Today we got exercise! And by exercise I mean bone numbing excruciating difficult upward mountain climbing. You think I’m exaggerating, but it’s only by a little. Our director told us in an email that we’d be going on a hike. We pictured some sort of nature walk with a little bit of uphill walking. Nooooo….we climbed up on all fours on occasion with the aid of ropes tethered to trees. As we continued up we steadily lost more and more members of our parties. The view at the top was pretty impressive though. We could see most of the school on that side (but none of the city. There is a GIANT wall of green plants that separated the entire school from the city) and the harbor.
Speaking of harbor, did I mention that the Marine Biology department has one? Their own personal harbor. And their own boat? A 20 ton boat.
Later we took a tour of China Steel Corporation, one of the Steel companies of Taiwan. It was cool, but not as cool as it could have been since they weren’t producing anything during the New Year holiday. The area where it’s built is literally a small city. They’ve got everything they need including a fire department, hospital, and movie theater. The downside is that there’s 99 guys to 1 girl (steel production, duh). I’m not sure how men who work there manage to socialize with the opposite gender. With that sort of ratio, women might be like Martians to them.
For dinner we took a ferry across the strait about 5 minutes to Cijin where Tram and I broke off from the main group. We ate and then poked around a few shops. In one of them the owner was very helpful and chatty with us and told us we should see the Night Market then promptly circled it on a city map and gave it to us for free. People are so friendly when you are obviously bumbling around like an idiot (at least here). We hit the night market and Tram went bonkers for the street food. It was amusing to watch. I personally liked the stick with sugar engulfed strawberries (though the tomatoes were no good. Who eats sugared tomatoes for dessert?!).
Taiwan seems to like us. We like it back.
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