Ode to Megan II

I love Megan. Megan loves my blog. The following is a collection of pictures of her expressing her true feelings for Taiwan:

megan loves rice

"you're going to do what?!"


after she "assumed the position"


megan loves clinicals

sorority squattin'
"i could really use a beer right now"
this is not an unflattering picture of me, please direct your attention to the bottom left corner

Team Grab-a-Heiny: The Lost Post

So I've been home for a few days now and everyone I talk to asks me, "Gabi, what was your favorite part of the trip?" I pause, think about it, cackle a little bit, and tell them "when we went bike riding". Yes, this was mentioned in a previous post ( http://gnaumann.blogspot.com/2010/05/i-always-knew-never-learning-how-to.html) but I must confess, I did not give the entire story.

the epic tale of how team grab a heiny came to be

After a busy day of museum touring, pottery making, and shopping, we boarded our tour bus and I settled in for a nap until we got to our next destination--the fish market. I probably napped on and off but all of a sudden we just stopped. To our right was this little shack and outside various bikes of all shapes and sizes were lined up. My heart drops, my hands get clammy, and my heart rate spikes. It's one thing to tell everyone that I never learned how to ride a bike and laugh about it, but actually having to face the fact that I don't know how to ride a bike and everyone else does and possibly be left out of/screw up an activity is no bueno. As soon as I see the two-person bike, I grab Gina and make her promise to do it with me. She obliges (duh). Crisis averted. Sadly, Ali and Heidi grab the only two-seater, so Megan, Hannah, Gina, and I nab a four-seater. First thing we do is take off in the absolute wrong direction. After we get turned around, we pedal like the wind. Sadly no matter how hard we go, we inch forward at a snails pace. We found out later that we got a defective bike. uhhh sweet. We huff and puff our way up a hill with crazy drivers whizzing by us (or stopping to take pictures), through masses of people crossing the road (more pictures), and through a sand storm by the beach. We finally reach a flat spot and are instantly hit with the smell of decomposing sewage-hey stinky tofu. We weave our way between the stands besides the road, and Megan exclaims, "I could really use a beer right now". We all agree. Two minutes later we drive by this little restaurant and I tell our group that I bet they have beer. We stop dead in our tracks and debate about a-whether they have beer, and b-who should go look. Gina and I decide to go check and lo-and-behold they do! We buy a bottle of heineken, nab some little shot glass sized cups, and return to our bike. We decide that one beer isn't enough for this terror of a trip so we trot back down to buy another. Taiwan beer is cheaper so bought that and returned to our gimpy bike.

We ditch the cups and decide to pass the bottles around while we bike. BUI? The next hour or so was spend pedaling furiously, screaming beep beep to everyone in our way, and Ni Hao to all the asians that were probably thinking to themselves "sirry 'mericans ruv arcohor". We look at the clock and decide that since we're going so slow we should probably turn around and head back, so we do. There is the slight problem of rolling around on a four person bike with multiple HUGE beer bottles, so when we pass the restaurant we make Hannah go throw them out. Hannah was chosen for this project because she was the only one that objected to littering. While she's trying to throw out our bottles, the non-english speaking owner literally forces another bottle of beer on her. We were going to save it for later buuuuut we got thirsty. We pass a little girl on roller skates who falls down like 5 minutes later. Being the good athletic trainer that she is, Megan hopped erm..stumbled...off the bike, helped her get her skates back on, and got back on our bike. Later the little girl zoomed past us, further emphasizing how crappy our bike was. We got back to the bike place around the same time everyone else did, group hugged, and the rest is history...

There's No Place Like Home

I'm finally back on American Soil and it's fabulous. We stayed up most of the night before we had to leave (fell asleep at 3, woke up at 5). We ate tons of junk food, watched countless youtube videos, and even had a country music sing a long (wagon wheel, dixieland delight, and chicken fried were all included). When Megan woke me up in the morning, I popped out of bed feeling much like I would expect a kid on christmas morning would feel. We were greeted with a bunch of NTSU students, cameras, and bakery boxes. Hooray cake for breakfast for the last time! We got to the airport, said goodbye to everyone (including Gina who was going to China), went through security, and plopped down to wait for the flight to Tokyo. Here is team grab-a-heiny minus Gina looked quite pleased to be getting off the island.

The flights were pretty uneventful. Slept the 4 hour flight to Tokyo...got off and sat around...boarded the flight to Atlanta where I watched a lot of movies (aka the first 4 minutes of movies) and passed out for probably 10 of the 12 hours of the flight. We got in early, went through Atlanta's completely idiotic security, and jumped into my parents' arms! I did have a weird exchange with a passport control official, dubois, who I'm guessing had a strong hate for Taiwan.

me *big smile* hi, how are you
dubois grunt i knew it was bad news when he didn't smile back. What were you doing in Taiwan
mestudy abroad
dubois What did you learn? That taiwan is a dirt hole?
meummm not quite. we learned traditional chinese medicine
duboisoh, so like using pig's gallbladders and harvesting organs?
excuse me, what?
me more like accupuncture and massage techniques
dubois grunts and stamps passport

ohh dubois, what a stand up man.

Anyhow got home, ate some pretzels, gave my parents their presents, took a nap, ate homemade pizza, reveled in the fact that we can use forks and knives and not chopsticks, took a bath, and am just happy to be home.

I guess now that I'm home and no longer Taiwandering this will be the last blog....or will it?

Ode to Megan

Today was probably Megan's favorite day today. Why you ask? well for one thing, it's the last day; she's had a countdown going for the past week or so. Also, I think this is the most she's eaten in a single day since we've gotten here. After our practical, we went to lunch at a hibachi place. I thought Megan was going to fall over and die when she saw that filet mignion was on the menu. She got it, ate it all, and then had a huge bowl of ice cream. The last time I saw her smile so much was when I saw her downtown on her birthday. I had the kobe beef and shrimp which was amazing...and a huge bowl of ice cream. This made me happy because I woke up this morning and wanted ice cream (the diet starts when I get home, shut up).

