Pandas Are Overhyped

After reading the title, you might think “what’s wrong with pandas?” Nothing really, but the experience as a whole was kind of underwhelming. 

It probably didn’t help that I was tired. I went to bed at a decent time, but I still woke up feeling not well rested. The bus ride took about an hour. When we got there, we were allowed to skip the line and we followed a tour guide around to see the pandas. 

Okay, let me get my complaining out of the way. The day started off cool, but it got much hotter and sunnier later on. The place was pretty crowded, making it hard to see the pandas. We had to follow the tour guide around (which was understandable but also meant we didn’t get a lot of time in each section). And there was so much walking and waiting. 

That said, I still enjoyed seeing the pandas a lot. They were so cute, and it was kind of nice to be up and active outside. So, please enjoy a small collection from the many pictures I took. 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Lunch was okay. Definitely not as good as some of the other places, and the food felt a bit more “Chinese American” (for example, they had orange chicken). Honestly, I wasn’t surprised since it is a tourist attraction after all. 

Next up, we went to the consulate. Security was pretty serious – we had to put our stuff through an x-ray machine and leave basically everything in the front. We were led to a library, abd it was kind of weird because everything was in English. It felt like we were transported to America for a second. The actual visit included a bunch of speakers talking about their job and the job of the consulate in general. Even though I’m not planning on going into foreign service, it was interesting to hear about the process. 

Finally, we headed back to the school. I played some ping-pong (very poorly I might add), then got picked up. We headed to a big mall and went to a hotpot place. I was sent off to eat with Daniela and Tashi (who were also there for the party I assume). The food was so good, but they weren’t kidding when they said it would be spicy. No amount of Taiwanese Hot and Spicy Style could have prepared me. I’m just going to say that watermelon is the savior for eating spicy food. 

After I ate, I went with my host sister and her friend to an arcade in the mall. I failed at playing a claw game, then I went to play some rhythm game. Okay, so I ended up in the player 2 spot, meaning that I couldn’t choose my own songs (player 1 got to). For the first song, I did fairly well considering I’d never played that game before. But the second and third song the guy chose were so hard. I don’t know if he just wanted to play something harder or what, but the sudden difficulty jump just felt odd to me. Oh well. 

Since I got home, I’ve just been relaxing like usual. I have no idea what I’m doing this weekend, but I guess I’ll find out. 

WOTD (Words of the Day):

芒果 (mángguǒ) – mango
蓝莓 (lánméi) – blueberry
桃子 (táozi) – peach