Bryan in Taipei: Public Transportation and Daily Commute

November 8, 2018

Out of almost any city I’ve visited, Taipei has to have one of the best public transportation infrastructures in terms of both efficiency and convenience. While the roads can still get pretty jam-packed with traffic – especially with all of the motorbikes riding around – a significant amount of people in the city rely on public transportation. The city’s metro system, the MRT, is extremely clean and almost never late, running from around 6am to midnight everyday. The highest fare runs no more than $2USD, so it’s very affordable as well. There’s also the public buses, which are even cheaper and still very convenient. Like any city, rush hour means it can get very crowded, though this typically will only last several stops. It continues to amaze me that, even when it’s crowded, many Taiwanese people will leave the ‘priority seats’ open for the elderly, disabled, and pregnant passengers to sit. This is an attitude and level of respect that I’ve seen in several other respects here as well and one that is deeply linked to Confucian tradition. Much like the Japanese, queuing to the right side of the escalator and allowing people to pass on the left is also widely practiced here and lets you move at whatever pace you want. In fact, I’ve noticed that, even though Taipei is a relatively big city, people here are still fairly relaxed and not constantly rushing or jaywalking like in other cities.

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Taipei MRT on the Wenhua Brown Line

My commute to school each day is about 40 minutes depending on traffic. While this may sound like a lot, it is surprisingly pretty manageable given I only have class three days a week due to the 3 hour once-a-week class structure. I have several options for getting there, though I typically choose to ride the bus directly. This costs between $0.50-$1.00USD depending on which bus I take. With no transfers and some time to kill, I often use this time to listen to music, podcasts, or even do some reading, so it passes pretty quickly. I’ve found that the trade-off for living off-campus is living more directly in the city and engaging with the community in a wholly different way than by living in a school dorm. In this apartment, I have a Taiwanese flatmate with whom I practice my Chinese (in fact, he speaks English well but will only answer in Chinese), a friend from Richmond also on semester exchange, and one other roommate from Europe. Our apartment is located conveniently next to a metro stop, so I can reach anywhere in the city in about an hour at most. This has meant exploring the city has been a lot more accessible on weekends, on top of discovering new restaurants, parks, and other places.

Though it certainly wasn’t easy starting off, living like this in Taipei has given me more autonomy and independence than I’ve ever had and has helped me decide what I like most and least about living in a city, my living and spending habits, and other useful information that will teach me a lot after I graduate, too. I’m fortunate enough to have had other experiences abroad where I got to live in both a student apartment and with a host family, so I would say each has its own perks and each gave me different perspectives and insights. I’d encourage anyone studying or traveling abroad for extended periods to look into finding ways to engage with the culture and the community that are somewhat more unorthodox, like taking language/calligraphy/cooking classes and/or finding locals to help you get out of your comfort zone. I think what I’ve realized most of all is any experience like this is completely what you make of it, which is both a heavy responsibility and a fantastic opportunity.

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People ride mopeds/motorbikes like this all over the city. To make it safer for everyone, there are special rules for these riders to follow, but they’ll still often go beside buses and cars trying to pass!

Bryan

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Brooke Goes Global: Globalization

September 13, 2018

Disclaimer: This post is not my attempt to make a blanket, political statement about capitalism.  Instead, this post is an attempt to illustrate the institutional systems role in perpetuating poverty, which is stimulated by globalization.  As a result, there are structures put in place that advance the middle and upper classes while inevitably hindering the lower class. 

Globalization

This picture depicts the common life of a child in the rural area of India.  Despite his isolation from the city, globalization contributes heavily to his life.

Starbucks — a franchise recognized across the world.  It’s a caffeine boost.  It’s a free wifi hotspot.  It’s a familiar logo of home.  Because Starbucks is such a recognizable part of many people’s lives across the world, it is an ideal artifact to study in relation to globalization.  The local is the global and the global is the local, and the Starbucks franchise fits into both the interdependent categories perfectly.  

According to a news report by CNN, the first Starbucks cafe in India opened in 2012.  This change to the environment and culture of India has its foundation in globalization, utilizing the ever connectedness of countries, corporations, and markets.  India’s new economic plan in the 1990s — encompassing liberalization, privatization, and globalization — paved the way for the multi-billion dollar company to open its doors within India’s borders.  Studying the key fundamentals of the larger corporation and its individual cafes will help understand the structural oppression that is shaped to advance the health of only a portion of India. 

