Taiwan's history(day 7)

Although pictures weren’t allowed inside the museums today, it was still a nice time walking around the air-conditioned rooms, learning about some of Taiwan’s culture/art. Our first stop was at the Shung Ye Formosan Aborigines Museum. I never considered Taiwan as having so many different Aborigine tribes. In total, there are 14 different groups  from this island, each with distinguishable physical and cultural characteristics. I think the thing that most stood out to me was the facts that women in most of these tribes were the ones who ran the show. They were looked to for wisdom and decision making. Very different from the history of women status in America and many other countries, where the man was regarded as “higher” in rank. We also saw some tools where the people tattooed their faces! The tools looked like it would hurt so much! These tattoos were regarded as a beauty symbol and womanhood status.

We ended our busy day at the famous Shilin Night Market. This is the busiest and biggest night market in Taiwan, and before coming here, I read so many blogs saying this was a must see. We all tried to not eat a lot of snacks throughout the day so we would still have room for all the yummy food at this market! I was on a mission to try as many things as possible! We got off the bus, and our huge group managed to walk across the street as a pack, but we didn’t stay together long, because maybe only 5 or so minutes into the stalls, we all got separated into smaller groups. It was almost impossible to keep everyone together because of the sea of people; pushing and moving along the tiny crammed street. My group, consisted of mostly the guys so their “man appetite” was calling them to the overabundance of food stalls. So our first mission was to find a good place to stop and eat. In our group was a couple students form NTU, so they knew where the good stuff was located. And it so happens that all of the famous foods were underground! You hop on an escalator and you come upon a huge square area almost like a food court (just 10x more people!) I was warned on the escalator that outside every stall, there were people who would yell at you to try and get you to come over. They were really forceful! Haha, or maybe it was just because I wasn’t use to the excitement and energy these people displayed in order for our business.  But finally we ended up picking one, and many of us had the popular Oyster Omlete, smothered in a famous tangy sauce. It was absolutely perfect. It was neat to see the cooks making your food just a few feet away; you know it’s the fresh real deal. Baker was super excited to get a bowl of Duck Blood… so ofcourse, sticking to my motto from the beginning, I had to try some. It was.. interesting. Some Sticky Tofu was on our table as well, which was another greasy goodness dish. So with all these heavy dishes, we needed something light and refreshing, so our next stop was for dessert, and taste some of Taiwan’s popular Shaved Mango Ice. Absolutely, it hit the spot. Huge mango chunks ontop of shaved ice (infused with mango juice). 

We ended up walking around the stores for a while, and bumped into some of our other people along the way. Of all the stalls with clothes, jewelry, souvenirs, ect…I only spent my money on food. Best purchases of the whole day.

 

The entrance of the Aborigines museum

In front of the National Palace Museum

now a fun shot!

 

 And the rest of the photos are from the Shilin Night Market:

Oyster Omelet

Sticky Tofu

The gang!

Candied Fruit

our menu! i'm so glad the other students know Chinese or else I would be so lost! haha

Mango shaved ice

Culture Galore (day 6)





Today was a pretty chill day; we were all still recovering from the monstrous hike and walking all day yesterday haha. So we went to the Ceramics Museum! My senior year of high school, half of my classes were ceramic classes so I was excited to see some cool art!! I felt like a real tourist because we were given those headsets that you see people wear to listen to facts about the exhibits. But, we followed our tour guide throughout the museum to see the evolution of the ceramic styles. 

At the end of our tour, we had a few minutes to wonder around the gift shop and grabbed some icecream (it seems that we get icecream any time we see some; it's almost an everyday occurrence haha). But after that, we got to make our own ceramic plate and bowls! I thought we would be throwing a pot (because we watched some videos in the museum of artists changing a lump of clay into a tall beautiful vase), but we used a mold and pounded the clay into it to create the shape. It was simple, but still fun to play arts and crafts again :) Although I couldn't take it back to the states (the firing process wouldn't be done in time) I will end up giving it to Jack, or one of the NTU students. 

 

The entrance of the museum!

Ms. Husar (my ceramics teacher in highschool) would love this place!

Inside a "kin"

Making our own plates!

