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Book: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

Posted on October 31st, 2006 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Books.

Title: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Author: Helen Fielding
Date Read: October-ish
Anna’s Rating: 4/5 (Most Enjoyable and Worthwhile)

Summary: (In Bridget style): Vg. follow up to first book.

I found the second Bridget Jones book just as enjoyable as the first - she’s just as crazy, confused, obsessive, and hilarious as she is in the first book, Bridget Jones’s Diary.  Made me ponder whether or not I should start keeping a similar diary on this beloved blog…but perhaps that would be TMI to air on the ‘net, no?

This book also inspired me to give the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice another go after all of Bridget & Co.’s obsessing about Mr. Darcy during the book.  While I couldn’t get into it a couple years ago when Beth subjected me to it, I have to say that I greatly enjoyed it this time around…but that’s hardly related to this book review, is it?  I think it was around this time that I started developing a mild Colin Firth/Mark Darcy/Mr. Darcy obsession.

See?  I could write a Bridget-style diary - I can do the direct brain-to-document transfer (yay me.)  But the thing that concerns me is that, with the amount and frequency of her diary entries, you could do NOTHING else with your life.  It seems her entire existence is devoted to filling said book of insanity.  I don’t think I have the time to write down all my meaningless thoughts for the express purpose of public embarrassment.  Well, it’s not a perfect world, is it?

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Book: Bridget Jones’s Diary

Posted on October 31st, 2006 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Books.

Title: Bridget Jone’s Diary
Author: Helen Fielding
Date Read: October-ish
Anna’s Rating: 5/5 (Life Altering)

Summary: Bible for the young, single, modern woman.

Around the same time two friends who have never met both recommended Bridget Jones to me to fill the need for comedy and romance in my life (mostly, Tarzan heads this department, I admit.)  A third friend told me Bridget Jones is her hero - couldn’t be all bad, right?

Bridget Jones is awesome.  She has every problem that every other woman has, and her diary is a direct, unfiltered, brain to paper expression of every meaningless though that each of us has regarding work, friends, and relationships.  Her obsessive-compulsive behaviors are hilarious, and she hits on many points that bug each and every reader.  (Like why, when one diets, does she continue to gain weight, but when one splurges on excessively fattening food, does one sometimes miraculously lose weight?  If you step on a scale every day, you will notice this oddity of life.)

I admire Bridget in most every aspect - I’ll pass on the chain smoking and alcoholism.  But if I become insane and land myself a nice flat in major city and have a few good friends (in the very same said city,) that wouldn’t be all bad.  Throw in a Colin Firth/Mark Darcy/Mr. Darcy and that would be excellent, but admittedly unlikely, so I’ll not hold my breath.

Highly recommended for city-dwelling, single women between the ages of 20 and 40.

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Taiwan: Road Trip 6/6: The Road Home (Su’ao & Ilan)

Posted on October 30th, 2006 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Taiwan, Travel.

From Chishing Beach we continued north towards Ilan, where we planned to have dinner.  The traffic, however, was not so cooperative and dinner ended up being the beef jerky Matt had packed in the back of the car.

[The East Coast of Taiwan]

Hoping the traffic might lighten up after a while, we made a stop in Su’ao, home to a natural cold spring, which remains at 21*C (70*F) year round.  The truly special thing about these springs, however, is that they are naturally carbonic.  My guess is that this phenomenon has something to do with the type of rocks found there, but I have no idea.  A sign said that the amount of bubbles varies depending on the time of day and the season.

[East Coast + Anna]

I enjoyed sitting in the bubbly water, which tickled, leaving me squirming with laughter in the underground pool.  Eventually, however, we had to get back on the road, which was not much better than it had been when we got off it an hour earlier.  Luckily, Ilan was only 22 kilometers away.  We made the trip in two hours.  (Did I mention the entire country was enjoying a 5-day weekend?)

[Cold spring pool in Su’ao]

After a visit to Ilan’s night market, which is located under a overpass next to the Ilan Train Station, we got back on the road for the final leg of our trip.  It was time to go back to Taipei, download the pictures, and say goodbye for another half year.  If I haven’t managed to scare Matt away, maybe we’ll have another trip one day.  (I lived on the floor of his Shanghai apartment for a while and he’s still friends with me, so he’s obviously pretty tough, but everyone has their limits.) 

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Taiwan: Road Trip: 5/6: Hualien

Posted on October 29th, 2006 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Taiwan, Travel.

After a good soak, it started to get dark and we decided it was time to move on with our trip.  We climbed back up to the car and continued our journey towards the city of Hualien, which turned out to be so packed with tourists that the traffic barely moved, and there weren’t even any illegal parking spots to be had.

