaking in a language i could understand.

the next point was how far apart everything is in america, especially houston. i think the nearest grocery store was a ten minute drive away. not practical to walk to at all. it was one mile from where i was staying to the entrance of the neighborhood, about a twenty minute walk. being in houston without a car was quite a contrast from the life i became used to in taipei.

finally i was surprised by how empty everything felt. even in san francisco on a saturday night, i felt like the roads were pretty empty. in neighborhoods i saw cars parked everywhere but no people.

it's interesting that i've only lived in taipei for six months but coming back to a place that has been my home for so long has seemed so alien. i'm not trying to complain about it. it's just strange.

all those things aside, it was really nice to see the people and places i've missed. six months doesn't seem that long while you're living it but things are happening all the time.