In order to analyze the effect of this artifact further, Starbucks industry’s source must be identified.  The headquarters are located in the United States, in the state of Washington.  There are over 27,000 Starbucks locations across the globe; more than half of these locations are in the United States.  Comparatively, there are around 100 Starbucks cafe locations in India.  The chain store began in the western hemisphere and migrated to India 41 years later.  Nonetheless, this flow of business, capital, and frankly, Starbucks coffee is relatively new to the area — considering its first store opened only 6 years ago.  The chain, however, quickly spread.  For each year since the opening of the first Starbucks in India, another 17 stores were opened annually.  

Additionally, the business’ motivation for spreading is a key element to its global flow.  This motivation is fundamental to understanding its health effect on the overall population of India.  For example, the first Indian Starbucks was opened in Mumbai, a location specifically and strategically chosen by the corporation.  Mumbai was discussed in class as a relatively wealthy area.  It is a movie producing hotspot.  It is a tourist destination.  These aspects of the city point to a particular lifestyle — a lifestyle of luxury and expense.  The citizens of Mumbai have a disposable income that can be spent on breakfast sandwiches and overpriced coffee.  Starbucks chose Mumbai as a location that would bring in revenue.  Mumbai chose Starbucks as a business that would benefit the city.  The global is interacting with the local and vice versa, each contributing to the worldwide spread of people, goods, and services.

In addition, the meticulous placement of Starbucks is emphasized by my personal experience in India.  Our homestay is in the wealthy neighborhood of Greater Kailash; and down the street is a Starbucks.  People come to reap the benefits of clean water, free wifi, a sewage system, and nutritious food at the cafe.  These are basic elements of the Starbucks franchise.  Therefore, wherever a Starbucks is built, these factors of wellbeing are built into the neighborhood as well.  

However, this strategic and revenue maximizing business plan further stretches the gap of social capital between the rich and the poor.  The rich live in areas like Greater Kailesh and Mumbai which have stores like Starbucks.  The poor live in areas where Starbucks and similar businesses would refuse to open a location.  To demonstrate the contrast, two illustrations must be drawn. 

Example one: A local of Greater Kailesh decides to go to a nearby Starbucks cafe for a cup of coffee.  There, they have the opportunity for free wifi, aiding them in their studies.  They have the opportunity to get a cashier job, benefiting their finances.  They have the opportunity for a hygienic social environment, benefiting their mental health.  Therefore, it is fair to say Starbucks indirectly provides resources that advance life for only a portion of the Indian population, its customer base.  

Example two: This information is gathered from our class’ recent visit to a New Delhi “slum”.  Within the group of small and connected houses, I noticed two places the families of the particular neighborhood could purchase food.  Both places were small snack stands.  The vendors provided bagged food — processed and high caloric.  No kitchen for fresh meals.  No bathroom with running water.  No wifi to help complete homework.  No hiring opportunities.  The food “cafe” of this neighborhood is merely a provider of unhealthy junk food.  It provides no additional advancements to the community.  

With this stark contrast in mind, Starbucks in India — a product of globalization — provides resources that advance life for only middle to upper class individuals.  Therefore, the artifact of Starbucks demonstrates a motif of the larger problem of systemic oppression.  For those living in low-income neighborhoods are not able to reap the benefits of a Starbucks cafe because they don’t have access to one.  Outsiders seem to be ignorant of the institutional oppression that creates this perpetuation of poverty.  It’s a cycle with outside influences, influences that flow from the home country and the entire world. 

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Janus in Singapore

March 14, 2017

SMU is in the heart of the city and is surrounded by buildings like this one. Among other names, Singapore is known The City in a Garden, and many of its buildings and streets try to incorporate vegetation in its design

Singapore Management University, or SMU, is a relatively new institution. Established in 1999, SMU is unique among Singaporean and even Asian schools because its teaching style is based on the teaching at many American colleges, and modeled in particular on the teaching style of Wharton’s undergraduate program. Despite its youth, it’s already established itself as one of the best universities in Asia, known in particular for its School of Business.

When I read in my syllabi that class participation would account between 15-25% of my grade for my economics and operations management classes, I was a bit surprised. Even at Richmond, where many of the business and economics classes had small classes relative to the rest of the U.S., class participation didn’t play as large a role. Students w ere encouraged to ask questions and offer answers to in-class examples, but rarely were we actually graded. I thought that it would be similar in SMU – as long as the professor knew your name, and as long as you asked a question or offered to do an example every other class, you could expect a B+ or an A- for class participation.

