Taichung part 2

So, we haven't blogged in a few days because we've only been doing arts and crafts in the morning, with Mandarin classes in the afternoon.

My second day of Mandarin class, I asked my teacher to give me a name, and she did! It is Mei Di, (美蒂) which means beautiful doll. The counselors all love it because now they have something to call me besides Madz (which they absolutely can't say). It's funny, I guess because I'm the only white girl, they suddenly all know my name and call it all the time. I'm easy to recognize and remember now.


Our of our crafts was painting fans! Madz left, Priscilla right. Yay for bamboo.


We also painted lanterns. Priscilla's is so beauuutiful! She got hers to look like the teacher's.


The second day, we learned some tai chi moves! Maybe another day I'll post a video of it... I still remember the routine but I don't have any shots of us doing it.

We also made Doraemon dough figures, which we forgot to take pictures of D: here is a link to a picture of Doraemon: http://www.japanprobe.com/2007/01/doraemon.jpg


Third day, we learned some Chinese songs (I highly recommend "Bao Be" by Zhang Xuan). We also made these really pretty flowers out of Chinese knots, but they were crazy difficult to do, and a really good way to drive someone insane.


The next day, we made Dragon's Beard candy, called Long Xu (龍鬚糖) in Chinese. Basically, you have to stretch the sugar until it becomes fine strands. This was another very difficult project.


This is Kelly with her final product, looking proud.


The work of the professional. Inside are crushed peanuts or black sesame seeds. It tasted alright but we all felt the flour used on the sugar overpowered the other flavors.


The next day, we made fish out of weaving grass. It's so cute!


The best part is you can use the spine of the grass to use as a fishing wire.... haha.


We also made pinwheels out of grass.


Since today is Saturday, we didn't have class and we didn't have morning crafts either. Instead we went to the 921 Earthquake Museum of Taiwan (921地震教育園區). It was physically centered around a middle school that had collapsed during the earthquake, and was constructed to show the devastation that followed. Here is one of the school buildings (real, not a model).


The best counselor ever, Ma Que, on the right, and Sheryl on the left, another one of our group's counselors.


After we went to the Museum, we went to the famous town of Lugang (鹿港). This place was mix of temples, old style homes, shops, and food stalls. This was one of the first things we saw, a floating faucet!


Lugang is also famous for its narrow streets, called Gentlemens' Walkways (or something like that), because as it is so difficult for people to pass each other, men should let the women go first so as to not push up against them. This walkway became at least half the size later on, when we actually ran in to people ... and we therefore had to squish past them.

Caucasian Sightings: 32