Taroko Gorge and the Great Pacific

this trail led up the mountain and had these warnings

takes 7 hours. plenty o' rock falls... SNAKES GIANT HORNETS AND WILD ANIMALS

this is their "Saturday afternoon ride through the Morton Arboretum"

marble. rocks.

Are you using the right scouring pad?

I was pretty lucky that they were shooting the commercial for 3M Scotch-Brite scouring pads on the one day of the week I go to Taipei. They shot the commercial at a studio, where the production company Fish Film Productions was running the show. When I first walked into the large, dark room, I was greeted by a man wearing a green mask with a green rim around his face to look like a plate. He stood in front of the camera pretending to scrub his face with a sponge. Yes, this was a cool commercial. Basically the plate-faced guy uses the wrong scouring pad and his pan-faced girlfriend has to teach him that there are many varieties, and a special one just for him. This commercial is intended to convince the audience that their household needs to have four different types of scouring pads for the many cleaning tasks they put up with.

The set with all the perfectly placed lighting was at one end, with a row of cameras and equipment in front. Then there was a table for the production company to watch from, followed by a table for the creatives and one account executive to make sure everything was done just the way they envisioned it.

After watching the fun for a while, I took a little tour of the studio to see where post production is done. This commercial required a lot of computer effects to change people into plate heads, and the upstairs was where it all happened. The top floor housed the huge mother computer, very cool indeed.

One thing that has always been visible in the U.S. is the number of hip, young people working in advertising. There's no difference here, and the office is full of fun, creative people. It really makes for an exciting experience every day, which you have to have when most of the people here work very long days, some even from around 9-8 and even later.

Well, the sun is about to rise, so I think I'll head over and get some breakfast! Two weeks until I'm leaving my low 80's for some below freezing temperatures. I'll leave you with an excerpt from Danielle and my lovely vacation. 墾丁非常漂亮

I see 101

From my desk!
Aaah yes, my internship. I was fortunate enough to get a lot of help and set this up at DraftFCB for my time in Taiwan. I had been checking out the account management side of things for a while, but there are so many pieces that work together in an advertising agency, which makes my time every Thursday very interesting. Let me start off with the commute.

I leave my room in the morning at about ten minutes to 6 and walk to the bus stop. The sun is rising and the air is usually pretty clean, so I can see the big mountains off in the distance. It makes the morning hater in me pretty happy. The free High Speed Rail shuttle takes me to the train, then it's about an hour to get to Taipei. From there it's a pretty quick rapid transit train ride to the stop where I walk about 20 minutes to work. The way back is a little more messy because I save money and take the bus. By the end of the day, I've commuted for about 6-7 hours! It's not so bad once a week, but it definitely makes me want to live within biking distance from work for my first job.

Day 1 involved meeting everyone, learning a bit about what the account people do, and sitting through some meetings. Most of the communicating is done in Chinese, which really helps me practice, even if there are times that I am lost. Lots of people there speak English, and better than I speak Chinese, so it isn't too hard to ask questions. An interesting thing I see with the people I sit near is that most of the emails are done in English. I think a lot of clients have some English speaking employees, even when the majority of things are done in Chinese.

Meeting #1 was pretty short. They made some ads for 3M water filters a while back, but the new filter doesn't look the same, so they need to re-shoot the picture. This was my first lesson in the importance of lighting. For this ad, the picture will be shot without a label and the label will be added via computer because of the glare they would get.

The second meeting involved the account team and the creative team. The accounts director Arthur was giving the creative team a briefing on the product to be advertised: Nexcare 3M face masks. Many of you know that these things are way popular in Asian countries, which makes it a plenty big market to get into. What I like about the account side of the job is that these people need to be involved with every step of the process, and they really keep it flowing. This briefing was to introduce what the client had in mind for their product, as well as teach the creative team everything they needed to know about these face masks. The quality, what they're made of, how much they cost, the target market, where the ads will be, what makes it better than the competition... Arthur has to know it all, which I think is pretty cool.

The final meeting was with a bunch of people from the office and the production company that was shooting a commercial for some more 3M products: Scotch Brite scouring pads. This was the final meeting between both sides before shooting began, so they basically went over finishing touches and some last ideas anyone had. Luckily for me, the commercial was shot the following Thursday, and they all let me check it out.

