First Week

My first week in Taipei has been quite exciting, from starting classes, to eating all over the city, and to visiting parks and museums. We had our Chinese placement test on Monday, and after that we had our first culture class with Dr. Liu. We had a very enlightening discussion on the cultural differences we all noted throughout our first few days, and since then we've certainly noticed many more! The next morning was our first Chinese class, and it was an entirely different experience being fully immersed in the language. Even though the other students in the class were not Taiwanese or Chinese (we had Vietnamese and Indonesian students in our class), they spoke quite fluently and quickly with each other and the teacher, and so it was very difficult to process all of it in time. Since then however I have improved significantly, and I have learned significant amounts of new vocabulary.

In our first lesson we were added to the Line group chat for our class, and we learned that they would be selling food at a fair on Thursday. The Vietnamese students had brought in some Vietnamese fruits for the class to try, and offered some to us. It was certainly the most fun class. The next day we had to prepare a dialogue from the textbook, and perform it in front of the class, and so we prepared well before going in. Thankfully it went without a hitch; memorizing in Chinese is so much more difficult to do. Each class our teacher puts up on the board any new vocab we learn, so I've been learning so much thoughout the week. It's been a challenge to keep up with the material, but I've enjoyed learning it all.

Today was the fair! We saw all the lovely foods that all the different classes had prepared, food from Indonesia, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan, all being sold at very reasonable prices. I bought the spring rolls and green mangos that my class had prepared, a flowery blue tea (花花茶), and a tofu and quail egg dish. All of it was delicious, especially the green mangos, which were covered in a sharp spicy dressing.

Today we also visited the 228 Peace Memorial Park (二二八和平紀念公園), commemorating the victims of the violence from the February 28th incident (in 1947). The memorial was beautiful, and we learned that every year on February 28th, they light a torch in the center in honor of the victims. After that, we went to a museum of Taiwanese history, learning much about the Japanese occupation and a significant amount about the aboriginal peoples of Taiwan. We learned about many of their cultural practices, customs, and differences. Finally, Dr. Liu treated us to the best meal we've had since arriving, hot pot! Not only did they provide an exorbitant amount of food, they even gave us free tea, milk tea, coffee, and ice cream! This was a fantastic first week here in Taiwan!

我很喜歡台灣，台灣菜，和台灣的文化！

12/25/2017

We arrived Saturday afternoon at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (台灣桃園國際機場), and after getting our luggage, met with Dr. Liu and Zero to wait for the other students to arrive. Zero gave us name tags with yoyo cards (悠遊卡), already loaded with $300 (Taiwanese dollars). They're primarily metro cards, but also work in many local convenience stores, especially 7-11! We finally got back at around 11pm and went straight to sleep.

The next morning, we got down early to visit the Daan Forest Park (大安公園旅店) to see how the city of Taipei wakes up. First, we stopped by at a local bakery and bought some very nice baked goods for quite cheap, a delicious breakfast before heading down to the park. Once there, we did many things, like walking barefoot across a stone path, for good circulation, and even doing some qi gong (氣功) under a tree. It was an absolutely beautiful park, and it was lovely doing qi gong while taking in the fresh air.

Afterwards, we took the metro to the Chiang Kai-shek (中正紀念) memorial in Taipei. It was absolutely stunning, done entirely in traditional Chinese style architecture, with red and gold everywhere. We entered the main memorial hall, and looked through a lot of his history and Taiwan's history, learning much about the country. There was also a calligraphy exhibit which was very beautiful, with many many scrolls lining the walls.

Next, we took a short nap and went to Taipei 101 for the Christmas Eve celebrations. Unfortunately, we weren't able to go up the building and observed it from outside. After that, we went back and went to the Shida (師大) night market. There were many cute little shops all throughout. That was my first full day in Taiwan!

台灣很有趣!!