Xitou (溪頭) / Nantou (南投) / NTU Experimental Forest Trip
The hike picture.
What a lovely little weekend trip arranged by the IYC/Guoqing Dormitory (國青宿舍). On a very well-planned trip for the exchange and international students at NTU, we went to Xitou (溪頭) in Nantou County (南投), which is close to Taichung (台中). Xitou is part of the NTU Experimental Forest.
The first day, we set out from Taipei bright and early Saturday morning. I swear, food was the centrepiece of everything. From the first breakfast to the last dinner Sunday evening, we were extremely well provided for. The food was delicious! If you can imagine having practically a 10-course meal at a Chinese restaurant at every meal then you’ve imagined what we ate those two days. Well, just add the Taiwanese twist to it, and you’ve got it!
Would you willingly hurl yourself off a cliff?
For our first stop on our way to Xitou, we stopped at the Puli Brewery for lunch. Mmm… food.
As a surprise, we were offered the chance to go paragliding!! Unfortunately, the people allowed to go paragliding were limited. Despite that, it was a gorgeous day out to spend time lounging on a grassy field.
The prettiest thing about Sun Moon Lake in the dark: Their hotel.
After paragliding, we were shuttled over in the tour bus to Sun Moon Lake (日月潭). Apparently, it’s a very famous spot to visit in Taiwan. Ironically, by the time we made it to the lake, it was already dark. We didn’t get to see much of anything, but the boat ride was almost romantic. Aren’t all boat rides with 40 other people supposed to be romantic? Hah!
Oh, and be sure to eat some of the best tea eggs (茶葉蛋) in all of Taiwan while you’re at the lake. They’re better than the 7-11 ones.
The view from the accommodation place.
At the end of the day, we settled into our lodgings up on a mountain nearby. Supposedly it was cooler. Maybe being a Canadian makes me think everywhere is warm on Taiwan, winter or not. You know, because after all, Canadians live in igloos.
Canadian jokes aside, after a crispy and fun night, the next morning there were some tours to be had where we were staying. We had the option of hiking up to a pagoda or listening to a presentation about the making of tea. I went on the hike: The food needed to be worked off.
The bamboo bridge.
As a last activity before we went back to Taipei, we all piled into the bus and went over to explore the main part of the NTU Experimental Forest. I ended up in the group that went to take a look at the University Pond. Although we didn’t get to see the famed Sky Walk, the bamboo bridge was pretty cool. It’s rebuilt every year and it swings and sways and bounces as you walk across it. To make it even more fun, people completely disregard the sign that says that only a maximum of 10 people are to be on the bridge at a time. I really wanted to jump up and down on the bridge as I went across it…
And before I knew it, we were back in Taipei!
Mail from Home
This picture embodies what it feels like to receive mail and packages from home. Email, too.
Thank-you.
(Borrowed image.)
My Congee Adventure
Image borrowed from a website that I googled.
On a tip from a friend, deprived from congee as I was, I tried out the non-descript congee stand nearby NTU. Run by a Guangdong person (廣東人）the flavour was quite similar to the congee at home because Guangdong is where a lot of the early Chinese immigrants emigrated from. Thus, many overseas Chinese communities have a Guangdong flavour.
History lesson aside, by ordering my standard that I judge all congee places by, “thousand year old egg and lean pork congee” (皮蛋瘦肉粥）I expected something half-decent. I had been getting used to this… icky thing that I’ve come across in the Taiwanese places I’ve tried. A little too spicy, a little too watered down, etc.
And it was in the gold!
And thus, my congee adventure came to a close. (What adventure?)
A Trip to Tofu Alley
Lots of people.
This weekend, I made a trip to Tofu Alley. Or that’s what my friends called it.
Anyways, after riding the brown line of the MRT to its end at the Taipei Zoo stop, we caught a bus to take us to this alley. I’m looking at my map and it tells me that this “Tofu Alley” could possibly be in the Shankeng Township… Anyways, it’s a bit east of the Taipei Zoo MRT station.
Mmm… tofu.
The alley is a lot bigger than I expected it to be. Filled with people, too. Hehe, the most ironic thing is that not everything is made of tofu. For sure, many things are, but there’s other things like chicken and rice that are obviously not made out of tofu. Hehe.
So, we were so hungry that we ducked into a restaurant and tucked-in into this huge set-meal rather than buy a bit of 小吃(snacky food) here and there. The meal was possibly a 10 course meal. I forgot to count. Very delicious and none too expensive either. When we split the bill, it came to about 250 NTD each.
10 course meal?
After feeling very full and walking around for a bit just checking out the alley, I had enough room to buy some ice cream. Tofu ice cream, that is. Mmmm, it was good! It wasn’t so tofu-tasting as I had expected, so that was a welcome change. Green on one side and white on the other!
All in all, I’d like to go back again for some of that tofu ice cream and that set-meal. The set-meal reminded me of the big dinners at home with my family during special occasions. That and the meal was good. Mmmm…foooooood.
Commentary on NTU’s Main Library’s Study Facilities
Right now, I’m sitting in the basement of NTU’s Main Library. It’s alright. I actually much prefer the study facilities of the libraries at my university because it is much more comfortable. Here, the study areas actually promote study. They do this by having straight-back wooden chairs, lamps and only one electrical outlet per table, each of which, seats 6 people in total. However, this suits NTU’s studious atmosphere and most likely helps keep the school’s reputation as the top – and most difficult to get into university – in Taiwan.