Coming up: Day two at the commercial shoot and Day three- my first project.

Oh by the way, I went to the bike shop across town and rented a bike the other day. They have a really fun bike path and it's pretty cheap. I had pictures but my external harddrive and iphoto collaborated against me and decided to lose all of my pictures from Taiwan. Actually, the only new pictures I have from here are two of me sporting a mustache. Yeah.

很糟糕

東海大學的校園有一家餐廳叫紅林花園餐廳。因為這個地方有一個素食的自助餐，我常常去那裡吃午餐。不過今天我吃自助餐的便當裡面有一條小小的毛毛蟲，所以我應該找別的餐廳吃飯。

我最愛的句子就是“姚明高得要命!"

By the way, this isn't about my internship, duh. Maybe tomorrow.

Breaking Records

I've done a few things since getting my hair cut a month ago...


The biggest jazz fest in Taiwan went on for a couple weeks in Taichung last month. I went both Saturdays that it was going on. The festival kicked off with an attempt to break the world record for largest saxophone ensemble. They just slipped by, beating the previous record of 900 people with a powerful 918. After listening to the crowd of saxamaphone players play some songs, we checked out the rest of the fest. It was a pretty good time; basically every foreigner in the city could be found there. Good food (they had a vegetarian booth), good drinks and good fun hanging out at a table with friends.


On the second day of going to the Jazz Fest, I saw a pretty popular band here called The Money Shot Horns. After that, my group of friends grabbed another table and we hung out for a while again. The Taichung Jazz Fest was a pretty good time. It reminded me of just about any other fest back home, and sometimes it's just fun to go out where there's lots of people and see what happens.

Halloween was lots of fun this year. My friend Wyatt invited me to go to a heavy metal show that a couple of his friends' band was headlining. It was cool to see a different side of young Taiwanese people. The show took place in the basement of Peace Coffee, a really cool fair trade coffee shop not too far from my school. Monster Boogie started it off by rocking some Metallica songs, then Out of Survive played their hardrock/poprock with Flesh Juicer finishing it off.

Flesh Juicer screaming out some songs. The lead singer is a really nice guy and an environmental studies major

After the show, I picked up my Halloween costume and it was off to a bar that was letting people in for free if they were dressed up. Walking through the biggest night market in the city while being dressed as an old Taiwanese woman was a good way to start the fun.

Last Sunday was Tunghai University's Founder's Day Celebration. It was a full day of sporting event competitions between all of the different departments at school. I was on the international students team. We rocked. Not only did we win the 球不是圆的 "ball that is not round" event, we completely dominated about 30 teams in the three legged race. We got plaques! Oh, and I got extremely sunburned too. But it's November, so I'll take it.

For the last month, I've been commuting to Taipei every Thursday for my internship at the advertising agency DraftFCB. I think I'll start writing about my awesome weekly experience tomorrow. 晚安

Who Needs Sport Clips?

I needed a haircut, so I decided that Wednesday would be the day. I was going to go to the barber shop on campus because it is 30 seconds away from my dorm and apparently very cheap. However, the front door had a 'we're not coming back today' sign on it, so I had to walk to the night market to get a haircut. I went to the first place I could find that didn't look expensive, and there were only two or three people there. Here's how it went down...

They sat me down in one of the chairs and immediately brought me an ice cold glass bottle of Coca-Cola, repeatedly saying "no money, no money". +1 for the free drink. As I waited for my haircut to begin, I flipped through HBO, Showtime and ESPN on my personal TV. Then she came over and brought a magazine so I could show her what hip 'do I wanted. When I left, they gave me a handful of candy. Best part: less than $4.

Businessman in Training

After a 4 day weekend of going home for my sister Justyna's wedding, I'm back to normal in Taiwan. Hopefully since I'm racking up so many frequent flyer miles, I won't have to share foot space with the dude next to me in coach next time...

The wedding was such a great time. I feel that every aspect of it was even better than anyone expected. Congrats Justyna and Dan! Since the whole weekend consisted of pre and post-wedding events, I was constantly bombarded by awesome family and friends. It would have been even better if Danielle was in town, but she's coming to visit me here at the end of next month hurrah :)

Meet Little White. The "motorcycle" that my roommate pokes around town in. Don't worry, this is just the parking lot.