Worse than the traffic situation, though, was the housing situation.  I had predicted this.  I had advised Matt to book a hotel, as I didn’t know when or where we would be, but as usual, he ignored my advice.  Luckily, he did listen to one of my suggestions: bring a tent.

The next morning, we crawled out of the our tent, which we pitched in a parking lot after it cleared late the previous night.  We packed up quickly and head out, got some breakfast, and hit the road.

Our first stop was Liyu Lake, where we debated over whether we should go for biking or boating.  Unfortunately, I won, and we went for boating.  I had wanted canoeing, but that’s not what was available.  Instead, we got a swan-shaped paddleboat that, we discovered, went a lot faster backwards than forwards.  We probably drew a few stares as the swan headed across the late backwards in a drunken fashion.

Chishing Beach is famous for the metamorphic rock that covers it.  We sat down and dug through the rocks, where Matt said that you could even find precious stones.  “I don’t usually encourage people to take rocks, though,” he added.  “Ten-thousand tourists come here every year, and each one takes a few rocks.  One day, there will be nothing special left on this beach.”  Though I found a few neat stones, I chose not to take them.

We headed down to the water’s edge.  “Look!” I said, pointed east across the Pacific Ocean.  “There’s my home, just over there.”  (Ah, the beginnings of a running gag.)

We rolled up our pant legs when we headed down to take a few photos, but the ocean waves aren’t as predictable as a Minnesotan might expect.  Translation: we got soaked, and we ran back up shore, clutching our damp camera bags nervously.  It was time to move on.

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Taiwan: Road Trip 4/6: Down into Taroko Gorge

Posted on October 19th, 2006 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Taiwan, Travel.

After climbing Hohuan Mountain, we headed back down the mountain for some lunch (which provoked some local tourists to take my picture as we sat on the ground in a parking lot, dining on instant noodles out of camping pots like a stranded, poverty-stricken foreigner.)

Next, we drove down the other side of the mountain and into Taroko Gorge, which is located on the eastern side of Taiwan.  The roads were no less treacherous than those we faced on the way up, but this time the drop-off along the side of the road was a few thousand feet.  I was slightly perturbed.  Matt laughed and proclaimed that my life was in his hands, so I ought to be nice to him.  I was.

The further down we went, the more tunnels we passed through.  After the second Taishan Tunnel - the very same “Taishan” as Tarzan’s Chinese name! - Matt pulled over in a small parking area, announcing that we had arrived at a natural hot spring.

“I should tell you though, that some people died here this year when some rocks fell on them,” Matt told me.  My reaction was: “Huh.  That sucks.  Let’s get our swimsuits.  Hot springs!”  You see, I’m rather passionate about bathing in natural springs around the world.  So once again, we climbed over a series of fences - three sets this time - warning of death, prohibiting all civilians, and insisting that we turn back immediately.

The pool where the deadly landslide had occurred was empty, but there was still water in a small pool that was covered by a large slab of rock, which we decided meant that we would be safe from landslides.  The foggy water rushed out of a crack in the marble cliff walls at 41*C (106*F) and filled the shallow pool.  Even stretched out, the water didn’t quite cover our bodies.

[I just wanted to put this at the foot of my post…]

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Taiwan: Road Trip 3/6: The Ski Lift

Posted on October 17th, 2006 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Taiwan, Travel.

[Credit on these photos goes to Uncle Matt - amazing pictures.]

On our hike up the mountain, we passed an interesting building (the path to which was also blocked by a sign we decided to ignore, of course - this was a trend for us throughout the trip.)

The dilapidated structure, little more than a pile of bricks and cement, served as the base for the upper end of a ski lift in its day - apparently it actually snows on some mountains in Taiwan and initially assumed the ski lift was for grass skiing, which I have heard is popular here.

While Matt acknowledged that the sorry excuse for a building was probably somewhat dangerous, that didn’t stop us from spending a good deal of time hanging out there, trying to get a few good pictures.

After satisfying our need for photos - note that Matt is worse than I am and is more than willing to risk his well-being for a good shot - we continued our course up the mountain towards the peak.

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Taiwan: Road Trip 2/6: Climbing Hohuan Mountain

Posted on October 15th, 2006 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Taiwan, Travel.

[Myself, half-way up Hohuan Mountain]

After taking the typical Taiwanese mountain road, a narrow, one-way strip of pavement with two-way traffic and flimsy guards that protect cars from the countless drop-offs, we finally arrived near the top of Hohuan Mountain, one of Taiwans famous 100 Mountain - which makes me ask, how many mountains are there on this tiny island???