The outside of SMU’s school of business. Like many parts of Singapore, SMU is constantly under renovation and expansion to meet greater demand.

It turns out, SMU earned its stellar reputation; class participation is taken so seriously at the university that every student is required to bring a nametag to place at the top of his or her table, and a graduate student is assigned to each class to take notes on the comments made by each student and assign a grade at the end of each session. It’s quite an interesting phenomenon to observe. At Richmond, even during my FYS experience, at most you would have a third of the class that make up the majority of the participation, another third that raises their hand on occasion if they’re feeling particularly ambitious, and a third that spends most of the class watching their nails grow or doodling or swapping groupme messages. At SMU, you can expect half of the class’s hands to shoot up as soon as the professor asks for a volunteer. During in-class problem sets, students will race to complete the questions and offer their answers out loud.

A typical classroom at SMU

Whatever the founders meant by a Singaporean university based on “American colleges,” it definitely did not mean the same thing I had in mind when I applied to SMU. Truthfully, I am a bit disappointed that I’m not enjoying the totally stress-free, light workload I expected out of a study abroad experience, I think the opportunity is a bit refreshing. Each class is exciting and important because you hear how other students process their ideas and approach problems, and more importantly, interesting conversations happen because participation plays such an important role in the final grade that everyone has no choice but to do the readings, and no choice but to make an effort to participate in in-class discussions.

There’s something to be said for the “American” style where professors tend to not care if you participate or not. There’s the idea that by the time you’re in college, you’re something of an adult, and whether or not you make the most out of your $60,000 year is up to you to decide. You can ace courses at Richmond and at many other universities by sleeping your way through class and cramming for the midterms and finals, but we all know that isn’t the most wholesome or effective way of learning. Part of me thinks that I could have benefitted from a system like SMU’s, as I think I fall into that category of people that laze away until the hell weeks of the semester. At the same time, I think it also puts too much stress on many of the Singaporean students.

While I’ve made a number of friends among the exchange students from making dinner plans or seeing each other out during the weekend, it’s been a bit more difficult to do so for native Singaporeans. So many of them are busy meticulously preparing every portion of our class readings and powerpoints that I often would just skim at home, busy staying in all-day meetings for a group project that I would just create a google doc for, or busy doing integration and differentiation practice problems for a finance exam that I would otherwise consider doing but end up being too lazy to do. It’s a bit of a shame, because I feel that this level of preparation is thorough to a fault. Even at Peking University, China’s top institution, the students had enough time to interact with me outside of a classroom environment.

Midterms at SMU are without question the most difficult exams I’ve ever taken in my life. In high school and college. I’ve experienced two kinds of midterm/final exams in college and high school: the first are exams that literally just test whether or not you know the material, like the ones in many of my math classes where they give you a difficult, multi-layered problem and ask you to solve or prove it. Some require more critical thinking and may not necessarily have a correct answer, like many essay-type questions in social sciences. I expected my exams to fall into one of these two categories at SMU, but not both. In my operations management, financial mathematics, and international trade exams, we were given cases studies that either too much or insufficient information, and were required to ignore unnecessary information or make additional assumptions before we began the process of solving an often multi-step math problem.

Recess week could not have come at a better time!

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The Final Post

January 12, 2017

I don’t even know where to start. I get it now…how study abroad can be the best time of your life. You change; you come home a completely different person. I’ve moved around quite a few times throughout my life – New Jersey, Germany, Italy, Okinawa, Virginia – and I have always considered Okinawa to be home. It’s where, for the most part, I grew up, I took care of my family without dad around, made stupid decisions, and maybe even learned from my stupid decisions. Going back every summer and winter break is what keeps me going during the school year, honestly. Knowing I can eat Okinawa Soba, chill with friends at the seawall, and swim in the clear ocean again. Okinawa is home, no doubt. This was the first time that returning home to Okinawa felt unfamiliar. It almost felt wrong. I was leaving home to go to Okinawa.


Immediately after spending two days in Akita, everything became…light. There’s something about Akita. I felt more like myself in Akita. It’s not really the actual place of Akita that made me feel like myself because man, I’m not going to lie, we all hated that we were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by rice fields. But honestly, if given the chance to study abroad at Tokyo or Osaka, I would choose Akita every single damn time. You could walk 5-minutes off campus and see older people working on the rice fields. These older individuals were all very sweet and had no problem speaking to us despite our broken Japanese. You’d hear a car pass by you every 10-minutes so walking around with the sun beating down on your face was such a nice way to relax. There were shrines nearby that we would walk to, always placing a 5-yen coin and praying at the entrance.

