On Sunday Lauren, Bernise and I went on a 7-hour hike around Maokong. We instead of taking the gondola (or aerial tram) all the way up, we got off at the first stop making our way through Buddhist temples, the valley and finally back up towards the famous teahouses of Maokong. After hiking all the way to a temple behind a waterfall we hitchhiked back into Taipei. I think the pictures tell more than 1000 words.
Since Sunday I moved to my new room and went to a computer fare ‘Computex’ with Niko, whom I hosted only a few weeks back. We desperately wanted to go before the fare opened to the general public so we declared ourselves researchers and we wholeheartedly welcomed. The fare itself was interesting but nothing breathtaking. There were tons of 3-D displays, cameras, chips, games and maybe most interestingly as a cultural phenomenon, lots of promotional girls so skinny they must have anorexia. The audience, 9 out of 10 of whom were men, had their picture taken with these girls as if they were zoo animals. I personally found it very degrading, at the same time thinking that the girls’ salary could have very well been spent on free giveaways and the like.
Yesterday night I went to have dinner at a ‘German’ restaurant, where I had some pretty good Spaetzle (German pasta). I brought my new roommate Wen Wei along who seemed a little bit frightened by all the other exchange students. Our language barrier often makes it hard to communicate and he is quite hesitant to teach me Chinese. I think that he does not want to embarrass me, so he rather takes the toll of speaking English. But all in all we get along well.
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