a karaoke-ful friday and a Kaohsiung flavored saturday

AUGUST 23rd, 2026

FEELING: excited 2 write this l8r

Woah! Long time no blog! I have had a fun weekend so far without much time to sit down and write (at least not much time with a stable internet connection) so get ready for a semi long post :)

On Friday I went to class like normal, except the bike rack by my apartment had NO BIKES so I had to walk to the high speed rail which took much much longer. On the way I got to grab breakfast though which was nice! When I got to class it was pretty normal and I headed home afterward to do another self tape and meet with a casting director. The project I met with the CD for feels like too quick of a turnaround after coming home from Taiwan so I think I may end up turning it down which is a shame but I wouldn’t want to commit to something I cant bring my best to. After that I helped my aunt (10F) with her summer homework and taught her how to do long division. Then my uncle (8M) and I (23?) finished the Star Wars jigsaw puzzle we had been working on.

After some relaxing time at home I went back to Taipei to do some karaoke with friends from class. It was super fun to hang out with everyone, we all talked in a broken mix of Chinese, Japanese, and English. We had some drinks (I had 3 and was still stone cold sober by the end of the night which was criminal) and ate some food (THAT I BOUGHT FROM 7/11 BECAUSE THE BAR RAN OUT OF TAKOYAKI, ALSO CRIMINAL). We all sang Call Me Maybe together, and one of the Japanese guys played Numa Numa which everyone knew. It was super fun talking to everyone at the bar, we had this Taiwanese guy who lived in Pittsburgh join our group midway through which was funny. I thought he was wasted because he was stumbling and slurring his words, but then I realized he was just like that when he mentioned offhand “ok now I’m gonna get a second drink :)” At a certain point in the night (11:30 to be exact) I felt a little left out since the bar became 75% Japanese people and all the songs became Jpop that I didn’t know so I went home, but I seriously had so much fun.

˗ˏˋ ✮ ˎˊ˗ ──༺☆༻── ˗ˏˋ ✮ ˎˊ˗

OK NOW TIME SKIPS HERE TO THE NEXT MORNING!!! ITS SATURDAY!!!! I started off my morning by going to NTNU for a Kung Fu class which was actually so much fun, I wish I could take another one. I’m kind of sore while writing this but it’s in a good way. I felt so cool and had never thrown a punch with actual force before haha. AND at the end we all got to use nun-chucks which made 12 year old me feel very cool.

After that I got lu rou fan with the family and a friend of theirs which was really really yummy. Then they sent me off to the high speed rail to Kaohsiung! For some reason the HSR was super cold and I was huddled in a little ball sat next to a very cute baby (yay!) and a very stinky man (boo). After the 2 hour ride I arrived and got to meet more family for the first time. They took me to the Sunfong shrine which is dedicated to Nezha. I told the attendant that I was in a play about Nezha and she got super excited and gave me a bracelet. The weather was super rainy but I thought that made the temple look cool. Then I was lucky enough to be driven to my mom’s childhood neighborhood.

I started getting really emotional because when I asked my grandpa’s brother about what my mom was like as a kid he said “just like you! You look just like her too.” And I really wished she was there to see what I was seeing. When I was a kid and she would tell me stories about growing up I always figured she lived in a tiny farming village or something of the sort. But then I got to her house and it was super bougie, I think they updated it since my mom moved out and its a super fancy neighborhood now with cameras. This fact made me a little nervous because I was just this emotional lady taking pictures in front of some guy’s (probably a Nvidia worker or something) house. Learning that my mom’s childhood home is now a semi gated community probably has some poetic meaning but I’m too lazy to think about that right now.

Then we all met up at this mall and ate peking duck. It was SOOOOO good. Also Taiwan has really good malls!!! I feel like america has lost the art of a baller ass mall… But yeah I was pretty much only speaking Chinese which was fun but yeah I still have a lot to learn. After that we went home and watched the Chinese dub of JJK.

OKAY I have to eat breakfast now, I cant upload the photos from here so I probably will once I get to Taoyuan.

BYE