First Week at Taiwan

at Feng Chia night market

Cool wooden carvings at an old temple... shoot, I forget where exactly

Pretty Fleurs
Sun Moon Lake, where we stayed and toured for two days

• I have been hella busy here in Taiwan -just finished our hectic 5 day TTT (Taiwan Tech Trek, the program I am here through) orientation via tour bus, and had my first day of work today at the hospital
• my Chinese needs some working on, and I am more white-washed than I realize
• probably partied too much and definitely slept too little
  
• not as humid (yet) as I anticipated it would be, but still mosquito bites galore
• met a ton of cool interesting people from around the globe here

I'll write more later... heading to bed now, still catching up on sleep!

Nawlins

Destroyed house in the Lower Ninth Ward, 4 years after the storm.

The levee that broke and flooded the Lower Ninth.

Swampland! Alligator sight-seeing.

Sunset over the Mississippi River.

Good times -a couple daiquiris, board games, good friends, the park by the Miss River.

Music, jazz, and dancing everywhere! I loved it.

Went to New Orleans with UC Berkeley's student-led group, the Magnolia Project, for two and a half weeks to do service work and learn about the town -social injustices, the real Katrina story, and the recovery process since. It was an amazing experience -learned a lot and saw many parallels between the Lower 9th Ward and Oakland here in California. Met a ton of great people as well! both from Cal and NOLA. I wish I had gone over and done this sooner, but am glad I got to fit it in -a nice way to end my undergraduate career. New Orleans is such an amazing city with so much culture and tradition –definitely underrated, at least over here on the West Coast. I can't lie though, it's nice to be back home, even if it's just for a quick few days before I pack and head off again. =)