Haruhi Figure

by Sander Tams 12. November 2009 19:41

Today nothing much happened. After school I just went to the Taipei Metro Mall again to look at figures. I ended up buying Haruhi below.

 DSC04321

For the time being I am mainly just trying to learn mandarin as much as I can and helping out here and there. For an example I've been helping with my host brother Alex' preparations for his interview with rotary this weekend. He's going to be an exchange student next year and he'll have to make a good expression if he wants a better chance to get to Europe, since that's more popular amongst the exchangees from down here.

Today I ate sashimi and homemade crab (so watched a couple of those getting a chopstick poked through their head even).

Yesterday and the day before, I ate in Tianmu though, so if you want to see some of what has happened recently, go check out my photostream on the soon-to-be-portal site. (Click the picture below and click previous untill you get bored.

 DSC04318

Also today, I went to another class at my school to speak English with them for two hours. I guess I was kind of an instrument in testing them also but anyway, the guys asked me to go and play basketball with them this Sunday. I guess can do if I didn't forget some super important meeting there.

Nite guys, it's been so late when I get to bed every day in this week. I'm looking forward to the weekend.

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Dagligdag | Anime | Travel | Taiwan

Second first day in school

by Sander Tams 1. September 2009 15:36

Cool title huh?

Today, I started my mandarin class in the Mandarin Daily News Language Center. I'm going to go there every day between 10 am and 12 am = I only have to go to school in KaiNan Highschool between 1 pm and 4 pm, which is to live with. This is for september so far. at the end of september, I have hopefully learned bopomofo and a bit more mandarin, and by then I will have to find out what I'd like to do about my mandarin lessons for october. But that depends very much of how much I have learned by then.

When I finished my mandarin class today, I went to KaiNan Highschool and could suddenly distinguish male from female amongst my classmates, for people were wearing the standard uniform today, which means there is a difference in how the two genders are dressed. (Although, the school has a policy about hairstyle too, so I could actually just look at peoples hair yesterday to determine their gender.)

But you see, taiwanese teenagers look extremely young compared to their age, and even though most of my classmates are already 17 years old, they look like they just went into puberty a few months ago. I heard they should behave pretty much like they look too, but of course I can't confirm that yet. I do, after all, not understand a word of what they're saying anyway. They seem like very nice persons though, although it can be a little hard with all the attention most of them seem to have a very strong urge for when around me.

 

Today, I took no pictures, so I'll just post one that Joni took of me, while I visited Longshan Temple and still had a beard. 

 
 
I know you all probably want some pictures of the school but I haven't yet got the right occasion to take them. I can tell that it's a very bright place though and the uniforms looks acceptable, not just the ones for the girls, haha.
 
 
 
Update: Just a little more than an hour after I posted the blog, it started raining for the first time since I got here. It actually rained pretty heavy, but now, 11 pm it stopped again. 

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Dagligdag | Travel | Taiwan

Day 8

by Sander Tams 28. August 2009 16:02
Today we left the car at home and took the bus and MRT to the mandarin learning center in Taipei.
There, we bought two books for mandarin exercise, so that I have something to do when I am going to waste 8 hours, 5 days a week by attending to classes in a language I don't understand yet on my Taiwanese high school. We were also there to get some information about the mandarin (chinese) classes that I am going to take there, (in the mandarin learning center,) sometime soon I hope.
 
 
 MRT station view
This is the view from the MRT train station, which is build on top of a big bridge crossing over the streets below. These big MRT-bridges can be seen a lot around some parts of Taipei, but not everywhere because the rails go underground too, especially around central Taipei. (If you didn't know already, the MRT is a network of Japanese trains in Taipei.
 
 Tea in a 7eleven store
In Taiwan, people drink tea, lots of tea, so in every store, you don't see rows upon rows of sweet soft drinks. No. You see tea of any and every kind, and it's all cold and rarely with sugar added to. And relatively cheap too. This was kindof weird to me in the beginning: Icetea with no sugar in, but I am getting used to it. It's actually a pretty good concept.
 
In the bookstore inside the learning center, we met a mandarin teacher who told us about another bookstore selling learning material they didn't have in the one we were in, so we bought two books for practice in the chinese signs pronunciation, meaning and strokes for writing them, then went to the other store to find out they had the same books with a 10% discount. So we bought another two books there, went on a long walk with all those heavy books, then got to David's house again and hung out with the family as usual. That chinese styled apartment is the place to be mayn.

