Mandarin studies review after having changed my approach - 1 year

It's been quite a while, since I made a language related entry into my blog and since it's been around a year since I changed my approach to my Mandarin studies so I thought it might be a good time to review a little and see where I stand with Mandarin at this point in time.

It's almost unbelievable that I can say this, but I feel my Mandarin is finally getting somewhere! It's been more than a year and a half since I've been in Taiwan and more than a year since I've completely changed my approach and I think it has definitely paid off. When I speak Mandarin now, I am not tired at all, I don't think about pronunciation and often I can choose from more than a couple of ways of how to say the same thing. The sentences that I produce - since I repeat what I hear around me, are structurally Mandarin-spot on and after such a long time, I finally start getting the gist of the logic of Mandarin and can improvise in situations where I haven't heard or said similar sentences/sentence structures before. I finished reading a 12 book series of 死亡筆記本 and towards the end of the series (book 10,11,12), when I got used to the vocabulary I was reading it almost at natural speed, which made me incredibly happy. Now I'm reading a fat 400 page detective story (黑暗的回聲) and try to keep a pace of 40 pages a day without a dictionary. Well, see how that goes. I usually understand every word when it comes to direct speech dialogues in these books. When it comes to descriptive sections, sometimes I understand every word, sometimes just enough to get the gist and sometimes I don't get the entire sentence.

Hiking in Taiwan - 陽明山 (Yangming mountain)

I went to Yangming mountain last week but took no camera and was later pretty sad, because there were some nice things worth taking pictures of. Since the place is not that far from Taipei city, I decided to go there again, just to take some pictures and try a different route.

陽明山 (Yangming mountain) is actually a complex of hills and peaks with the main peak called Qixing peak which is 1120 m above the sea level and the view from it is quite nice. It took me around an hour to get from the Yangming mountain station tourist center to the top, but I was taking pictures and resting so I think it could be done in 30-40 minutes of active walking.

The last time I went there I started at the Miaopu entrance, hiked all the way up to the Qixing peak and went down the other side to Xiaoyoukeng  and then took the bus back to the Yangming mountain terminal station. This time I started at the same place, but then went to Lengshuikeng, because I heard there’s nice waterfall there. The waterfall was nice, but unfortunately there was a fence and signs saying that it was dangerous to approach it. Being as hot as it was, that waterfall could’ve made my day. The waterfall started a nice little stream which eventually turned into a river. The hiking trails were always far up high from the stream, so it seemed impossible to get closer to it at first,  but I managed to find a small entrance, got off the hiking trail and made my way through the jungle directly to the river. I was so sad that I didn’t have river tracing shoes, because I would’ve traced the stream right back to the waterfall. On the other hand, I was alone and pretty far from the hiking trail, the rocks were slippery so I think it’s a better idea to go there next time.

Hiking in Taiwan - 紅淡山 (Hongdan mountain)

In a desperate attempt to escape the Taipei city pollution and noise (and boredom), after my last week's trip to the wonderful 陽明山 (Yangming mountain) and inspired by the this fantastic blog by Stu Dawson, I decided to start discovering the Taiwanese mountains and jungle on a regular basis! A lot of Taiwanese would laugh and say that there is no jungle in Taiwan, but compared to where I come from, what they have here definitely IS jungle :)

My plan is to climb a different mountain every week (well...... that's the plan) so hopefully I will write an article about 陽明山 later. My ultimate goal is to go to the top of the tallest mountains in Taiwan. There are 164 mountains/peaks that are taller than 3000 meters in Taiwan, with 玉山 (Jade mountain) being the tallest mountain in East Asia and the 4th tallest mountain on an island. There are so many things to see here, I can't believe I've been in Taiwan for such a long time and I've been missing out on all of this.