It's a lot of fun to ride on the back of these scooters. Completely crazy. Before I came here, I was starting to notice a lot of middle aged men driving them in Naperville to save on gas. Great start, but hopefully it doesn't become the epidemic it is here. I'm pretty sure that more people would ride bicycles everywhere if scooters didn't exist, and that's the world I want. Tomorrow I'm going to the Giant Bicycle Shop to check out prices... Did you know the Giant company is originally from Taichung?

The weekend before I went back to the US, there was another typhoon. A super typhoon in fact. Once again, we didn't get hit nearly as hard as other cities, but the weekend consisting of strong winds one day and heavy rain the next took it's toll on campus.

My poncho after walking home from the night market.

Before our power was knocked out during the typhoon, my roommates and I played some card games. Cards are a great way to have fun with people who you might have trouble communicating with. Some of the most fun times I had in Slovenia were playing Briskola with the family. After you know how to say suits and numbers, cards really don't speak any language. It didn't take long for them to teach me how to play bridge in Chinese. I think it's easy to catch on to rules and strategy, and I think I'm a little bit more competitive than my Taiwanese friends. So, after winning a few games in a row while playing a popular Taiwanese card game, one started calling me a magician while another tried harder and promised he would win the next game, while referring to himself as a professor (it wasn't until later that someone told him he was trying to say professional).

I've been meaning to write about some 'lost in translation' moments I've had here, which I think are pretty funny, but maybe you won't agree...

#1 After a friend mistakenly asked me if I could speak English, I tried to make a joke in Chinese. Basically I tried to say "Well I hope I can speak English. Otherwise, I'm screwed!" After the blank stares, I tried saying it in English, which she still didn't understand because there's a big gap in the sarcasm department.

#2 I was trying to ask someone if they've heard of a specific bar. Since I used the wrong tones, which I usually do, he thought I was asking about a famous writer that studied at this university. I finally had to resort to saying it is a place to drink at. The in-between moments when neither party understands one another are kind of funny, and they usually involve google searches.

#3 And my favorite, another tone tragedy, involves a mountain and an umbrella. The highest peak in Taiwan is yu shan, and I want to go. So I asked my roommate if he wants to go. But it was raining at the time, and yu san apparently means umbrella. So, since the Taiwanese accent involves not pronouncing the 'h' sound, I was left trying to do the arms above the head coming to a peak motion, which looks far too similar to an umbrella. He kept asking me why I wanted to go outside and use my umbrella...

Finally, I'll leave with some wisdom: Please allow two days to get the stinky tofu taste off of your tongue. Now I know why every night market smells the same. Also, this 'moon fruit' as some might call it, is the answer to all youth soccer half times. It looks like a huge green coconut, then you bust it open and it's like an orange, but looks and tastes a bit more like a grapefruit. The best part: you peel each section and they miraculously come apart and stay in their slice form. No more sticky fingers kids.

Celebrating Family

For my first weekend that I could actually do something in Taiwan, my 'buddy' Ray and I visited his home in Yilan. Every international student was given a Taiwanese buddy to help them out, pick them up from the airport and show them around. Ray is definitely the best buddy out there! Some people I talk to either 1 don't even know they have a buddy or 2 have talked to their buddy once. Throughout the weekend, he insisted on paying for things and making my time as easy on me as possible, as long as I kept my promise to take care of things when he came to visit the states.

Yilan county is located on the eastern side of Taiwan, basically due east of my campus. Since Taiwan is very mountainous, especially right down the middle from top to bottom, you have to take a bus north to taipei and then south to Yilan. In all, it took about 4.5 hours on the cheap, comfy busses to get from my dorm to Ray's house on Saturday morning.

His dad and aunt picked us up from the bus stop in the family Camry, and we drove about 5 minutes on narrow roads to their house, which is surrounded by rice fields. Ray lives there with his mom, dad, younger brother and grandparents.

After dropping my stuff off at the house, Ray and I went to see the National Center for Traditional Arts. They have a theater and a temple, but the main section is a long road with shops in either side. In the downstairs, there are people selling any sort of Chinese trinket you're looking for, and the upstairs section of any given shop will usually have an area for children to make their own crafts.

