Crouching Tiger, Hidden Nerd Sword Shop

One of the definite benefits of choosing Taiwan instead of the many other foreign sites for this particular nursing class is that, unlike the majority of our fellow students, we have free days.  Quite a few, actually.  Thursday through Sunday are essentially free for us, so we get quite a bit of awesome travel experience! 


Friday we decided to take a lovely little train ride to downtown Tainan.  Jim (our instructor) wanted to take us to a particularly neat shop... Neater than I realized at first.  You see, the place he wanted to take us was a sword shop.  Not just any sword shop; the shop of the last remaining sword-maker in Taiwan.  This sword-maker follows the ancient tradition of placing human bones in the fire used to create the sword.  Because bones contain a significant amount of phosphorus, they tend to create a flame that tempers the steel in a way that it's more free from impurities.  Cool, right?  Wrong.  That is just part of why this guy is so cool.  You see, apart from making the swords seen in this picture...

He also made this sword...

 IT'S THE FETCHING GREEN DESTINY!!!!!


That's right, the legendary sword from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was, in fact, made by this Taiwanese sword-maker.  The one who's shop I was in.  It was like nerd paradise.  Seriously, who gets that kind of opportunity?  As you can see, I was pretty stoked! 

Like I said, nerd paradise.

FAME!

Yep, we're famous. :)

The things I've eaten

Oh, the things I've eaten in the last few days surprise even me.  I really didn't think I could do it, and I almost threw up with the stinky tofu (which smells and tastes like cow excrement), but I ate it!  Here are some pictures of the things I have put my digestive tract through recently.  (Uncle Brad, this post is for you!) 

Okay, this one was actually REALLY superb.  It's called (and I can only spell it as it's pronounced) Shwa-bing.  It's basically shaved ice with sweetened condensed milk and fruit.  Lots of fruit.  It was amazing. 

Jane (my instructor) and I enjoying some nom-a-noms.  

 The rest of these foods were experienced at a night market we went to on Thursday night.  


Yes, that is what you think it is.

Get ready...

Get set...

 Go!

Victory! 

I was the only one brave enough to try this.  It's a bug.  A fried bug. 

I think my face says it all.  It actually didn't taste bad at all.  It was mostly just the fact that it was a bug and I found a leg floating around my mouth later that freaked me out.

This was actually really good.  It's like a waffle stuffed with chocolate, but their waffles are way prettier than ours!

Okay, this isn't food, but there was a dog just chillin in a pair of antlers, and no one really knew why!  It had obviously been trained to sit there, though.  

Snail. 

This one was by far the worst.  By far.  Like I said, stinky tofu smells like cow poop, and it tastes like it too.  That and I had a belly full of snails and squid, which definitely didn't help.  

But in the end, I survived!  And my professors were pretty proud too. :)

Anping

Wednesday morning. 

Still slightly hung over from the excitement of last nights game (see last post), we head to clinicals.  Today is an exciting day!  "Why?" you ask?  Well, today I have the amazing opportunity to go out into the community with a home health hospice nurse and provide care to patients in their home!  Talk about a cultural experience!  

Okay, enough talking in the present tense.  The day started off with me meeting my nurse.  My ADORABLE, WONDERFUL nurse, Marion!  She was such a peach, I can't even describe, but you'll probably get the idea by the end of this blurb. 

Marion had three patients to visit that day, most of them terminal cancer patients in their last few weeks of life.  The majority of her patients were close to Anping, a gorgeous fishing district with tons of heritage.  Anping is a historical gold-mine, with sites such as Fort Zeelandia  and the Eternal Golden Castle.  But Anping has something else that I had a real desire to see.  Something that I read about multiple times in the books on Taiwan that I read.  The Temple of Mazu.

Mazu (pronounced Ma-Tsu) is a very important deity in Taiwanese culture, and one almost specifically singular to Taiwan itself.  Mazu is the sea goddess, and if any of you have ever seen where Taiwan is located on a map, you'll understand why she is so important.  Anyhow, Marion had heard form another nurse the day before that I had been asking about that particular temple, so she graciously took time out of her busy schedule to bring me to the temple.  What happened there was nothing short of an epic experience!  

First of all, the temple of Mazu is fairly large, even by Taiwanese standards (but by all means not the biggest).  And it's beautiful.  I mean, drop dead gorgeous.  The Taiwanese sure know how to decorate, that's for sure!  

This is the outside of the Temple.  You can't help but become a little obsessed with Dragons while you're here!  

The inside was no less spectacular.  

  The architecture is amazing in these buildings, but it's the symbolism that I find particularly attractive.  This next picture is of the shrine to "the godmother" or Mazu herself.  

 To the right of the shrine to Mazu was a shrine to the dragon god.  Like I said, you can't help but become a little obsessed with dragons while you're here!  Especially since this happens to be the year of the dragon! 