 

After the museum, we headed back to NTU to have some dinner on our own and get ready for a calligraphy class! Some of us went to the student restaurant area, where there are a number of places to choose and eat at. Jess, Jiling, and I all had some potstickers/dumplings for dinner.. but we all saved our appetite for these gigantic icecream crepes that caught our eyes when we were looking at all of the choices. So our dessert was larger than our actual dinner haha! But it was so good! Cheap (as most of the stuff here in Taiwan) and delicious! Perfect!

So the calligraphy class was super interesting! I've never done calligraphy, or even written a Chinese character before, so it was a whole new experience. I was sitting next to Richard, and he has done it before, so his strokes and characters looked perfect compared to my scribbles haha! But I started to get the hang of it: when to push down on the brush, the order of strokes, and how to hold the brush perpendicular to the paper. So many things you had to remember! But it was very intriguing! I want to go buy a brush and ink to bring back to America so I can work on it!

 

Huge crepe with mango icecream and mango chunks! YUM!

Calligraphy class was so fun! I want to try this more when I get back home!

My attempt! Writing Chinese characters first time! Oh, and some of these characters spell out my Chinese name ("an chi ya")

Super hikers! (day 5)

Today was one of the most hot, tiring, and amazing days so far! I absolutely love hiking, so it was so cool to experience hiking of Taiwan's unique mountainous terrain. We headed to Yangmingshan Nation Park, to try and climb Mt. Qixing. This mountain is located on the Datun Volcano Group and is the highest mountain at the rim of Taipei City/Taipei Basin. Also it is the highest dormant volcano in Taiwan. I've been to Yangmingshan before when the grad students took me but last time we took our prof's car to make it up a couple mountains. This time, we were going to experience the elevation change first hand; a more rewarding trip :) It was especially cool because we had two profs with us to point out some of the vegetation and insect species. We made many stops along the trail to see some lizards, insects, and some interesting flowers/plants. There was a loud buzzing sound all throughout the forests, so we eventually found the insects that made them.  They were called cicadas! They are insects that only live for a short time. They come out of their "shells" to feed. One of the profs caught one of them (only males make sound) so this one went crazy!! I felt kind of bad for this little guy, the sound he made was like a distress screech! but at the same time, it was cool to see the big bug up close.

 

What I found most interesting was the changing vegetation as we moved from the base of the mountain to the top. We started with dense forests, with tall luscious trees, ferns, and a lot of shade cover. It was especially humid today, and for the first half of the hike, it was sticky hot. As we inched closer to our goal, the trees became more and more sparse, with more sunlight peeking through the canopy.  Eventually we hit an area where the trees turn into long shoots of bamboo. The bamboo was so dense, you couldn't see through the brush (and on the way down, we took turn leaning up against the bamboo, it was so dense that it held up our weight!). Also, the wind got very strong as we moved up, so the temperature was super chill, which was a nice break from the humidity. The top of the mountain was such a rewarding experience; we all let out a huge sigh of relief that we made it, and we had a new burst of energy cause we were all excited to see the amazing view!  1120 m above sea level, and we got a 180 degree picturesque view of the ocean, mountains, city, and forests (all available from a turn of the head). The wind was so strong, we all had trouble standing up straight! I was surprised that I had to fight to hold myself up and not fall due to the wind's power! 

The way down was so easy compared to the four hours of hiking at a 70 degree angle. It seemed that it took us only an hour to make it down. At the bottom we stopped at some sulfur deposits, and the dormant volcano site. It definitely smelled like it! After breathing the clean air from all the trees, the pungent smell coming from the ground shocked all our noses haha.

At the very bottom, we all stopped for lunch, and a much needed icecream bar. Mango icecream was the perfect treat after our work! Mangos are really expensive in the States, so I've been trying anything I see with the words mango in it. 

the entrance, I don't think we knew what we were in for..

this dog was cheering us on!

 almost there!

on top of some sulfur crystals (on the way down)

at the top!! enjoying the view and wind!

