你想要照片嗎？我給你照片吧。(You Want Pictures? I'll Give You Pictures!)

I found my chord. And here are some results with notes:

A couple of days ago, I went for a walk with one of my classmates late at night. Our way led us around our district, and I saw some interesting things. This was of most interest to my lens:

Something's a bit off with the aperture, I think, but I liked the composition. The light was just amazing; you should've been there.

Anyhow, I forgot to mention a couple of events in my last post until I got the pictures in front of my face. So here are some from our visit to a hookah bar a few blocks from our house. Actually, they served really good kabab, and gyros meat, as well, and some nice Asian beer.

One nice thing about living in such a happening district is that there are good restaurants, night markets, and goings-on all the time. Even on weeknights, you can wade through droves of people to get some 小吃 (xiàochī) or little eats. And cheap too: I usually eat well for about $100NT (or about $3.30 USD) or less.

Another great thing about living here is that there is a wonderful subway system. Did I mention that it was one of the most, if not the most expensive subways to build, yet it's the one of the cheapest to use? Yeah. And it's super clean, super fast, and super... super. Even a bunch of students who don't speak Chinese can figure it out!

Speaking of, as I mentioned in my last post, we had a heck of a time in Ximending (西門町, for those interested) getting some crazy additions to our wardrobes. Here are some images to help with your visualization:
This guy thought it was great that we were wearing all this crap, and wanted a picture. Even among the crazy 'tweeners, we were quite a hit.

I think the glasses are my favorite. I might get some actual lenses in them sometime. The pants were a bit tight, but appropriate in a British/American boys-who-wear-girl-pants-indie kind of way.
But no one could top this kid's outfit. This is what I mean when I say Jap-pop meets Nascar.

I also forgot to mention that we went to the Dragon Boat races on Friday in preps for the Dragon Boat Festival's big race on Sunday. Or perhaps I didn't forget, but forgot that I had remembered. Anywho, this is the NTNU Mandarin Training Center's (where I'm studying) dragon-boat team. They crushed their competition, but it was only the first heat in a tournament. 

And last, but not least, the barbecued squid. This stuff was so delicious. So fresh you can almost hear the little cephalopod screaming. It's sacrifice was not in vein, though. It nourished me for quite some time. Thanks dude/dudette!

The Dragon Boat race was a wonderful time to get portraits of my friends, too. I posted quite a few of those pics on FaceBook, and even put them in the FaceBook group for our trip. I just don't feel comfortable putting them here for some reason. 

One last update: I feel really good about my class now. I got to being social, instead of being a tortoise hiding in my Shell of Dauntedness, and found that the other students in my class were pretty lost as well. But today, I came to class with a new set of ears, and am able to understand a lot more than I had originally thought. Plus we now have a Nicaraguan and a guy from Poland in my class, new students. I'm pretty excited about all that. I think we'll have some good times together. And I performed well, too, on my quiz--as we all know, our value in life comes from our academic performance... ;-)

That's it for me. Any thoughts?