Festival of the 'launching lanterns'

I went to Pingxi (a village in the nearby mountains) today with Meng Yao and her friends to celebrate a lantern festival. You write your wishes on the paper lanterns, then light a small piece of inflammable material under the lantern, making it light up and slowly rise like a hot air balloon. Since we arrived in the afternoon to avoid the crowds, we took the opportunity to visit a defunct coalmine (now a museum) in a nearby town. We even got to ride in a small train which used to be used to transport coal from the mine to the refinery. Some pictures...

On the coal train...Off we go!

People wrote their wishes on the lanterns...

...as did I.

Light the lantern...

...and let it fly!

The mid-semester presentation

I woke up today with a stuffy nose and a raspy throat. That didn't stop me from getting out of bed though- today was an important day, as I had to give a presentation to my class and another class about our day trip to Danshui, a small seaside town north of Taipei. The presentation was to be graded as our mid-semester oral exam.

I meet my partner, Henry, an American born Chinese classmate of mine before the 10:20 meeting time to make some final adjustments.

Later, we are in the meeting room, listening to others speak. They are talking about Fuyougong, the Buddhist temple we visited, Mazu, the temple's deity, and how people can ask the divinity questions by throwing two crescent-shaped pieces of wood. They talk about George Leslie Mackay, the missionary who oversaw the building of a church, a school (called Oxford), and a clinic.

By the time it gets to be our turn, we have heard about these things several times, and it's starting to get boring. People are practically falling asleep. So we get up in front, introduce ourselves, and start to talk.

"Our teacher came a little late, so we decided to stop by the Dunkin' Donuts to get some breakfast," says Henry as I show a slide of the chain restaurant. People start to chuckle.
By the time it gets to be my turn, the other students are awake again. I talk about how we almost got lost trying to find the school that Mackay built, how we tried to go to a Mexican restaurant but it was closed by the time we got there, and how we enjoyed Italian fried ice-cream.
Well, ours wasn't the most content-rich presentation, but at least it made people laugh.

After the presentation, I decide to go to the doctor for my cold. I go to a clinic near my school. The clinics here are very efficient, and within a few minutes I am sitting in front of an ENT doctor, who is asking me questions.
"You have a broke nose?" he asks as he probes my nostril with a metal tool which looks like it could be painful. I wonder why he's asking whether I broke my nose.
"No, actually." I reply. Then I realize he means "blocked nose"
"Yes! Yes!"
"OK," says the old doctor, dropping the metal tool in a bucket of (I hope) antiseptic solution, then picking up a pen and writing a prescription.
"You have phlegm?"
"Yes."
Another prescription.
By the time I'm finished, he has written prescriptions for four drugs. I guess Taiwan ranks up there with Japan and France as a country which gives out a lot of meds to its citizens.