Another busy week has passed! I’m definitely not used to the 4 classes everyday schedule, and working on my mid-semester presentation on top of it all has definitely been a challenge. This past week (8/4-8/8) I wrote my in-class presentation on the history of the Taiwanese Blue Magpie in Taiwanese Indigenous mythology, and was pleasantly surprised to spot a few 藍鵲 around campus shortly after!
In an effort to keep motivated to do my homework, I’ve been trying out a bunch of cafes near NTU. There are so many, and they all have their own special atmosphere! The operation of cafes is truly an art here, and the service is incredible as well. On Friday I visited a puzzle cafe with a few friends where each customer can pick out a 45-300 or so piece puzzle to work on during about a 3 hour time slot. It was truly an excellent way to unwind after a busy week!
[delicious cafe treats!]
This weekend I joined the second ICLP trip to Dadaocheng/Twatutia/大稻埕. This section of the city is filled with history, and we visited several important sites including the Xia Hai City God Temple 霞海城隍廟, 新芳春茶行 (Sin Hong Choon Tea Museum) and a museum about important historical figure and doctor 李春生 Li Chun Sheng. After the tea museum a few of us were in the mood for a tea house, so we found one and tried 5 different teas: 佛手烏龍茶 (Buddha’s hand Oolong)，寶紅茶 (Ruby Black Tea)，阿里山烏龍茶 (an Oolong from Alishan)，鐵觀音烏龍茶 (Tieguanyin Oolong) and one other lightly fruity green tea whose name I forgot 😔. Another highlight of the day was eating 擔仔麵 (Danzi mian) at a Tainanese restaurant along with their fried tofu. This was probably my favorite meal so far! The noodles had such delicate flavors, and the texture of the fried, silky tofu cubes was to die for. With any luck I’ll be able to visit the real Tainan in the coming weeks! In order to get home I decided to see if I could bike all the way from Dadaocheng back to Gongguan where my dorm is. The nighttime bike ride all along the Tamsui 淡水 river took about 45min-1hr and was quite peaceful!
佛手茶！
My friend Nicole and I in a replica of an old Taiwanese classroom in the Dadaocheng Visitor Center
霞海城隍廟 (Xiahai City God Temple)
Tea roasting room!
擔仔麵和炸豆腐 Danzi noodles and fried tofu
Recently I also have had a great deal of success collecting new music mainly from Taiwanese artists by Shazaming a lot of songs haha! The indy/rock music scene here is very much thriving and I hope I can get the chance to go to some live music venues while I’m here. The first band I found was just from the Taiwan top 50 chart. The band is called 茄子蛋 (Eggplant Egg) and they sing mostly in Taiwanese.
Well that’s all for now! Stay tuned for Week 4, I should be catching up shortly 🥲!