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Hohoho.. I'm back from Taiwan! :D It was great, and I took like 200 something pictures, I'm not gonna post them all up and fry your internet speed, instead I selectively uploaded some and organized them in different pages for your viewing pleasure. :D

Taiwan was warmer than here, around 50~60s the whole time, so I was just wore a long sleeve shirt or sometime a light jacket.. though everyone else seems to think it was crazy cold and wore like 3 layers and a big coat. I didn't get to see all of my friend at Taiwan since unfortunately(DANG IT) their winter break starts around... oh.. NOW.. -_-;; therefore they were all in the middle of the midterms while I was there. I did see some people tho, and I had much fun with them.. interesting to see how they changed now. Everything is so cheap in Taiwan(anything outside of the big mall that is), I realized I tend to convert everything into american dollars now as compare to before when I convert american dollar into Taiwanese dollar.. It made everything so much happier, haha. I didn't get to buy clothes since I didn't have room for them(so sad).. but I did bought a lot of cute pen and pencils. =)

Foood, haha, that was a BIG part of my Taiwan trip, as you'll notice in my photos. I ATE and ATE and ATE and ATE like there's no tomorrow, but I still failed to eat everything I planned to eat. 2 weeks is just too short for everything, it's like trying to ride everything in disneyworld in one day. +_+;; It was still wonderful, I ate till my stomach went bad for a couple days, and I ate through that also. haha Everything looks so nice and good+ there, like the cakes, as my xanga background shows. The cake here in U.S. are good but it always looks.. okay, but the cakes there looked "untouchable", I felt my heart cracking as I devour them, they're so pretty (and good). T_T

I'm a giant, I never realized that until I went to Taiwan. Haha it was kinda funny, I could see to the end of the street in the middle of a huge crowd. Everyone is so.. miniaturized, well, most of them. My mom's friends were shock to see me and this is how they rationalized it: 

"Ah, kids always grow tall when they go to the U.S., it must be the water there~"

Haha so now we have some sort of magical height growing water, maybe we should import some to Taiwan, good money. :D Ya drink more water now, whoever that wants to grow tall, not just any water tho, AMERICAN water. :P hehe

Enough blabbing, here be pictures:

[Stolen from Si-jia-the-greatness]

Many of you have wondered what is like to be Asian. Well, let me tell you life is more than being born being good at math or eating mysterious food all the time...

How to be the Perfect Asian American Parent (from the second generation perspective)
1. Be a little more lenient on the 7:00 p.m. curfew.
2. Don't ask where the other point went when your child comes home with 99 percent grade on his/her report card.
3. Don't "ai-yah" loudly at your kid's dress habits.
4. Don't blatantly hint about the merits of Habadu(Harvard),Yeil (Yale), or Purinsuton (Princeton).
5. Don't reveal all the intimate details of your kid's life to the entire Asian community.
6. Don't ask your child, "What are you going to do with your life?" if he/she majors in a non-science field.
7. Don't give your son a bowl haircut or your daughter two acres of bangs.
8. Don't try to set your kid up on a date in anticipation of their poor taste or inept social skills.
9. Incorporate other phrases besides, "Did you study yet?" into your daily conversations with your children.
10. Don't ask all your kid's friends over the age of 21 if they have a boy/girlfriend yet.

How to be the perfect Asian kid (from the first generation perspective)
1. Score a perfect 1600 on the SAT.
2. Play the violin or piano on the level of a concert performer.
3. Apply to and be accepted by 27 colleges.
4. Go to a prestigious Ivy League university and win enough scholarship money to pay for it.
5. Have four hobbies: studying, studying, violin/piano, and studying.
6. Love classical music and detest talking on the telephone.
7. Become a Westinghouse, Presidential and eventually a Rhodes Scholar.
8. Aspire to be a brain surgeon.
9. Marry an Asian-American doctor and have perfect, successful children (grandkids for ah-ma and ah-ba!).
10. Love to hear stories about your parents'childhood...especially the one about walking 20 miles to school without shoes.

You know you're Japanese if...
1. You're obsessed with you hair, your car, and your clothes
2. You want to marry a Korean-American or Chinese-American woman(males); or you want to marry a white guy (females).
3. You're afraid of black people.
4. You know you are superior to all other Asians.