A choice lay before us.  Route A, filled with local tourists, was a quick and easy hike to a peak.  Route B, which was blocked off by fences equipped with signs warning of danger, was a harder but more rewarding climb to a more prominent peak.  Predictably, we chose Route B.

[Myself, resting on the East Peak]

After trekking through short bamboo and thorned bushes (because someone ignored my advice that we check out what appeared to be a path just a bit higher up, only later to look back and say: “Hey, look, there was a path just a bit higher that we could have taken,) we finally arrived on a path that didn’t randomly disappear in the foliage.

[Matt, with his baby EOS 30.  I tell him he looks like he’s pregnant carrying that thing around] :-P 

The climb was challenging for me, perhaps because I’m out of shape, perhaps because there’s less air above 10,000 feet, perhaps because I have a bad knee, or perhaps because the world hates me.  Nevertheless, I eventually arrived at the 3,421 meter (11,223 foot) peak, where we took pictures before I pulled the pomello and knife in my bag and declared it “Pomello Time”.

[Myself and Matt - inscription on the wooden post reads: “Hohuan Mountain East Peak 3,421 Meters Above Sea Level”]

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Taiwan: Road Trip 1/6: Our Best Laid Plans

Posted on October 14th, 2006 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Taiwan, Travel.

[Matt will always be behind a camera lens in my mind, but that was established before this trip.]

While Uncle Matt was back in Taiwan for the October holiday in mainland China, we decided to go on a short road trip (which was going to be in a borrowed jeep, and then in Matt’s car, and then we were going to go by train and rent motorcycles, but we finally ended up in his car.)

We decided to leave on the 5^th and return on the 7^th.  Return on the 8^th.  Leave on the 6^th.  Return on the 9^th.  Return on the 10^th.  Leave on the 7^th.  We finally ended up leaving long before the sun rose on the 7^th and returned long after the sun set on the 8^th (I guess it would technically be long before the sun rose on the 9^th, really.)

You see, it’s not that we’re poor planners so much as that we didn’t really plan at all, which is typical of my and Matt’s traveling style.  I didn’t know when or where we were going, so I left booking hotels to Matt, who didn’t see a need to book hotels in Taiwan on a nation-wide, 5-day holiday weekend.  I advised he bring a tent just in case, and that may well be the only time he has ever listened to my advice. 

[This trip will likely cause Matt to remember me as the woman who couldn’t keep her eyes open while staring into the sun for a picture.]

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Language Immersion: Chinese School in St. Paul, MN

Posted on October 12th, 2006 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Chinese.

First, many thanks to Roland for this amazing catch!

Chinese school - not just for Asian kids anymore!  St. Paul, MN is now home to a charter school that offers education in a Chinese immersion environment, starting from Kindergarten.  The school welcomes all children, as opposed to other language schools that generally only offer classes to children of Chinese-speaking households.  And it’s not just evening classes - Yinghua Academy is a full-fledged, day-time, publicly funded school (meaning that parents aren’t charged tuition!)

In Grades K and 1, all subjects are taught in Chinese.  The focus is not only on the language, but Chinese culture and arts as well.  I’m absolutely fascinated by this, and I really hope to see schools like this flourish in the US.  (And I would love to teach in one some day!)

As China continues to grow as a world power, parents who send their children there are giving them an undeniable advantage in the world that awaits them.  For those interested in learning more, here are a few links:

• Kare11 News video on Yinghua Academy
• Kare11 News article on Yinghua Academy
• Yinghua Acedemy website

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Taiwan: Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

Posted on October 9th, 2006 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog, Taiwan.

National Stare at the Moon Day is held on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, which fell on October 6th this year.  On this day, the full moon is said to be at its largest of the entire year, and this year, was said to be at its largest in nine years.

[Uncle Danny at the BBQ with his college classmate’s wife and children]

Taiwanese celebrate this day by breaking out the barbeque and heading for the nearest park or, if they’re lazy, the nearest sidewalk.  There was actually a haze in the sky because EVERYONE in the entire COUNTRY was barbequing.  I went out to a park in northern Taipei with Uncle Danny and his college classmates.

[A picture of the moon, taken by Uncle Matt on his Canon 30D during the 2006 Moon Festival]

While Westerners see a man’s face on the moon (actually, I never could see that…), Danny told me that the Chinese see a big, white rabbit on the moon (which looks so much more obvious to me!)  This figure is also known as the Jade Rabbit, and it is said that a rabbit was sent to live there after making a noble sacrifice of itself.

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