 



The bus ride to the Beitou Hot Springs was so quiet because all of us were taking a much needed nap! The hike pooped us out!! But we were only halfway done with the day, and next on our agenda was the famous hot springs! The museum was very cute. There was a Japanese style room with the sliding doors and bamboo mats where many performances were held for the bathers. Also, we learned that Beitou was famous for the many old Taiwanese movies that were filmed here. So we watched some clips from a very very old movie. It was comical to see the overacting and funny actions of the actors haha.
After the museum, we walking up the hill a little ways to the actually Thermal Valley, which is the source for the hot spring's water. The hot spring in the valley is so-called Green Sulfur Spring. There is only two green- sulfur-spring found in this world, and Beitou Termal Valley is one of them! It was very beautiful! When standing at the railing, and looking out onto the water, it was like you were in a sauna! It made the already humid/hot weather seem cooler. There was steam surrounding and rising from the light blue water. The pH value of this Green Sulfur Spring is between 1.2 - 1.6... I dare not to imagine how painful it is if one skin is in contact with the water!

at the Beitou Hot Spring Museum

Thermal Valley (Beitou)

water water water! (day 4)

Today was all about Taiwan's coastline! I was super excited for this day, because I have always had an interest in the ocean/rivers (was thinking of majoring in marine biology a couple of years ago). We got in the bus to head to the Chao-Jing Ocean Center. It was pretty special because this place isn't open to the tourists and public, so it was kind of like a behind the scenes tour! We went downstairs to view the rows of tanks, which were filled with an array of different species. On the far side of the basement, there was a huge tank that lined the whole wall. There swimming around were the biggest fish I have ever seen! They were gropers! these fish were slow swimmers, with a periodical swish of their fin to creepily glide through the water. But they were huge!! As big as my arm span, or even bigger! I think what really got me was the fact that there were cases where they attacked humans... but they were still so cool to see. We weaved through the rows of tanks to see many different types of fish, crabs, and corals. We found Nemo! Actually a lot of Nemo's and Dory's; they were just hiding out here in Taiwan! We even got to go into a special room where they kept some of the deep sea animals, such as the gigantic crab. the room was kept very cold, to mimic the temperature of the bottom of the sea. It was lighted with hues of blue and some green light, which made it kind of hard to see clearly. It was a neat thing to see; a little glimpse of what it is kind of like at the bottom.

So after another lunch box, and a little hike around the water's edge, we hopped back into the bus to make our way to the intertidal zone. Along the way, we had to stop and borrow some funky looking boots, which were needed to wear in order to prevent us from slipping everywhere on the rocks. We also grabbed a drink that was derived from seaweed! it was actually really refreshing; but it took me a little bit of time to get over the "jelly" texture.

We finally made it to the tide pools! It was cool to compare these tidepools to the ones I frequently went to in California. Here, there wasn't any sand inbetween the rock features, there was just a huge strand of the rocky surface. We had some mishaps where some of the students slipped on the unstable rocks, and got some scrapes and cuts, but nothing too serious. I was surprised at how many sea creatures we found! Sooooo many crabs scurried across the rocks, and hit in the crevasses. Also the numerous brittle stars was unique to me. The tidepools in CA didn't have as many sea stars, just a lot of sea anemones (which I didn't find any here).

the group before heading to the ocean center (with a beautiful view of the water!)

Me and Baker at the intertidal zone!

Brittle star!

Taiwan has so many crabs! I was amazed at how many we saw scurrying around the rocks

So unique...

Sea cucumber, when you picked it up, it would squirt water at'cha!

harvesting rice + night hike!(day 3)

Today was an early start! We all had to meet at the university by 7:45! In order to try and escape the sun's peak, because today we were going to learn how to harvest rice at the NTU's farm! Last month, I always passed by the farm on my way to my lab, but never got to walk in it and explore. So being able to actually see it first hand and working the fields was too cool! Each of us got to wear a unique hat that most of the farmers use to keep the sun's rays reaching their skin. So with our hat in place, and a long hook looking tool, we were off to the field. It was surprisingly easy to cut the rice shoots from their base, just a few swipes of our 'slasher' tool, and you had a handful of rice shoots. But, I have so much appreciation for the famers who do this all day long, because it was very tiring after only a couple of times. After this, we were all very hot and sweaty, so we cooled off up to the conference room to prepare for some lectures.
On our agenda we were going to learn about the geography of Taiwan, the flora and vegetation of Taiwan, and finally a little bit about the marine biodiversity. They were really interesting, but I think the early morning of outdoor work was felt among everyone. Our breaks were spent mostly trying to fit in a nap before the next lecturer. And we needed to because for tonight, we have planned a night hike/frog observation!
So at around 7:30, we all headed to the mrt station to take the train to a bus stop, that then took us to the forest! I didn't realize this before we got here, but this was the same area some of the grad students took me too almost a month ago! It was cool to experience it again, with a different guide and company. Our guide was a frog expert! Throughout the hike, he knew which frog calls matched which species; he also was able to imitate (pretty accurately) the different frog calls to try and lure their voices out of the bush. We found so many different types! Even a snake passed our path, which got some screams and commotion from some of the students haha. I posted some more photos below!

the rice field (left) and Ben with a huge stack! (right)

Jessica, Kylee, and me!