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I’m never going to forget the quick walks to Banafi, the convenience store right off campus. The amount of riceballs and beers bought there was endless. The older guy that runs that store is so dedicated to his job. Working from 7am to 7pm almost everyday and remembering our faces. He even brought his dog into the store sometimes – an old, fat beagle. The dog would slowly wobble over to me and hint for me to pet it. Sitting on the benches in front of Banafi while eating our bentos (boxed lunches) during the summer and drinking our hot cocoa from a can during the winter.


Or the quick walks to aBar right next to Banafi. Since we were in the middle of nowhere, the only bar near us was this one. It was made for the international students, although Japanese students would go as well. There were karaoke competitions, DJ nights, band performances, etc. that students would participate in, hoping to win a free drink by the end of the night. Everyone would go so you’d obviously talk to students you wouldn’t talk to otherwise in class. Oh man, the nights spent there were too fun.


The one and only Shimohamahimehoma beach trip during orientation week is still my best memory from Akita, well, everyone’s best memory. We had only been in Akita for about 5 days and we all decided to go to the beach together. All of the international and first-year students since none of the other students had arrived on campus yet. Waking up super early, riding the train (after missing the first train, of course), swimming for hours, drinking beers and blasting Chance The Rapper, singing karaoke at the shack with the wandering dog, Udon in the city afterwards…we were all so tired and red by the end of the day but full of so much joy. It definitely set the tone for the rest of the semester.

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Train 2.jpgSpeaking of missing trains, you become a true international student at AIU once you miss at least three trains or even buses due to reading the schedule incorrectly. I can’t tell you how many times I have been yelled at for messing the schedule up HAHA it was fine though because honestly, the memories made while waiting for missed trains are some of my favorites. Creating videos of the Mannequin Challenge because of the nonstop laughter or the photoshoots I did with my friends around the entire station.


I’m so thankful the school planned out field trips for us. I know that sounds like a cliche high school thing but these bus trips definitely gave us the chance to explore Akita more. All of the international students signed up so once again, you’d spend time with students you wouldn’t otherwise talk to during class. We went to a samurai town, aquarium, deepest lake in Japan, Oga Peninsula, and watched a Namahage performance. Not only did I explore around Akita, I was also able to travel to Tokyo twice and Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara once. Meeting up with high school friends in Tokyo, walking around Shibuya at 4am, and eating ラーメン in individual stalls are a few of my favorite memories from Tokyo. And Osaka, wow, watching Isabella get rammed in the butt by a deer begging for food was absolutely hilarious. I couldn’t breathe from laughing so hard. Or the time Isabella went running ahead of me, desperately searching for a bathroom for me at around 12am, and us ending up going to a club and dancing for 3 hours solely because I needed to use the bathroom.

The small, close-knit community and campus brought us together – eating the set lunches together everyday, chilling in Komachi lobby, staying up till 4am every night. I could list all of the wonderful memories but there’s too many to list. You wouldn’t have the sense of family at any school as we did in Akita. We were all there for each other. It was the people, definitely. Especially Patrik and Isabella. The both of them changed the course of my study abroad experience.


Patrik, man, I don’t know where to start with this guy. Be honest, right? He actually went back to Okinawa with me for the couple of weeks of winter break. We became friends after day 2 in Akita. He complimented me on my smile and I thought he was an arrogant boy. Funny how quickly things changed. Surprisingly we were in the same Japanese class (his Japanese is 10x better than mine), and as a result we were always together, studying Japanese, eating meals between classes, learning the lyrics to Childs Play, talking for hours about the meaning of life…he really loves asking people what the meaning of life was. I still remember the first time he told me about this “beautiful sadness.” I’ve always been told that sadness is a bad thing but now I understand that it’s the complete opposite. We have all gone through pain but it’s only made us aware of ourselves. Patrik made sure that I understood how sadness helps you grow. Without sadness, we wouldn’t appreciate the happiness. Every time I was down, he would come in with this dorky smile, raise his voice, and bounce his shoulders and explain to me that because I was sad now, I know that I was happy before. I made great memories and now I have those to cherish. A beautiful sadness.