At home, the libraries have multiple electrical outlets, extremely comfortable chairs, study space everywhere in places that look like an English gentleman’s reading room. Mind you, this is Canada, so some of the study spaces are in imitation of places abroad and have a sense of newness rather than tradition to them. I guess the state of my university’s libraries’ study spaces is indicative of the laid back feel of my university. Unless it’s exam time: Everyone’s a bit anxious then.
After checking out all 5 floors + the basement of the Main Library, I settled myself down in the study space in the basement. To enter basically anywhere that has books or study spaces in the Main Library, you need to have your student id card. You scan it before the gate to get access, much like swiping your card at the MRT stations to get the platforms.
Also, something interesting here is that in this particular study space (I don’t know about the others) is that when you swipe your card to enter, you’re assigned a spot to study in. You can change your spot once you get inside on a computer, but wow. There’s a couple hundred spots in this basement study area. The chart makes the study space look bigger than it actually is. At home, you just try to find a free spot wherever you can.
This orderliness is also something reminiscent of the MRT stations here because when people wait for the MRT, they will wait (for the most part) within the indicated waiting lines outlined on the floor of the platform. Again, I think this really promotes the work hard, study harder mentality that I’m imposing on NTU students right now.
Anyways, I still prefer my own study facilities at my university’s libraries because here, it feels too functional, too prison-like, too uniform (but it’s the most economical!). The dorms are more comfortable, thank goodness, but it’s harder to think there, that’s all. It’s a trade-off. However, go to the 24 hour room! (It’s the room that I’m in and I’ve already spent over 7.5 hours here this afternoon and tonight already. =))
PTT
PTT is a most glorious thing!
PTT (I don’t know what it stands for, google [now a verb!] it if you like) is the hub of online NTU life. It has everything from dorm complaints, chat about who’s hot (the NTU hot guy category is almost always dead), old exams (so I hear), clubs and just about anything else.
I don’t know why my dot is stopped at 台大台語文社 (NTU Taiwanese Language Club). This is a random screen shot of PTT.
Despite how confusing it might look, it’s really easy to use and it really helps me to improve my Chinese. Furthermore, this is where all the clubs and such post their information. There isn’t a website that every club puts up themselves, like at my university at home. PTT is their website.
So, if you’re anxious for information about NTU and NTU life ahead of coming to Taipei and experiencing it yourself, get yourself on PTT. You just need to download KKman or PCman for Windows or AlienBBS for Mac and then enter the address, and bam! You’re all set up!
I think PTT is the Facebook of NTU students. In other words, a possibly very large distraction. Hehehe.
Shampoo Bottles
Every day, I pass by the shelves that sit outside our rooms in the dorm hallways. I usually pay the things that sit on these shelves no heed as I operate on the idea that everyone generally has the same things sitting outside. However sometimes when I have time, I slow my pace and take a look at what actually sits outside everyone’s room.
Recently, I was walking down the hallway and all the shampoo bottles caught my eye. This was a result of last week Monday’s Orientation put on by NTU. My schoolmates from Canada and I were walking to the dinner and well, I had a cloud of flies flying above my head the whole way there. Or so they told me. I’ll choose to believe their words. No matter where I moved or how much I swatted the flies (or tried to), I couldn’t get rid of them. This situation was a result of my fruity smelling shampoo. Flies seem to love that or something. Mmm…
Everyone’s shampoo bottles were different. They weren’t different in that they didn’t do that same thing for everyone’s hair, that is, clean the hair, but all the bottles were like little flags proudly proclaiming where everyone was from.
That was interesting.
When I looked at my shampoo bottle, it had English and French on it. When I walked by the German girl’s room, her shampoo bottle was in German. The same went for the shampoo bottle sitting on the shelf outside the Japanese guy’s room.
So, without actually writing where we were from on name tags on the doors or something like that, if I paid close enough attention, I could decipher who exactly lived inside the room. However, that’s only for now. Once everyone’s shampoo bottle runs out of shampoo, we’ll all become a little bit more immerse into the Chinese language. Oh how we change bit by bit and day by day.
NTU’s Club’s Day
I had no idea so many people could fit into such a seemingly small space.
Here I was on Friday morning at the NTU Sports Centre which by no means is small, but the sheer number of people crowded into the gym sure made it seem so. Here at NTU, people seem so much more into their extracurricular activities than people do at home, probably because this is a surefire way to make friends as NTU students are the best test taking students pulled from schools across Taiwan.
But wow! There were a lot of clubs, everything was in Chinese, but there was a lot of energy. You could feel it in the fact that in the aisles between the booths you could barely move. It took my friend and I about 15 minutes to get from one end of an aisle to another in what would normally only take less than a minute to traverse the same distance.
Also, there were even clubs that were outside the Sports Centre. There were clubs that ranged from martial arts (so many!) to photography to helping out the aboriginal peoples that live in Taiwan. As long as you find your club, you’ll have a niche. Unfortunately, there wasn’t an Ultimate club. Boo.
However, since I have so much love for my bike, I think I’ll join the Cycling club. We’ll see, though.
Thoughts of a Canadian Exchange Student 
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