The Bufo bankorensis (an endemic toad)

Taipei tree frog (leaping right at the moment I took the picture haha)

!

learning "the know" (day 2)

Its the second day! It seems that I've known these people for so much longer than only one day! But everyone is so nice and welcoming, that we are just all one family it seems haha. So today is officially the start of the BACT program! We all got to the university's conference room that we were in yesterday to have the opening ceremony. We all got to meet the professors that will be accompanying us to various future trip destinations, as well as the director of CIAEAE. after this, we all walking past the famous Palm Tree Blvd to the other side of the campus to the Gallery of NTU History. We had a  guided tour about the history of this university. It was so neat to see some of the actual items, desks, notebooks from the first few baby years of this college. Afterwards we needed to get some of our energy out, so Jack created a scavenger hunt for everyone! This was in order to help everyone get to know where some places are located on campus, as well as have some fun! We all got split up into groups, and we were given a sheet of where we had to be at certain times (in order to compete in mini games and get some points!) It was very hot already (only 10 o'clock!), so our team kind of took it casually walking to and from all of our check points. But it was super fun! Some games included water balloons, getting dizzy, and stealing random people's socks... haha :)
But after this, we all herded into the room to get ready for some lectures. The rest of the day we learned about the fauna and insects of Taiwan. I love seeing the different pictures that the lecturer provided in the lesson. The biodiversity of Taiwan is amazing! So many different species, each unique and special; sometimes I just have to give a pat on the back to God for being able to think up and create all these different species! So cool!

Only tree of us didn't know Chinese, so we had to come back to the university after dinner to take a Chinese course! We learned  the four basic tones, and the different "vowels" of Chinese! Also a song that I posted below, to learn how to read pinyin (which is the use of the English letters to create the 'sound' of the Chinese words). I think we all three will memorize this song eventually, we sang it many times! its so cute!

lets get it started!

Today was the first day of the BACT program! I can't believe that all of the trip planning, and preparation is finally done with so we can enjoy and learn with these students! I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the other participants to Taiwan, for a month now.
We all meet at the dorms for a quick hello and then we were off to the university's conference room. There we all got to have breakfast with each other, as well as introduce ourselves with our presentations. It was so cool listening and learning about where everybody came from. There were people from Singapore, China, Australia, England, Canada, USA, and also here in Taiwan. All these students, all coming for the same interests. It makes our world seem even smaller. It was so easy talking with everyone here, it seemed everybody instantly clicked!
So after the self-introductions and announcements, we had lunch at the mrt's Taipei Main Station stop. This was a huge food court on the top level; so many people! This is one of the busiest stops because it is also the stop for the high speed railway, and the train.
It was starting to drizzle a little bit as we all made our way out of the station towards the National Taiwan Museum.  This building was so pretty! Inside there was a lot of exhibits about the history of the island, the culture, what people dressed back then, ect. A little bit more knowledge of Taiwan was a good way to start off the program! We were then going to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial, but unfortunately the rain turned violent with some pretty big thunder and lightning strikes in the sky. So we retreated back underground to the mrt to head back to the university area for some dinner and last minute things.
Some of the students who are from Taiwan wanted to show us Shiling market place, which is really popular for young people (our age!) It was almost like a mini times square, but bustling with so many people and shops! there were many alleys that had a huge row of movie theatres and different food stalls. Music was everywhere! Such a neat atmosphere! Our big group split into smaller groups, and we were off. My group found an ice-cream stand that serves the soft serve in a cone, seems normal enough, until they hand you the cone and the ice-cream is longer than your face! A bunch of us got some, I tried the mango flavor! It was fun to try and balance the ice-cream so it won't topple over, and also eat it fast enough so the humidity and hot weather won't melt it! I posted some pictures from our first day below!

lunch at the mrt station! (we both tried some squid/noodle dish!)

the entrance to the museum

the very big ice-cream! It was already starting to drip down the side!