Sorry I haven't written in a couple days, we have been crazy busy and have had limited internet access. We had our first excursion this weekend and our schedule was packed, so I'll quickly catch you up.
We started off Saturday by attending a class on herbal medicine. The professor was great and the second half of the class was all hands-on. We got to mix our own topical herbal medicines and apply them to each other. After class we met up with the NTSU students and all took the public bus to a market along the ocean side in Dan Shui. The market had all sorts of stores, street vendors, games, and restaurants. The street vendors sold traditional Tiawanese foods such as "stinky tofu," chicken blood cake, egg on a stick, salty plum tea, fried squid, and much more. Every time I turned around, one of my Taiwan friends had bought something new saying, "Try this! It's famous!" I am very proud of myself for taking at least one bite of everything that was suggested to me. I then rewarded myself with a frozen yogurt that was about half as tall as me. This is no exaggeration, I will post a picture.
On Sunday we took a train to Hualien and visited Taroko Gorge in Taroko National Park. The scenery was beautiful and the weather was nice. We ate at a traditional Tiawanese restaurant in the park and then checked into our hotel. We were supposed to attend an aborigine performance that night but unfortunately it was canceled due to the rain. In Taiwan there are four seasons: summer season, spring season, hot season, and rainy season. We are right in the middle of rainy season so the humidity is out of control. In other words, every day is a bad hair day.
This morning we went white water rafting and what an experience it was! The rapids were nothing like the rivers I've rafted in Georgia. For the most part, the river was very calm. But it was so nice to relax and enjoy the gorgeous scenery! Afterwards we had dinner at Li-Chuan Fishery, which is famous for it's golden clams. Apparently they have won a lot of awards... look it up. We took the train back to the NTSU dorms and tomorrow it's back to work!
I'm exhausted so I know I'm leaving out a lot of fun details. But tomorrow night I promise to post a lot of pictures so that you can all understand more of the full experience. A picture is worth a thousand words, right?!