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I want to share with everyone that I fell in love with someone while studying abroad. Making myself vulnerable to her seemed like a risk knowing we would only be together for a short time. But, it was a beautiful risk, creating the space for her to make me feel more protected. I experienced the most intense feelings with her…confusion, desperation, pain, heart-exploding joy, and passion. She made me happy. It has been two weeks since I last saw her smile. You know, if it’s meant to be, it will be. We might come back to each other, but we might not. You can’t let the uncertainty stop you from doing anything. Fall hard and deeply in love. Go all in, man, because when are you ever going to have the chance again? Just live in the moment and let things play out the way it’s supposed to. I’m so happy that I fell in love with her while studying abroad. My time in Akita wouldn’t have been what it was without her by my side. Thank you for being vulnerable and letting me be a part of your life.

Like I said, it was all the people. I’m not sure what I was expecting from Akita. Maybe to speak Japanese fluently, meet some cool people from Europe, and leave knowing I had “ the best time of my life” as most people claim study abroad to be. I do have to say, Akita far reached my expectations. Akita has become one of my homes to me. Thank you Akita, for the confusion, heart-exploding joy, pain, constant excitement, and beautiful sadness.

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Olivia in Scotland: A Day in the Life

November 18, 2016

Hello everyone!

This week I decided to take one pretty ordinary day and chronicle everything I did so you could see a little bit more what my life here is like—all with the help of my good friend, Snapchat. So, here was my Wednesday!

I got up at 8:15 so that I could eat my breakfast and drink my cup of tea before heading to my 9:00 class. On Wednesday mornings, that’s my Scotland and Orality lecture.

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I’ve been under the weather for about a week and a half now, but on Wednesday I finally felt well enough to get to class!

The way my class schedule is here, I’ve got a class every day of the week, but it’s usually just a 9:00 class and then I’m free for the rest of the day. After my 50-minute lecture, I headed back to my flat and took some pictures and videos along the way of things that I normally see.

 

I went back to my flat to work on an English essay for a few hours and also to make sure I was there to sign for a package from my parents that was supposed to arrive that morning. My birthday isn’t until next week, but my mom ended up telling me I could open it early!

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It was fancy birthday tea and choocate from London!

Then at 1:00 I headed back out to meet a fellow study abroad friend, Meghan, who I know from back home and was visiting for a few days. We got soup from a place called Union of Genius (which I would definitely recommend for good cheap eats in Edinburgh). It’s so nice to see friends from home when you’re far away!

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After lunch I headed back to my flat, but since it was a sunny moment and I was on the lookout for things to show you all, I took a detour through George Square gardens.

Two other things I saw on the way back to my flat:

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The church at Buccleuch Place looked really pretty as the sun started to go down.

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The sun goes down reeeeally early here tis time of year!

After doing some more schoolwork (I work at home a lot here because the library is very crowded), I got on a bus to head to my church’s connect group. We meet every Wednesday evening at the pastor’s house for dinner and a bible discussion. This week we were talking about how we live out the true meaning of Christmas in a commercialized world (it’s already the Christmas season here because there’s no Thanksgiving!). It’s one of my favorite times of the whole week and I get to be with some of my favorite people here. Unfortunately, I was having so much fun eating food and hanging out with people that I forgot to take a picture of it! But I did have a good time there before hopping on a bus back to my flat and ending the night by Facetiming with a friend from home.

There you have it! I learned something from this blogging experience: documenting my day makes me look out a little more for the beauty in the everyday things around me that I might not notice otherwise. I really enjoyed doing that, and I hope to take that mindset with me on the days when I’m not blogging about everything. 🙂

Now, to make up for not taking pictures of my Wednesday night, I’ll tell you a little bit about my Thursday night. I went out to the midnight premiere of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them! (That’s the new movie from the Harry Potter universe for those of you who don’t know.) I was so excited to see this movie, especially since I didn’t get to see any of the Harry Potter movies in theaters and ESPECIALLY since I’m currently living in the city where most of that series was written! A couple of my friends and I took a bus to the theater to go see the movie in IMAX 3D. We discovered that, while there were definitely some Potterheads there decked out in their wizarding wear, midnight premieres in the U.K. are much quieter affairs overall than they are in the U.S. People aren’t very rowdy and they don’t get to the theater hours beforehand like they do back home. Even so, we were so excited, the movie was amazing, and we had a blast!

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We’re dorky but we’re fabulous. I’m so thankful for friends like these to have fun with!

Here’s my snapstory from last night. Enjoy! Till next time!

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Week 11: Crepes and Kraft Mac & Cheese

November 14, 2016

1I appreciate Patrik so much. I’m so used to drinking five cups of coffee at Richmond because it’s so easily accessible so I appreciate Patrik letting me make coffee in his room. I was having a hard time staying up in my International Trade class so Patrik brought me a cup of coffee during my class break, before my History of Pre-Modern Japan class. やさしいね〜 (he’s very kind, huh?)!