You know you're Vietnamese if...
1. You've gotta have fish sauce with every meal.
2. You eat at a restaurant that has "Pho."
3. You have some relative who is Chinese
4. You're afraid of black people.
5. You know you are superior to all other Asians.

You know you're Chinese if...
1. You think you're the smartest people in the world.
2. You have a pager and cellular phone with you at all times.
3. Today's steamed rice is tomorrow's fried rice.
4. You're afraid of black people.
5. You know you are superior to all other Asians.

Top Ten Reasons there won't be a Chinese president anytime soon...
10. White House not big enough for in-laws
9. Engineering, medicine, and law always preferred over politics
8. Oval Office has bad feng shui (literally means 'windwater')
7. Can't find decent roast duck inside the beltway
6. Secret service can't handle nagging from mother
5. Dignitaries generally intimidated by chopsticks at state dinners
4. No chance for promotion
3. Lactose intolerance not considered politically correct
2. Senior aides won't take off shoes before coming in
1. Air Force One: No frequent flyer miles

You know you're Asian if...
1. your mother has a short-haired, curly perm
2. your dad is some sort of engineer
3. your parents still tried to get you into places half-price saying you were 12 when you were really 15
4. you ask your parents help on one math problem and 2 hours later they're still lecturing
5. you have a 40 lb. bag of rice in your pantry
6. you shop 99 Ranch
7. everyone thinks you're "Chinese" no matter what part of Asia your ancestors were from
8. you've had a bowl haircut at one point in your life
9. your parents enjoy comparing you to their friends' kids.
10. you've had to sit through karaoke videos with scantily clad, ugly Asian women attempting to dance and walk around a temple, forest or library.
11.  your parents say, "Don't forget your heritage."
12.  you drive mostly Japanese cars. 
13. you've learned to keep bargaining even if the prices are rock bottom. 
14. you've eaten (and possibly enjoy) parts of animals they don't even put in hot dogs. 
15. at least once, you've started a joke with "Confucius say . . ." 
16. you know what bok choy is 
17. you've ever gotten little red envelopes around February. 
18. piles of shoes tend to make it hard to open the front, back and closet doors. 
19. you hear (your name + eee (optional) + yah!) every time someone calls you. (e.g., Jean- ee - yah! or Mary - yah!). 
20. you have NO eyelashes. 
21. idiot people try to impress you with pathetic imitation Asian languages, like the ever-so-popular: ching chong woo bok chi, etc. . .
22. your parents say leaving rice in your bowl is a sin. 
23. the Bio lectures on marine life (seaweed, sea cucumbers, octopii) was last night's dinner
24. your ancestors 1000 generations back invented the back scratcher. 
25. at least one family member wears black wire/plastic frame glasses 
26. your parents hover over your tired, caffeine-drugged body at 12 midnight to say, "In Korea (or other native country), we studied even more." 
27. your parents expect you'll be best friends with any one off the street in any given area as long as they are Asian 
28. any random Asian woman comes on campus and people ask: "Is that your mother? Well then, is it your sister?" 
29. your relatives' houses smell like incense, mothballs or both
30. your parents say, "Calculus? I took calculus in 8th grade!!" 
31. everyone thinks you're good at math. 
32. your parents' vocabulary is filled with "Ai-yahs and Wah's" 
33. you like $1.75 movies
34. you like $1.50 movies even more 
35. your aunts and uncles bring you back adorable clothing from Asia with fuzzy bunnies, vinyl ducks and English words that make no sense, in great colors like yellow, pink, magenta, orange and the ever popular lime green. 
36. your parents insist you marry within your race. 
37. you never order chop suey, sweet and sour pork, or any other imitation oriental food. 
38. you either really, really want to go to UCI or really, really want to stay away from it. 
39. your parents have never kissed you 
40. your parents have never kissed each other in public 
41. you learned about the birds and the bees from someone other than your parents 
42. "You want a stereo!?" When I was your age, I didn't even have shoes!!" 
43. people see a bunch of scribbles on a chopstick and ask you to translate 
44. You have to call all of your parents' friends "Auntie" or "Uncle." 
45. you have 12+ aunts and uncles 
46. at expensive restaurants, you order a delicious glass of water for your beverage