{"id":1480,"date":"2022-08-25T11:56:59","date_gmt":"2022-08-25T15:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/?p=1480"},"modified":"2022-08-25T11:56:59","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T15:56:59","slug":"iclp-in-taiwan-week-7-trudy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/summer-2022\/iclp-in-taiwan-week-7-trudy\/","title":{"rendered":"ICLP in Taiwan! – [Week 7 – Trudy]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wow how time flies! I can’t believe there’s only two weeks left! [Due to the length of this post I have highlighted the main parts of some paragraphs haha 0__0)<\/p>\n

This past week as I mentioned earlier we had our final exams. Don’t ask me why the exams took place all on the same day and were over two weeks before the end of the program. At least I was grateful to only have to study 5 chapters from our main textbook instead of the full 9 chapters we’re going through!<\/strong> The exam consisted of an oral portion and a written portion, and I was definitely most concerned about the oral exam. I was incredibly nervous but afterwards I felt that I had done quite decently, and both having used a lot of vocab and some grammar from class, and also having expressed my own opinion. However, I was shocked a few days later listening to the recording (\u4e00\u7a2e\u82e6\u5211\uff09how slowly I spoke and how little it seemed I actually said! Recently I’ve been feeling like I speak extremely fast in English, but I think that might just be because currently my speaking is contrasted so heavily with the way I speak in Mandarin. Anyway, the \u53e3\u8a66 was really fine and despite being a special kind of torture, listening to the recording was very enlightening.<\/p>\n

Once that was over with, it was time to plan yet another trip for the weekend, this time to Tainan (\u53f0\u5357)!!<\/strong> A good friend of my connected me with her friend and roommate who is from Tainan, and grew up in Taipei, so I’d previously received a lot of suggestions and recommendations from her in regards to food to eat, temples to see, historic sites and buildings, and even a museum exhibit. Between Alison’s research and some of these recommendations, as well as some general exploring, we managed to hit a lot in less than 24 hours!<\/p>\n

We took the gaotie\/HSR\/\u9ad8\u9435\/high speed rail Saturday morning to Shalun station. It was so exciting! That was my first time on a bullet train and I was about as impressed as I expected to be! (Which is to say very impressed).<\/strong> I hope the poor passenger who had a window seat next to me didn’t suffer to much from my attempts to constantly stare out the window.<\/p>\n

We started what was going to be a fully day of activities with bowls of turkey rice\/\u706b\u96de\u98ef (delicious) before dropping off our luggage at the hostel. The hostel was especially wonderful because it was in a building built in the old \u4e09\u5408\u9662 style, that is three sides of the building plus an inner courtyard. It was also located amongst the network of alleyways that make up much of the West Central District (\u4e2d\u897f\u5340). Next we made our way through several important historical\/cultural sites including Chikan Tower, Tainan’s Grand Mazu Temple, and Anping Old Fort. <\/strong>The first and third were originally built by the Dutch and later reclaimed by the Taiwanese, generally going through many stages of use before becoming historic sites. Mazu (\u5abd\u7956) is a sea goddess important to Taiwan in particular due to her original importance to Fujianese settlers in Taiwan, which in turn is because of her role in watching over seafarers and fisherpeople.\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

Next we turned our attention to food, which Tainan is also widely known for. Some highlights from Anping Old Street (\u5b89\u5e73\u8001\u8857) and the Garden Night Market (\u82b1\u5712\u591c\u5e02) include \u68fa\u6750\u677f (coffin toast) Taiwanese fried chicken (I think it was \u9e7d\u9165\u96de but don’t quote me on that) and oyster and shrimp omelettes \uff08\u86b5\u4ed4\u714e\/\u8766\u4ec1\u714e\uff09.<\/strong> I personally was excited to try night market \u9e7f\u8089 (venison) skewers and compare it to what I usually eat at home. I was again not disappointed whatsoever.<\/p>\n

Despite being thoroughly exhausted, I woke up at 8 the next day and with a friend took the opportunity to walk some of the alleyways before being outside in the afternoon sun became \u597d\u50cf\u5730\u7344\u3002I had originally wanted to get up even earlier for a chance to get some fresh \u725b\u8089\u6e6f (beef soup) and had nearly given up on that dream when we stumbled on a bustling street with lots of open market stalls and restaurants. One of the beef soup restaurants there seemed particularly popular so we made our way there and enjoyed steaming bowls of thinly sliced meat boiled in a fragrant broth with white rice on the side. We dipped the beef slices in jiang you gao (\u91ac\u6cb9\u818f) (a thick sauce which in Tainan is particularly sweet) mixed with ginger. Between a bowl of \u725b\u8089\u6e6f and a cup of \u64c2\u8336 in the morning, I think anyone would be pretty unstoppable!<\/p>\n

\"\"

\u4e09\u5408\u9662, three sided courtyard in our hostel!<\/p><\/div>\n

After the rest of our traveling companions finally \u9192\u4f86\u4e86 got out of bed, we went to check out the currently extremely popular exhibit at the \u81fa\u5357\u5e02\u7f8e\u8853\u9928 (Tainan Art Museum), \u4e9e\u6d32\u7684\u5730\u7344\u8207\u5e7d\u9b42\u5c55\u89bd (Ghosts and Hells: The Underworld in Asian Art). It was phenomenal! It included both historical and contemporary art primarily from Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan, and all kinds of media from drawings and sculptures to short films and movie posters. After originally being exhibited in Paris, the Taiwanese version of the exhibit especially included aspects and artists related to Taiwan and Tainan.<\/p>\n

Before heading home we fit in a few more bites of Tainanese cuisine including \u8766\u4ec1\u8089\u5713 (Shrimp meatballs) and \u5228\u51b0 from the rather famous \u8389\u8389\u6c34\u679c\u5e97\/Lily Fruit.<\/p>\n

Welp that’s about it! (\u5982\u679c\u6709\u4eba\u60f3\u807d\u95dc\u65bc\u90a3\u500b\u9031\u672b\u53ef\u80fd\u767c\u751f\u4e86\u53ef\u80fd\u6c92\u767c\u751f\u5f88\u6709\u610f\u601d\u7684\u4e8b\u60c5\u7684\u6545\u4e8b\uff0c\u9700\u8981\u76f4\u63a5\u554f\u6211 v__v\uff09<\/p>\n

\"\"

I forgot to mention the arrival of \u6ce2\u6d1b\u897f\uff01<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow how time flies! I can’t believe there’s only two weeks left! [Due to the length of this post I have highlighted the main parts of some paragraphs haha 0__0) This past week as I mentioned earlier we had our … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2730,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-summer-2022"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2730"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1605,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions\/1605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/study-abroad-in-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}