The Final Days

We’re in the finals 3 days of the program now in Taiwan. Yesterday was spent learning about Taiwanese food security and Today was spent in the Taipei Zoo. The food security lecture fell into the same problem as the research center guy from before. Again, they were closed minded about GMO’s and serious alternatives. I tried to bring up some valid points but it wasn’t going anywhere so I kept quiet. The zoo today was really cool. I got to see the giant panda house making their two panda the second and third that I have seen in my life. Later we got to head to the research part of the zoo that the general visitors never see. We saw monkeys and tigers super close up and even got to go pet the giant turtles. The rest of our time has been spent, clubbing, karaoke, and finishing our project. Tomorrow is our final days were we’ll present our project and say goodbye to everyone.

Earthquakes and GMO's

Today was our return to Taipei. On our way back to the city we stopped at the earthquake museum. The museum was created in the former site of a destroyed junior high school from the 921 earthquake. The museum was really cool and had a lot of exhibits for young and old alike. The best part of the museum was the earthquake simulation room that helped us to recreate the feel of the 921 quake in our room. It was super cool! Then, we traveled to the Agriculture research institute. I have to be honest; the lecturer at the center was way too against GMO’s for me. He refused to understand our points about the benefits to GMO’s and was too ground in his ways. But hey, his loss. Hopefully he’ll come around.

Monster Village

Most of today was used writing our report and making our PowerPoint. Honestly, most of that is kinda boring to blog about so I'll skip over that and talk about what I did over my afternoon break from writing. I kept hearing rumors about this place just outside Sitou called the "Monster Village". I really had no idea what to expect but I asked some of my friends who went the day before and they suggested I check it out. I went down with two of my friend and  must say what I found was awesome! The monster village was constructed back during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. When the Japanese left the island the owners of the village stayed behind and created a miniature Little Tokyo. All of the building make it look like a small Japanese village. Its called the monster village because there are these giant Japanese cartoon monster statues around the village. We eat at the buffet there in the village and it had everything we eat the entire trip in one place. Great times, great food, and great souvenirs to give to friend from the local shops!

Surveys, Surveys, and More Surveys

Today was survey day. We woke up early to hike up to some of the higher parts of Sitou for our surveys. My group covered the giant tree area and the Sky walk. I hadn't been to the sky walk prior to today and it was really cool. We were 7 stories up int he air at times on this catwalk that allowed you to literally walk through the forest canopy! We surveyed for several hours until lunch time and then meet as a group after lunch to compile our results. So far, it seems like we were right about our predictions that mainly people come to Sitou for tourism and it should make for a good report. Gotta get back to work on the results. Check back for more.

Project Time!

Our project weekend has finally arrived. After talking to both my group members and our professors we have finally settled on a topic. We'll be conducting field research at Sitou about the park's educational effectiveness in teaching the tourists that come to the park each day. We'll create a survey to test there knowledge tonight to see how much these people are learning in their travels. This topic really interests me simply for the fact that one of the main purposes of the park is for being an education area. However, when you look around, most people just seem to be here for the scenery. I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow when we pass out our survey.

Sitou Forest

We've arrived in Sitou Today. Sitou is the experimental forest in central Taiwan that is co-run by NTU. I must say that after coming on this BACT trip I know a lot more about all the sites NTU owns here. There are so many! Anyways, Sitou is basically a giant national park. There are trees and trails to walk around in but that's about it. There's really not a whole lot to do there but it's peaceful and a nice change of pace. We'll be staying here for the next 4 or so days so it should give me some time to explore around here. Plus, there's a convenient store here which we haven't seen for awhile. Speaking of which, I gotta go run there now but I'll catch y'all later!

Tea Plantation

Today was our trip to the Phoenix Tea Plantation. The plantation is owned by NYT and an experimental tea plantation. We got a tour of the grounds by the staff and they explained to us that part of the land was being converted to experimental fruit planting which was sort of surprising to me. After our tour we learned a proper tea ceremony fro the staff including how to position the cups and pots. There are so many rules involved with the ceremony like how the tea pot must be constantly kept at a 45 degree angle with the set at all times. It's so weird. Afterwards we traveled to the Farmer's Association where we learned about tea judging. We analyzed the tea leaves and the smells of tea with expert tea judges and then could buy some tea! Overall, a great day!

Wood Utilization

The past two days of our trip have been spent in at the NTU wood Utilization Center. The center receive it's timber from the NTU experimental forest to make lumber for construction and crafting. The center has a giant wood carving museum which i pretty cool to look at. We got to make our very own stools on our second day there and learned this awesome wooden puzzle game that we got to take home. They made the game a competition and I even got a baseball bat for being the quickest guy at the puzzle. Tomorrow is tea here at the plantation we're staying at so I'll update ya'll with more tomorrow!

Experimental Farming

Today we finally left the mountains for the lower lands. We visited the NTU experimental farm where they grow all sorts of fruits. This branch specialized in Tomato production. We picked some of the sweet golden tomatoes that they were growing in the green houses. The tomatoes were really sweet and make for a great snack! Then we travel to the NTU Wood Utilization Center. The center let us tour their display room which was effectively a chair museum. They were nice to look at and all but it was kind of boring after the first few pieces. Hopefully tomorrow's bench activity will be more exciting. Here's hoping it's small enough to take home!

Mountains and Medicine

We're ending our three day stay in the mountains tomorrow so I wanted to hit some of the highlights of the weekend for you guys. We climbed one the highest mountains in Taiwan yesterday measuring in at about 10,200 feet above sea level. The air is pretty thin up here but its nice in a way being away from all the pollution of Taipei. I started getting sick again after the big climb so I got to go down the mountain afterwards to the local clinic for some medicine. The doctor was really nice and helpful and spoke perfect English so I felt at easy for the most part. They gave me weird packaged pills that are all Chinese but hey, I'm felling better so I'll go with it. I'll check back in later to tell you more about the farm.