As if this wasn't sweet enough of her, my kind little nurse did something just amazing!  As we were walking through the temple, I noticed a stand that seemed to be selling bracelets, although there was no one next to it.  You really have to be careful what you look at in this country.  The second my nurse saw me observing, she forced me (and I say forced because I refused several times.  Nurses here do not make the best salary, and you can't help but feel guilty when they keep wanting to buy you everything under the sun!) to pick out a bracelet not only for myself, but for my friend Jessica (Jess-shur-cah, as they say).  "Right now, they're just pretty." she explained.  She then took both the bracelets and went to the center of the room, removing her shoes as she did.  She stood before a large container with incense, with both bracelets between her hands, which were in a prayer position, and bowed three times, muttering something in Mandarin.  After she did this, she waved the bracelets in a circular motion three times over the burning incense.  Bringing them back, she explained to me that now, instead of merely being pretty, they would provide protection and good fortune for Jessica and I, courtesy of the goddess Mazu.  What a cultural experience!  What an amazing nurse!

After visiting several patients and eating lots of food, all of which she paid for (against my insisting that I pay.  She told me that we were guests, and that in her culture Taiwanese provide for their guests.  She also got me something to eat every two hours on the dot, in addition to all the food that our patients gave us. She was very concerned that I might get hungry again!) we headed back to the hospital.  Marion was one of the most Christ-like people I've ever encountered.  I know what I believe as a member of the Church, but I can't help but think that maybe because of her immense charity towards me, that bracelet does have some special properties after all.

The Taiwanese are amazing people.  I love them! 

 
 

So much to tell and so little time!  I suppose I'll start with Tuesday night... 

On Tuesday, we went to a baseball game.  I had only ever been to one baseball game before, so I didn't really know what to expect.  Let me tell you, baseball in Taiwan is NOTHING like baseball in Detroit!  In America, the crowd normally gets very quiet before the pitch.  Not here.  Here, the opposing team leads chants, plays traditional Chinese drums, horns, and almost anything else they can get their hands on that makes noise in an attempt to mess up the other teams pitch.  It's crazy!  If anyone does baseball right, it's the Tainan Lions!  It was so much fun!  

Here is "Lucy", Liz and I at the game!  

  Believe it or not, the Tainan Lions have two American baseball players!  This flag made me laugh. :)

And Jane, being the sweet person she is, brought us a full on MEAL to eat during the game, chocolate and all!  

  
These are some of the noisemakers that were used at the game.  You bang them together and the large end acts as a sound amplifier, giving the illusion of very loud clapping.  These noisemakers were actually purchased for us by...

Wayne and Michael!  (Wayne on the R with long hair, Michael on the other side).  Wayne and Michael are both doctor interns on one of the ICU floors currently inhabited by two BYU nursing students.  They were so awesome! 

 It was because of Wayne and Michael that we found out some very important news the next day, but I suppose I should give you a back story first: 

Going into the baseball game, all of us Nursing students had one important goal that had been accomplished several years prior by another group at the same stadium; make it on the Jumbotron.  To make a long story short, that goal was definitely achieved.  17 times.  Turns out, white girls dancing to Lady Gaga in the stadium is really funny to the Taiwanese!  Once they found us in the crowd, the jumbotron just kept coming back!  But it wasn't until we all began doing the EFY line dance that we really got noticed.  And oh boy, did we get noticed in a big way...

People all around us started pulling out their cameras, videoing and snapping pictures.  One of the workers for the Lions came and gave us an entire bag of free Lions notebooks.  The players started staring up into the stands every time they took the field.  After the game ended, we even had people coming to take pictures with us!  We were famous!  This is where Wayne and Michael come into play again.  You see, we thought we were famous then.  Little did we know...

We had made the news!  That's right, ladies and gentlemen, yours truly was on Taiwanese television!  Life goal; accomplished.  

Best. Night. Ever. 

 

Alright, I only have a limited amount of time to write about today before we head out to a night market!  So here are some pictures and descriptions:


Last night, we packed it up and headed around town with Jane to scrounge up some grub!  It was a great opportunity to see more of Tainan.


Here I am eating some fried sweet potato.  It was amazing!

 Getting some chow with the gang

 Paige and I trying on some very popular masks!  (Seriously, EVERYONE here wears a mask.)

  Good food and great company.  Pretty much everything a girl could ask for! 


There was one person on our unit today that I wasn't necessarily expecting to see (although looking back I suppose it's exactly who I should have been expecting to see);  A fetching Buddhist Priestess.  (Parker and Hunter:  This person is just like the Airbending Masters in Avatar.  She lives in the mountains in a Temple and wakes up every morning at 4:00am to meditate and read sacred Buddhist writings.)

 We were also given some awesome gifts today!  Jasmine, a nurse from our unit, surprised Jessica and I with a beautiful note and our very own pair of chopsticks!  :) My note read, "Dear Carlie:  Wellcome to the beautiful island of Taiwan, I hope you can gain a special experience and enjoy it."


Here we are with Jasmine and our new chopsticks! 

They also fed us some INCREDIBLE sushi! 

And sweet potatoes.  They kind of just boil them and eat them.  

I had two really interesting patients today too!  This first guy had dementia and cancer.  The hospice nurse warned me before we entered the room that he couldn't speak at all due to his dementia.  He would just sit there and stare blankly.  When I walked into the room and said hello, his eyes lit up and he extended his hand to me with a loud, "Ni Hao!".  His wife and the nurse were stunned!  :) 

This guy believed that a demon was causing his cancer, so he had the Buddhist "Master" helping him to keep the "ghost" away.  It was very interesting!  

  

Well, there's a little glimpse into my life in Taiwan!  I'll write more later!