We took our group picture and then went to clinical where Megan let me tape her ankle like 37 times so I wouldn't feel like an athletic training failure, and then we dipped out and got ready for dinner.

The NTSU students took us out to a korean BBQ place which was good, it was kind of like a hot pot, but with an island sticking out of it to cook the meat. After biting into half cooked chicken I decided to just eat raw broccoli....and more ice cream.

Since today is our last day, we've decided to to stay up all night so we can sleep on the plane(obviously my bottle of ambien is not going to help me). In order to stay up all night as well as get rid of our last taiwanese money, we stopped by the 7-11 and loaded up on chips, candy, and soda. I've decided that if I'm going to lose weight when I get home, I might as well load up on crap now.
Soooo here we are: one bag of chips, one pack of m&ms, and one coke zero down. We've already showered and watched about 10 SNL skits. What to do now...play cards? bah this sucks. I think I'm going to make Megan do Origin Point therapy on me.

Ban Dan

So as everyone knows, I did not go out last night. Gina however had a great time experiencing Taiwan night life. She woke me up last night when she came back so in return, she is guest blogging about her fabulous night:

So... since Gabi is forcing (liteally- she threatened our friendship if i didnt blog) me to guest blog, i will give you a quick synopsis of the taiwanese night clubs. 1) it was called deep passion.. interesting name 2) it was very dark inside, some black lighting going on, lounge type seating, pretty snazzyish 3) it was super cheap.. it was ladies night so girls got in free but for the "boys" and i say boys because most of the girl NTSU students that we were with were charged a cover charge because they refused to dress up (remember our game of boygirl? yep). The cover charge was 100NT which is about 3 USD and included an unlimited amount of drinks for the night. 4) Overall, it was really fun getting to hang out with the NTSU students... we introduced them to tequila.. which became their drink of choice for the night! 5) Finally... Asians can't dance.. including this one.


needless to say, Gina was hilarious this morning when I woke her up for our practical. The room literally reeked of alcohol and she was sleeping at the wrong side of the bed. AND for your viewing pleasure, the following are some pictures of this cute throughout the day:

after we threw candy wrappers in her mouth

crashed out on the bus

sleeping at the lunch table--her father would be so disappointed

i love you gina!!!! best roommate EVER

The reason I'm going on a juice fast..

http://eatdrinkskinny.blogspot.com/2010/06/reason-why-ive-gained-50-pounds-ok-not.html

so long, farewell

we had the farewell party tonight and parts of it were actually really fun and kind of touching! When had a buffet style dinner with beef, chicken, rice, and a few dumplings which I wasn't crazy about, and then a bunch of desserts and fruits. They must have know I had a major sweet tooth today! While we were eating, they presented us with certificates of completion for the program, our teachers made some speeches, and we played some goofy games. It was then time for our tai chi dance. Surprisingly I didn't drop the fan or really mess up (neither did Megan! yay!) but Hannah had a premature fan opening which made team awesome laugh hysterically for the rest of the dance.
Then came the "talent show". One group did charades which was kind of funny...one group did camp songs-dumb...and then team awesome + candice taught everyone "traditional american dances" such as YMCA, the chicken dance, and the macarena. We were clearly the best. The crowd loved us. We then watched a slide show which was basically the Gabi and Gina show since all the pictures were taken from our cameras and then our buddies presented us with gifts and we all had to make mini speeches. we all pretty much said the same thing: "we love ya'll..come visit athens...i had so much fun....yayyyy taiwan". A lot of people were crying, believe it or not I was not one of them, but I was touched by the sentiments just the same.
Yes, I'm ready to leave, but I really did have a great time. Everyone is so nice and gracious-something that we definitely don't see in the states, I've learned so much, and I've made amazing friends (team grab-a-heiny forever!!)
I just finished up packing most of my stuff and Megan and I are going over stuff for our practical tomorrow. All is quiet in Pu Yuan since everyone else has gone out to a night club with some of the students. I'll give everyone a second to recover from the shock that I did not participate in the shenanigans of tonight. I'm just tired and ready for bed. One more full day tomorrow and then I'm homeward bound :)

"just stick me"

So I completely slept through my alarm today and definitely didn't have enough time to study--oops! After eating breakfast (an omelet like egg wrapped in a "pancake") we walked over to Chang Gung University where we had a lesson on massage and acupuncture.
We learned the accupoints for all kinds of symptoms and our professor encouraged us to share the point for sexual performance with our parents and grandparents. VOMIT. Anyhow we practiced finding accupoints for a while and then our professor demonstrated acupuncture on us. Now after our last three lesson on chi, I find the whole concept pretty hokey, but I am a firm believer in acupuncture. He did a point in my wrist that corresponded to my shin and a point in my leg corresponding to my shoulder.


When he put the needle into the accupoint I literally felt a whole zing go down my hand and foot (respectively) AND the pain went away! After that, we went to lunch and had way too much food as usual, came back and took our exam, and then played games with the NTSU students.
Currently we're getting ready for the farewell party, tai chi performance (gag me), talent show (even better) and then the students are taking us to a club I think. This has the making for a very interesting night...

almost done!

so i'm nearing the end and the last days are going to be pretty unblogworthy, yesterday included. Last night was our last tai chi lesson which was as amazing as ever, and today we have our final exam, a softball game (cross your fingers for rain), and a farewell party. I was supposed to get up an hour ago to study, but never heard my alarm...Oops!