End of Summer

In just four days, I will be moving away to start med school! I'm super excited, although I'm a little sad that summer is almost over!  I pretty much did nothing this summer except veg out, sleep, and watch tv - something that I can't remember doing for pretty much my whole life.  summers at challenger (where I met my biffle Tasha!), CTY, swim/waterpolo with double practices and weekend tournaments, followed by a summer working a Blockbuster, and then three summers in Baltimore doing something med school related, I've always been really, REALLY busy.  So this year, I decided to start my summer with pretty much nothing at all planned.  And it's been great, although I'm kind of getting to the point where I'm running out of TV and my parents are starting to drive me crazy....

SO CLEAN, right?

So first, I went to Taiwan for two weeks, to visit my mom's family, in Taipei.  While it's incredibly hot & humid from May-September, we managed to arrive during the two weeks when not one, but TWO major typhoons came through.  So to escape from the seemingly endless rain, my mom and I spent the majority of the time lounging at my grandma's apartment (w/ AC) and eating.  Also, we went shopping a lot!  Public transportation in Taipei is probably one of the best I've seen anywhere!  I think it combines all the best qualities of big US city subway systems - it's cheap, has AC in most places, is REALLY CLEAN, and runs very frequently.  

Lunch at Costco - Seafood pizza, clam chowder, and mango shaved Ice. Yumm!

It took us 10 mins via public transport to get to Costco, so we went twice too.  Costco has always been one of my favorite places ever, but now knowing that they have awesome international Costco just solidifies my undying loyalty to this company.  (BTW. did you know that they sell...everything?  They do custom men's suits, and vacations, and cars, and even coffins!)  While the food is nowhere near Michelin stars, it's pretty decent.  They even sell sashimi!  



So, other than going to Costco, I also went with my aunt to the open air market!  There is so much delicious food to eat there!  They also have everything from live chickens to clothes and shoes and hair accessories.

fried taro cake

Fresh fish!

Fresh seafood!

Beef noodle soup!

soy milk & rice milk

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Shark meat?

my aunt & her shopping cart, with all the delicious vegetables she bought! =)

 Anyways, after Taiwan, we took a family vacation to Eureka, CA over July 4 weekend.  For those of you who don't know where that is, it's about 5 hours north of SF on Highway 101.  It's about 1 hour from the CA-OR border.  It was very relaxing, and there are a lot of great places to go hiking by the beach!  Here are some of the pictures I took, although they really don't even come close to how beautiful the scenery really was :)  

I spent the rest of the summer watching TV and reading.  I started reading some of the books from USC's summer reading list, here are some of the good ones that I recommend!- 

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle

Maybe if I feel up to it later, I'll add some summaries, but these are definitely all books that every aspiring med student should definitely read!!

Whew!  That's all for now.  How about all of you?  What exciting things did you do this summer?  And if anyone has additional book recommendations, definitely let me know! =)