Happenings on this Voyage

Hello Everyone!!! So I haven't blogged in a while but here are some updates of what's happened in the weeks past. I think the pictures should suffice for a while at least until I catch up with my school work so I can blog again. To be continued.... on the next post!  Da Wan Beach  Figuring out if the water is too cold to go in on this overcast day Beach Volleyball  Vino - Our Party Planner  Manny Goose - best cousin ever!!!  Party Bus Fabi and Felix  I turned around and thought this would be a good picture  Beach Party - It was too windy for a bonfire  Bartender from Brass Monkey giving me a free shot  Success!!! I learned how to ride a scooter!  After a Foam Party- just chilling at the Rendezvous Bar  Hotel grounds - heading out to the beach Early morning on the beach

As mentioned in the previous posts, I said I would take more photos around Taiwan. I could take the touristy photos of manicured and perfect landscapes, but that would only be one side of Taiwan. So instead, I've taken just random photos of the places I've visited over the weekend.     This is my roomie Kaiyo! We went on a little adventure at a place in Taipei we call Manila Town.  You can find all sorts of goodies from the Philippines and some things we don't find normally anywhere else in Taiwan such as Gatorade. Haha. Yes, they don't sell Gatorade in most stores in Taiwan.  So we got lost and walked in an alley and found a chain of markets. I thought I'd take a picture of this for you all to see. So that's a nice animal print dress on a mannequin that you see to your left. It's a small shop that sells dresses, scarves, and some dressy shoes. Right next to it is live chicken in the cage.  Cuck-a-doodle-doo! This is an upclose p...

           I've been thinking a lot lately about my family, especially the last couple of days. I've reconnected with an uncle of mine who's in Afghanistan, reconnected with my family in Chuuk, and had a few conversations and emails with my bestie Ribka also about family.            Recently, I heard news of a friend's grandpa whom I know and saw briefly the last time I was home cause he was sick and didn't spend as much time on the front patio of his house that I've been accustomed to seeing every time I go over for a visit. I'll admit, I don't know him personally but I do know him as Grandpa. All the stories I've heard about him are nothing short of that of a man who has showed deep and unconditional love for his family. I was no stranger to this treatment myself. Even when I visited while my friend was not there, I would greet him as Grandpa, that's who he was. And he would be there sitting on his chair, with his cigarette...

 This is what a rainy day looks like on my campus.  That's in front of my building looking into the track.  This is our little cafe on the first floor of my college.  College of Social Science. I was gonna take a picture of this spaghetti they sell in a hot dog bun. LoL.  This is one of my favorite places in Taipei. Alleycat's.  They serve great pizzas, draft beer, and calzones. Pictured below is beer and pizza from there.   This is my French friend Jerome who went to the movies with me where we watched The Lady. He's not high I promise, he just reacted to the flash of my camera.  We had a farewell dinner for one of our Palauan friends.  This is what a meal looks like when ordered in most places in Taiwan. Rice, some sort of meat dish, pickled vegetable, stir fried vegetable, tofu, fruit, and soup.  Kevin and Danica  We were roomies last year. Melanch, Danica, and I. Don't...

It's become kind of like a tradition that after every weekend I try to compile some pictures that I've taken over the past week and weekend and try to sum up what the last week was like for me.  Hmm, it's only Monday today and last week seems like forever ago. (side note: I wish everything else in life that don't seem like things I'm very fond of can all be memories of the distant past that are only seldom revisited.)  Last week, this island of Taiwan received a lot of rain and I spent many a nights last week either with the legs of my pants drenched and toes freezing or getting soaked on one side while I stand waiting for my bus to go home from class at 10:30pm.  Other than that, school wise, I was pretty productive. I did a presentation on the limits of the definition of the state (Haha... it's so boring) and wrote an abstract on how communication developments in the People's Republic of China might have some correlation with its market growth. (also, hig...

So something happened last Friday night also that I've been thinking about blogging as it is a first-time experience for me and Melanch. And luckily we had Kaiyo and Mumai there with us to coach us and get us through. So this is what we did. It's quite hilarious. We made a record. Yes, we made a record. We actually recorded a song. It was a Palauan song, I'll try my best to write a translation for it below. I.  A deliongel er kid el di ua berrous, ng berrusek ng berrusek, bertelem kau me ngak     Diak a chad el medengelii, Dimlak kulchesuar el kmo deleuill a mo uai tiang e ochedengei, kulemdasu el     kmo ng kodall, a keleng mo ulebengelel     Our relationship that was just like a dream, my dream, our special secret that no one else       understands, I didn't realize that it could end this way, I thought it was til death do we part Chorus:  Meng ngera di mo cheldechulel re ngak, deleuill el uoi dimlak a telm...

 This is the newest addition to the family. She's my baby niece who is still 3 months old.  Her name is Myuki Akiane Fitzgerald.   This is my mini me. She's 2 years old.  Her name is Dildesik Miya Fitzgerald. Her favorite pastime is dancing or making up names for her aunts.  And she's a chatterbox I might add, hence, mini me. LoL.   This is Myuki sleeping and smiling. :) And this big boy here is my very first nephew (also known as my son) Kltmokl Fritz Fitzgerald. He's 6 years old and a frst grader at Koror Elementary School. Don't talk about things you don't want mentioned around him cause he'll be sure to ask someone else about what you had talked about. LoL. He loves his Grandpa's boat and won't be able to get off once he's on it. 

It is quite common to see this kind of setting in front of stores and/or restaurants here in Taiwan. This employee is setting these foods (whole roasted chicken, rice crackers, Coke, etc.) as offering along with the fire. This is in front of a really good dumpling place.  Pictured here (from left to right) is Prescott Yuri, Alfred Fritz, and Kevin Mesebeluu. They are inside a local joint that we like to go to for pork braised in some sort of soy sauce mix and somen noodles. The two smaller pictures below are of the front of the restaurant. Yes, they cook the food at the front (by the street) and the seating area is behind. We met up after work/school on Friday for dinner. This is a typical night in the smaller streets of Taiwan. There's fruit stands, small markets, 7-11 or some other convenient store at almost every corner.  For dessert we decided to walk about 6 blocks to digest our pork dinner only to get some ice cream from Haagen Dazs. Pictured h...

  Republic of Palau Embassy in Taiwan   My little office with a nice view and a leather couch   The River viewed from the Embassy (buildings to the left) The Intern hard at work

This is a picture of me buying my iPhone at the Apple store. This was taken by Kevin on his iPhone. Haha.  That's all the cash I used to buy my iPhone.  There's the iPhone still in its box on top of the counter.  I just got myself an iPhone 4s and this is my first entry that I'm writing with the iPhone. Let's see if we can get a photo of myself to go with this one.

This has been one hell of a school year for me. Many things have occurred this year that I would have never thought was possible in my lifetime, at least not while I'm still alive and kicking. But apparently, that only proves that I am only human and anything outside of my control is fair game and could be swayed either way.  To begin, this school year marked my first year in graduate school. That was really exciting for me especially because the classes I registered for were really interesting and things that I had never before learned about so I was sure that it was going to be challenging. And challenging it was, nothing short of it. Never before in my life had I learned so much about Mainland China, its government, politics, economy, culture, and so much more. I thought that was a big enough change and challenge for me. But nope, something even more challenging had to happen.  It was the night before Thanksgiving Day, I was just randomly chatting with some friends on...