Carrying lots of soap

This traditional Yilan dessert is a mixture of two scoops of ice cream, some crunchies and :( cilantro wrapped in a thin tortilla. Get the greens outta my ice cream!

That night, we went out for dinner at a fancy Japanese restaurant in town. This restaurant reminded me of eating in China, where they give you huge portions of everything. Except at this meal, you didn't share. I think my soup had at least 9 types of mushrooms, and mostly gigantic mushrooms. It was a good meal, topped off with a big glass of kiwi juice. After dinner, we checked out the night market, which was packed and had a lot of cool shops. Ray's parents bought me things, of course with me insisting that they're far too kind the entire time. They also gave me a little good luck charm, a box of cookies, tons of fruit and traditional candy. 

When we got back, we celebrated Grandma's birthday the Taiwanese way with cake and birthday candles

弟弟，我，哥哥

On our way back on Sunday, we hung out in Taipei for a while. From what I saw, it's a nice little big city with the easiest transit system I have ever navigated. It reminded me of Japan with everything so nice and new looking, but it is so much more simple than Tokyo's craziness. I tried teaching Ray what "showing someone the ropes" meant after I had to show him the way two or three times. The saying wasn't understood, but we got a good laugh after I called him a country boy!

I finally started class on Monday! The future looks like fun on the weekends with lots of studying in between. 再見

Since I got my internet connected in my room today, I think I'll celebrate by saying a few things and posting some pictures! 

This is my dorm. Just to the right of me is the cafeteria where after one time there they already know I am a vegetarian and they enjoy inventing dishes for me, since most things have meat in them.

Some Campus shots:

The very cool forest on campus, it's quite spooky at night

This picture can hardly capture it, but this road stretches very far down a hill and has huge, beautiful trees lining it the whole way down

This is the university's famous Luce Memorial Chapel

I was supposed to play tennis on Friday night with Ginna, a friend of mine who was an exchange student last year at NCC and is back at Tunghai now, but the early typhoon winds didn't allow it. So before I was back in bed for the night, the guys in the room next to me invited me to come hang out and drink Taiwan beer! The Taiwanese are quite proud of their home brew, and I'm pretty sure it'll be my drink of choice while I'm here. Not quite as cheap as the Chinese Tsingtao in Beijing ($0.25?) but tastes pretty good :)

I couldn't believe the weather the US has been getting lately. Ike has been something else. Luckily, Typhoon Sinlaku didn't hit our campus very hard, not to say nothing bad happened.

The storm managed to flip these guys on their backs, but they have since been revived. Also, the window in a door down the hall shattered because of the typhoon

Sorry no pictures of me. (Mitzi!) I'll get to working on that this weekend when I visit some sights.

Corn on the Cob with Chopsticks

As I was sitting on the plane eating an un-ham sandwich with nasty mustard and watching the sex in the city movie, I realized studying abroad is all about compromise. I figure if I can realize it now, the next four months should be just fine.

My latest destination is Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan. The beautiful, tree covered campus stretches far down the side of a hill and includes many cafeterias, coffee shops, a famous chapel, farm, and a 7-11 (10% discount for students) where you can buy milk from our very own cows.

Yesterday was Freshman orientation. There's nothing like walking down a long road lined with booths full of student organizations while students attack you with flyers for their clubs. Besides every person I meet being extremely nice and welcoming, this was an overwhelming experience for my first day here. Looking back a year ago, I was lucky to have a Chinese student in Beijing ask me to practice English with them.

My roommate 'Peter' is nicknamed "Peter Fat" and "Pachinko", and when he told me that his friends say he looks like an animal, he didn't have time to look up the translation before I said raccoon and he gasped in disbelief. He doesn't look that much like a raccoon, just a good guess.

I went past a restaurant last night. It was called Moon River :(

My soup last night had every vegetable imaginable, yes, including corn on the cob.

Now it's Friday afternoon and this weekend is the Moon festival. Most students will go home to be with family while I am here studying Chinese to hopefully get into the classes I want next week. I'm not too sad though, after all, my first typhoon is supposed to arrive in the next day or so. Is it weird that I'm excited?

I was going to walk around today and take pictures, but the weather isn't so nice. Hopefully I'll have some good post typhoon ones.