The week before last was our first week of classes. In that time, our group has experienced so much of Taiwan. The following events may or may not be in order...
The last thing I talked about was our Chinese class. I am getting used to it, so it's not as bad anymore. We have another presentation, paper, and test on Monday, so tomorrow will be another hardcore study day. Anyways, we only have Chinese class 3 days a week, so we have cultural class and business/economics class the remaining days. The week before last, we had our first business class. NTPU got a chiropractor to come speak to us about his profession and lobbying the Taiwanese government for recognition of chiropractors. We talked about the statistics, and how it the salary for a chiropractor in Taiwan is much, much lower than in the U.S. (only about $60,000). Also, we discussed doing business overseas and how it is sometimes difficult because of bribery and other ethical issues. I felt like it was very pertinent information and interesting to learn about since I may one day work internationally. Later that day, Lydia took us to Neihu Technology Park, the HQ of many large corporations. We listened to a talk about the economy and the development of the tech park. After that brief speech, they took us around the area, where we toured a sports complex. It's pretty amazing...it had pretty much everything you would want to do...swimming pools, racquetball, badminton, and basketball courts, workout rooms, and the biggest rockwall I've ever seen. Later that night, Lydia and the TA's had to leave, so we were left to make our own plans. We decided to go to Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world, after the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The district around Taipei 101 is very nice, but that is really no surprise. The elevator going up to the top (or almost the top) was so fast...I could feel my ears pop several times during our ascent. When we got up to the top, it was amazing...the city is really gorgeous at night. I would say it is a really good way to end a day.
The next day, we had our cultural class, so we went to the National Palace Museum. I was really excited about going because in this museum, there are housed more treasures of China than Mainland China has. Apparently, during the Civil War, Chiang Kai Shek and his troops took many of these antiquities with them when they fled to the island of Formosa (now called Taiwan). It is said that if the curators were to rotate all the pieces on display everyday, no piece would be repeated for 100 years. I was amazed to see these pieces of history, and the craftsmanship is really amazing. After our tour, most of the people in the group wanted to leave and get massages, but Jeremy and I still wanted to see the rest of the museum. After about 45 minutes perusing all the galleries, we met up with the rest of the group and headed to Shilin Night Market, one of the most famous night markets in Taipei. I had been looking forward to this before I even got on a plane to Taiwan. There are so many people there...and so much good food and inexpensive things to buy! I finally got to try stinky tofu, one of the famous street foods. It is made by fermenting tofu in a solution (I don't really know what is in this mixture). Then, it is fried, cut up into pieces, and finished off with cabbage and hot sauce. It was not as stinky as I expected, since everyone always says it is *so* horrible. Really, it was not that bad, and the taste was not as good as I imagined either. It just tasted like regular fried tofu that was very porous on the inside. Afterwards, we tried dou hua, a kind of gelatin-like texture dessert made of soybeans. I really love it; it is silky and slightly sweet from the syrup that they pour on. On top, there is also a bit of crushed ice. You can add a variety of toppings to it like red beans and other gelatins, but I like mine plain. After we were all shopped out, I went with Jeremy and Kochia, an NTPU student who is going to State this year, to search for durian. For those of you who don't know, durian is a spiky fruit that has a horrible smell, but is very delicious. We walked 4 or 5 blocks to look for this, and my feet were killing me after all the walking we had done that day. Alas, our search was fruitless. I did buy some of my favorite, longan (literally, it is translated dragon's eye. Mmm, delicious.).
I'll just go ahead and end this post because it's getting long...
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