Tuesday we officially began running through team brainstorming activities to start getting our ideas onto paper. Although many of us arrived a bit sleepy, we quickly got into the process and filled a poster board with sticky notes of our ideations. For lunch, my team member Shika took our team to a local restaurant where we enjoyed personal size hot pot and taro ice cream before returning to campus to continue brainstorming. Once in the classroom, we completed some finishing touches on our presentation before heading to our hotel to finally rest. As a class we were all pretty exhausted so this rest time was needed! For dinner our entire class of 17 met in the hotel lobby to have dinner together. Fortunately, we were able to find a restaurant that could seat us all and got to eat spicy fish soup and fried chicken. We ended the night with bubble tea and made our way back to the hotel on foot.
Wednesday we took a charter bus to Taichung from Tainan, which is about 2 hours north heading towards Taipei. In Taichung, we attended a tea bag workshop at Yoshantea Tea Culture House where we also got to see and use tools that were traditionally used to process tea leaves. At our workshop we put dried tea leaves into a small cotton bag that we tied shut with string as a souvenir. We then went on a delicious group lunch where we were all in awe of the table full of Taiwanese dishes that continued to be brought to us. We even got to run around outside and play with a giant inflatable soccer ball after our meal since the restaurant had such a large grass area just outside the giant windows that lined every wall of the building. We also went to tour a bamboo workshop where they make cups and other objects by hand from bamboo before painting and assembling them. We even saw the coolest bamboo bike! Afterwards, our charter bus headed to a woodworking shop that’s been passed down for three generations. Finally, after a long long day we headed to our hostel which was a beautifully and well designed space. This hostel was a unique space since it was on the top two floors of a 15 story building that has mall shopping floors and sooo many restaurants and desserts. It even had shoe lockers so everyone was given slippers to wear around the communal spaces. These spaces consisted of several wooden tables, bean bags, and japanese style floor seating with cushions. Me and my friends could not decide what we wanted for dinner so we decided to eat everything. We got sushi, noodles, fried chicken, then cold stone ice cream and finally a mochi donut. The great thing about eating with friends is that you can buy a little bit of everything and give everyone a bite. The highlight for me was definitely the ice cream that I chose, which was half matcha and half tea flavored with mochi and condensed milk on top.
Thursday was a long but fun day for us! First we went to a bamboo museum where they had intricate bamboo weaving as well as other art installations and even furniture made from bamboo. Since our study abroad is about Taiwan and sustainability, materials like this fall directly into that. At the museum there was also another floor with artisan owned shops that included metal working, lacquered art and bowls, art only made from natural materials like nuts and leaves and sticks and other stores. Then we went to a restaurant that makes food inspired by indigenous Taiwanese flavors and works to be as sustainable as possible where we reserved and filled up all the tables with our entire class. After lunch, we got back on the charter bus and headed back to another bamboo studio where we did a weaving activity and each made a small hanging vase holder.
I’m super excited for this next project and glad we have more days to work on it this time around!
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| Tea Workshop Location |
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| Map and Types of Tea |
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| Tasting Tea Samples |
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| Powerpuff Girls |
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| Wood Working Tools |
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| Special Meal of Roasted Duckbreast |
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| My Attempt at Weaving |
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