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Isabella and Annabelle finished writing their speech about their Korean trip for JPL100 and I finished my grammar homework for JPL300 and this was the outcome. We were all very tired so we continued to hang out in Annabelle’s room in Sakura Village. I was also messing with my camera a bit. Trying new lightings and what not.


Do you all remember the Draw Something app that came out maybe…four years ago? Well, Griff, Patrik, and I were hanging out in the Komachi Lobby and rediscovered the game. Some of our other friends joined in and we soon found out that Griff is actually Picasso. How do you even draw that nice of a toilet and blender? I want his drawing skills.

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Griff even drew me…I don’t have a neck but it’s still a pretty good drawing considering he drew me with only his index finger on his small screen.


We had our first snow this past week. I still can’t believe the snow stuck. It’s only the beginning of November. I woke up and heard the hail hitting the ground and immediately fell back into bed…very unwilling to walk outside in the cold. Thankfully I bought a winter jacket from UNIQLO though and it actually keeps me very warm. Now I have to buy some snow boots though or else I’m going to injure myself.

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Saturday, a group of us took the bus to AEON to eat lunch then walked over to Yotsugoya station to head into Akita City. I had the directions up on Google maps but closed the app when I realized where the train station was…you could see it in the distance. Unfortunately, the rode split into two and we didn’t know which road to take. Everyone yelled at me for closing the app then proceeded to split up. Patrik, Griff, and I walked on a path that led into the fields while Isabella, Annabell, and Tristan took the actual road. We ended up meeting up five minutes later as the roads met up! We made it to the station five minutes to spare before the train arrived.


You wouldn’t believe this but we actually ended up getting on the wrong train. It took us in the opposite direction. That’s the life of AIU international students: reading the schedule wrong and getting on the wrong train/bus. The train took us to Wada Station so we had to wait there for an hour before the train came to take us to Akita. It was fine though. We listened to some music on Patrik’s speakers and took a couple videos of us doing the mannequin challenge. If you don’t know what it is just look it up online and it should pop up as it’s trending right now. We had to retake one shot at least 10 times because I couldn’t stop laughing. Anyways, we went into the city and went to Karaoke for about 3-4 hours. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures but just know we sang our hearts out to 80s music and Michael Jackson songs. We took the last train from Akita to Wada Station and walked for an hour back to campus.

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I’m super proud of all of my friends for expanding their collection of beer stickers. Most of the time Japanese beer cans have a sticker on them so I decided to start collecting them on my phone. When I got to Akita, I influenced people to start collecting the stickers as well. Everyone has more than me now though and it’s upsetting. I took off all of my stickers recently so I have 0…


Sunday afternoon, everyone came to Isabella’s apartment to make crepes. Griff and Patrik had been planning this out for about two weeks now. It was originally supposed to be pancake day but Griff told us that the pancakes wouldn’t be as good without baking powder, so crepes it was. Patrik went all out and bought whipped cream, chocolate sauce, strawberry jam, canned peaches, and canned pineapples for the crepe toppings. We didn’t have a whisk so Griff, Annabelle, and Patrik stirred as fast and hard as they could with the forks and chopsticks. It was pretty intense.

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I FaceTimed my mom asking for help on how to make the whipped cream since none of us could read the directions. She told me that we needed a whisk or else it would be very difficult to make. So, Patrik actually ended up running to the Komachi kitchen and finding a whisk. The whipped cream was almost impossible to make with just a fork. Kevin had been stirring it for about 20 minutes and the consistency was still very liquid. Tristan took the whisk and stirred for only about 5 minutes before it turned to actual whipped cream.

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We actually had a can opener but I guess it didn’t work out too well…I turned my back to help Isabella with the crepes and by the time I was done the can was opened like this. Super dangerous…we should probably invest in a nice can opener.

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The first one was pretty rough but Isabella looked up a tutorial on YouTube and after that the crepes came out perfect. Patrik sprinkled some brown sugar on his crepe. He had the first one and Kevin commented on the placement of the whipped cream. All of us put our whipped cream inside the crepe and Patrik found it super weird. I guess that’s just a minor culture difference in the way we make crepes. Everyone had 1-2 crepes and we were still very hungry so Isabella ended up making some Kraft Mac and Cheese that my mom sent me recently. Eating American food was a nice change. My mom is visiting at the end of this month so I’m going to have to ask her to bring some more mac and cheese with her!

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