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Dagligdag | Travel | Taiwan

All your base is belong to Joni

by Sander Tams 25. August 2009 17:30

I just need to make her less afraid of cats and the prophecy will fulfill, so you better get your Zig's ready for launch so they can know what they're doing for great justice.

  

I really just spent some time at the hospital, waiting for all the future rotary exchange students in the family to get their medical reports done - the ones you need to turn in with the application for a long-term exchange. Haha. I hope I can be a good inspiration for them to think about going to Denmark.

However, today I ate some really 很好吃 (hen hao chi). It was beef noodle with handmade noodles, and if you ever go to Taiwan you should really try very hard to find a place where you can get that because it is ge-ge-good-eh.

Other than that I can just say:

No more stories today, they washed away and I am tired. Have to get up early tomoz. Nite! 

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Dagligdag | Travel | Taiwan

Taiwan o.O

by Sander Tams 20. February 2009 18:56

Det er lang tid siden, jeg sidst skrev. Æv. Og undskyld.
Men nu skriver jeg endelig igen, juhu! :)

Japan blev det sku ikke. Men Taiwan er sjovt nok endnu mindre eftertragtet end Japan, når mine jævnaldrene skal vælge udvekslingrejsens destination. Taiwan er ellers ikke så forfærdelig forskellig fra Japan, ser det ud til. Og så skal jeg så lære Mandarin frem for Japansk. Øv for det, for Japansk lyder jo så pænt, men så kan jeg til gengæld tale verdens mest talte sprog: Kinesisk. Og dog, oh og dog. Kinesisk spænder jo over flere sprog, og dem der snakker kinesisk i nord- eller østkina, skal sku ikke regne med at kunne forstå dem, der snakker kinesisk i hong kong (syd).

Nuvel. Mandarin er vist den "dialekt" af kinesisk, der er mest udbredt, og om ikke andet - så minder det vel mere om japansk end kantonesisk.

Taiwan bliver det så. Og det bliver stadigvæk spændene at være udvekslingsstudent. Specielt, hvis jeg får lov at bo i Taipei, så jeg krydser fingre.
Jeg var ellers lige ved at springe fra, da jeg egentlig følte, at alt andet end Japan sku var lidt for kedeligt alligevel. De er jo så ens rundt omkring i resten af verden, men da ikke i Taiwan, fandt jeg lige ud af. De er f.eks. ligeså multi-religiøse som Japanerne, så det er sku også tosset, at Taiwan ikke kom på som anden-prioritet i min liste over lande-ønsker. Snæversynede mig.

Og så til spillene!
Techgame fortsætter status quo. Jeg kan simpelthen ikke forestille mig, at det skulle kunne køre på en server, som opfører sig så utilregneligt (og i øvrigt - skide langsomt, se eks bare på denne blogs indlæsningtid). Tak til Surftown. Og tak til min dovenskab.

Archons er stadig i idé-fase. Det ser ud til at have potentiale, men kommer sku til at tage nogen tid at lave alligevel, så jeg venter lige lidt.

Til gengæld er New Mario Land blevet skudt afsted i beta, og selvom det også har sine problemer med serverens pludselige afbrydelser af applikationen til ellers flittigt besøgte hjemmesider, så kan det vist lige gå. Datamaskineriet er pissesmart, og det tager aldrig lang tid, at gemme en bruger eller flere. Opstarten er endnu bedre - den kan simpelthen klare sig uden reel indlæsning (foruden minimale procedurer, som da også kan mærkes, når serveren er rigtig langsom - Æv altså). Men lige nu, da kører den skam hurtigere end denne blog, og jeg tør stole på, at den først vil blive mere sløv, når der er rigtig mange brugere, der bruger den samtidigt.

Der er stadigvæk masser af fejl, og så heller ikke forfærdeligt meget indhold, men New Mario Land er i åben beta nu - selvfølgelig kun rigtig åben for de få, som kan finde et link til den.
Men det kommer her, til dem som tør prøve. Og husk nu at melde de fejl i finder til mig, for evt. fordele fået igennem exploits vil med sikkerhed blive ordnet temmeligt hurtigt alligevel:

New Mario Land

Have fun.

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New MarioLand | Travel

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About Me

My name is Sander Tams.
I am an exchange student from Denmark in Taipei, Taiwan.
I'm mainly focusing this blog on how it is to try and live a life as the locals here as a foreigner, commenting on the differences in culture and whatever I find amusing or interesting.
Have fun with the info about my life here. 

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