End of 1st week of classes; MOCA; Sichuan restaurant; Earthquake aftermath; Cunningham/Bjork MV

I got a 95 on my first test!! I was so happy and relieved to see that since I was seriously debating whether to drop to an easier class. I guess all the studying paid off...plus I'm starting to recognize traditional characters more and more every day.

For lunch I went to the guo tie (pot stickers) place. I had hot and sour soup (suan la tang) and 15 pot stickers. Then I went to MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) with my biao ge and biao jie (cousins).

MOCA was really cool. I even got electrocuted playing Pong!! No joke. I'm too tired to explain now. I also learned about the "Google will eat itself" program. It was pretty interesting. Also, I noticed all the computers were ASUS, which I've never heard of before. Apparently, it's another prominent computer brand in Taiwan. Yun Han said that Acer is more well known outside of Taiwan, but they are both good Taiwanese computer brands. (Now I know of several Taiwanese brands...Acer, Asus, Kolin, Sanyo, Sampo...).


Yun Han in front of MOCA


cousins-Ben Chang (left), Ouyang Yun Han (right)

candid photo of Yun Han drinking mu gua niu nai (papaya w/ milk drink).

I like taking candid photos.



MOCA cafe photos
Entrance ticket.
(I know I'm a dork but I thought it was cool...and I can't sleep...so I'm editing my most recent blog entry).

The family in front of MOCA.

Ben said that Yun Han should take me to the Fine Arts Museum and the National Palace Museum as well. (He's moving to Shanghai on Monday night or Tuesday to work at a French-owned consulting company).

Then I went over to my aunt's place where her son showed me how to use his electronic dictionary which he is lending me for 2 days. I'm thinking of buying one myself.

Then for dinner my shu shu (uncle) drove us all to this famous Sichuan restaurant. I don't really take pictures of food anymore bc it's a little embarrassing but I had to take a picture of this. This dish is not on the menu but he knows the owner really well so he got it for me. It's called la zi feng ji.


And yes it was spicy, but it's Sichuan cuisine so that was expected.

There's whole cloves of garlic in there along w/ spices, red peppers, hua jiao, green onions, and chicken.

I might be going to Yang Ming Shan tomorrow for hot springs....I thought it was too hot to do that but Maru said they go in the summer in Japan as well. Also, we are meeting up w/ Nico at night at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall where there's a free Wang Leehom (Wang Li Hong) concert. She's arriving at 2 PM, even though the concert doesn't start until 6:30 PM! She's a huge fan. (Speaking of Nico...today i mentioned that i wanted to visit Seoul and she said that she doesn't want to visit Korea bc Koreans don't like Japanese ppl...but I said that some Korean ppl don't dislike Japanese ppl...and Maru said so too).

So I asked Yun Han about the earthquake (my aunt called me this morning about it)....and she said it was the 3rd largest earthquake in Taipei's history! It wasn't that bad bc it was far away in northern Taiwan (Hualien). The first tremor was 6.6 while the 2nd one was only 5.7 or something like that.

I saw this video at MOCA. It's by Chris Cunningham and the music is by Bjork.