大家好！
It’s been a while since my last post! Last week, I didn’t have much to write about, because I was really just in “prepare for finals” mode, and hadn’t done much interesting stuff; this week, there’s a bit more to talk about!
Finals for ICLP went… okay? The finals themselves were worse than expected, but then my grade ended up being better than expected, so I’d say a net win. I definitely still have a ways to go with my Chinese, but I really learned a lot this summer. My oral final in particular was quite funny, since all I did was try and make the professors laugh; one of the professors conducting the exam was my prof, so it was great!
After finals, the rest of the week proceeded incredibly slowly, but I made it through. Yesterday (Saturday), a few of us went to Tainan! We saw Chikan tower, Anping Old Street, and the old Dutch Fort from a few hundred years back. It was super cool: downtown Tainan is a lot like Taipei, just with a different color palette; you get the sense that Tainan has a lot history behind it, which is something we actually studied a lot in one of my classes.
Also, the Taiwan High Speed Rail (高鐵 gao1 tie3) system is insane, and probably the nicest I’ve ever been on. Everything is timed perfectly down to the minute, the trains are nice, the seats recline, literally everything about it is wonderful. Getting to and from Tainan was an absolute breeze as a result. Would highly recommend
See y’all next week! – Joe
View from the gaotie (in Tainan, I thin)
View from the Anping Fort (built by the Dutch from 1624-1634)
Stone horse at Chikan Tower (we named him Phil)