I love holidays that fall on a Thursday! NTSU canceled class for Thursday and Friday so basically we've just been bummin' around Taiwan for the past few days.
Yesterday we did some more sight seeing and the best part by far was Jioufen (pronounced Joe-fan) Old Street. To get there, our bus driver FLEW up a steep windy road up the mountain. The roads had such sharp turns that the bus driver had to honk each time he went around a curve to make sure that anyone coming the other way would know to move.. flashback to France?! The bus ride was kind of like a roller coaster, only way more terrifying! We arrived at a little town centered around Jioufen Street, which should be named "Jioufen Stairs." The town was built on the side of the mountain so all of the streets are really stairs. There were only a couple actual flat streets. It was quite a workout but it was an adorable little place with some great shops and one of the best strawberry ice cream cones I've ever had. You must look at my photo albums to see pictures of this place. We ate lunch at a restaurant with a great view and for the first time we had a good fresh salad. I never thought I would appreciate fresh veggies so much! We also had a dish that had some sort of seafood with a couple raw eggs sitting right on top... flashback to Italy?! When it was time to leave, one of the Taiwan students told us to follow him to get back on the bus. It turns out we took the scenic route, and what an adventure this turned into! Although we walked for what seemed like forever, the view was amazing! The funny thing is - as we were walking down the mountain, we noticed a parking lot way at the bottom. After walking for a while, we took a turn and started heading back up the mountain. Another 20 minutes of hiking later, and we were at that same parking lot that we had been looking down at before. Ridiculous. But we all loved it.
Last night we went to the Bisha fish market which was... well, a fish market. I don't have many things to say about that... other than I lost my appetite for dinner that night.
Today we learned that a group of athletic training students are not the most artistic people. We went to Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum and had a really cute old man show us around. The place was tiny and is where his family business has been located for hundreds of years. He showed us pottery that his great grandfather had made and old pottery wheels. The building itself had so much character and even the ceramic tiles were made by his family. After the tour we got to paint pre made pottery and then we learned how to use the pottery wheel. Few of us were actually able to make something that looked decent. We all ended up having one of the workers help us/pretty much make the pottery for us. But it was still really fun none the less!
We were treated to dinner at Chang Gung Country Club. Most restaurants in Taiwan have round tables with lazy susans in the middle. Dinner is always a big family affair and I really love the atmosphere that the round table creates. The waiters bring out many large plates of food and you just spin the lazy susan and help yourself. Well tonight there were 20 of us at dinner and we were given a private room overlooking the golf course. All 20 of us fit at one huge large table with a lazy susan that beat all lazy susans! There was such a large smorgasbord of foods including... drumroll please ... PIGEON! After seeing the poison that is given to pigeons, I personally did not try it. (If you're not a Poe, you may not understand how funny this is to our family). Thank goodness we were given a private room because we were very loud laughing the whole time! We really outdid our athletic training-ness by sharing stories of dumb athletes visiting the training room. Only a special type of person finds these types of things amusing.
Tomorrow we are waking up real early and headed to the BEACH! We are currently at the very northern end of the island and we are going to take a bullet train that goes over 200 mph to the very southern end of the island. Can't wait to put my toes in the Pacific Ocean! I wonder if they'll have sharks teeth there...