Top of the World

We officially reached the highest point the highway can take us here in Taiwan. We're up at roughly 9,000 ft for the next three days on an experimental farm owned by NTU. THe air is pretty thin up here and the roads are really narrow up here. There's been several times that we've had to wait for other cars pass us  so that we could move forward on the highway. We're going to the highest point on our trip here in Taiwan tomorrow reaching 10,000 ft. I can wait to get to the top of the mountain and explore. We have to wake up at 4am to go which kinda sucks but we'll make it work. Signing off from the 2-mile high city. See you all later!

Mountain Time

Well, After 10 days in Taipei we're finally heading out to the country. We've traveled to the central eastern part of the island near Hualin City. We stayed in Hualin in a hotel last night and tonight we're staying in the highlands of Taiwan. I got sick in Hualin last night so I missed the night market that everyone went too but at last I got a lot of sleep. Today we went hiking on some trails near the mountains which were really beautiful. I'm looking forward to the high mountains for the next ew days. I'll update when I can. Peace!

Hot Springs and Temples

This week was also filled with a trip to two really interesting field trips to big cultural spots in Taiwan. The first was the Beitou Hot Spring museum. It was the first big hot spring public bath in Taiwan but was abandoned when the Japanese left in the 40's. It's since been refurbished so visitors can come tour the building. It was a ton of fun touring the museum even though our guide went to Purdue for college a few years ago. We had some fun banter between the two of us about our schools but UIUC was the obvious winner.

Our other stop was the Sanshia Master Temple. It was designed by one of the prominent artists in Taiwan and is set right in the middle of a small town square. The temple was super ornate with dragon sculptures and tons of people praying. As a bonus, there was a dance competition going on outside of the temple so I too some time to watch that too. It was nice listening to some American music during it and dancing along. The pic poster isn't working for some reason so I'll try to fix that later but keep checking back for more!

Volcanoes and Geysers

Hey guys, I'm gonna try and keep this one short but I wanted to tell you all about my trip Yangmingshan National park. The park surrounds a dormant volcano that's about an hour's drive from Taipei. The park is really beautiful and during our hike through the park we saw a ton of cool plants and insects. The visitor center video was by far the best intro video for a park or museum I have ever seen. It centered around a guy wit a hammer and a girl with a cello that for some reason needed to lug that damn hing all the way up the mountain so she could play it up here. Great times overall watching it.We also got to see the giant geyser on the side of the mountain which reeked of sulfur like rotten eggs but was really beautiful. I'll attach a picture below to show you all. That's all for now but catch in later so I can explain what else I've been up to.

Karaoke Nights and Insect Delights

I forgot to post yesterday so I'm going to make a double post today. I finally got to go to karaoke last night. I've had friends that have gone before but I really didn't know what all to expect. We went to this place called Party World which is a 24 hour karaoke bar. The whole main entrance has crystal chandeliers and pianos. I was really surprised by it all. We had a pretty large group with us so we decided to get the large room which came complete with granite counter tops, a flat screen TV, and a huge wrap around leather couch. It was massive and even had it's own private bathroom. We sang the night away with American classics as well as Chinese and Taiwanese songs alike. They also had really stereotypical regional foods you could buy. We got the American plate which consisted of hot dogs, onion rings, and potato wedges. We had a great time were super tired.

The next day in class was filled with lecture after lecture about the Insects and marine biology of Taiwan. We finished the day with a scavenger hunt around the NTU campus and played charades together. It was a lot of fun. I was really tired for most of it but overall a really great two days!

First Day

Well, day one in Taiwan is under my belt and I gotta say... this city is AWESOME! After my grueling long 30 hour travel day (24 of which were spent in a plane flying) I finally made it into Taipei where I was greeted by a couple NTU students to take me to my dorm. I passed up and slept for 8 hours and then woke up for my first real day in Taipei. We went to the Taiwan national museum which was a three story building near the center of town that had a bunch of normal exhibits. All of the exhibits were in mostly Mandarin so I didn't really know the significance of some things but thankfully, my new Taiwanese friends were quick to translate for me.

After the museum, we had lunch in Taipei Main Station which is basically like Union Station in Chicago. The place was not only one of the largest train stations I've seen but it also has a giant food court in it with a bunch of tiny restaurants. After lunch we went to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Square. The square was huge and reminded me somewhat of China's Red Square.

After dinner back at NTU, some of us called it a night while i went with a couple other people to the Huahsi Night Market. The market is famous for its snakes stores. That's right people, snake store. Following in Taiwan and Asia's, "weird foods" trend is a store tat serves snake soup. The make a brother like soup with chunks of snake boiled right into the soup. The snake meat tasted great but surprisingly snakes are really bony so you really have to work at it to get the meat. The soup is served with a trio of shots: snake alcohol, snake bile, and snake venom. The alcohol was nothing special, but the other two shots were really cool. THe bile tasted really sweet like sugar cane juice. The venom on the other hand I didn't try. The said it was mixed one-to-one with the anti-venom but I didn't want to take my chances since the guy across from me had an allergic reaction and couldn't feel his hands.

And all that was just my first day in Taiwan. I'm having a great time and can't wait for more. Check in tomorrow for my update about NTU and my first karaoke experience.

3 More Days!

Hey guys,

My name is Matt. I'm a Microbiology Pre-med major from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I'm really looking forward to studying abroad in Taiwan this summer and can't wait to experience the country. I'll be updating my blog several times throughout the trip so stay tuned for updates...