Poly GIP Taiwan

       We started our day off bright and early at 8:30 and headed straight to our hotel's delicious breakfast. After we finished eating breakfast at our hotel, we hopped on the bus and headed to Ye Liu geography park. This breathtaking landscape included unique rock formations overlooking the beautiful pacific ocean. At the park, we also met up with some students from Chihlee University of Technology and shared many conversations. As we wrapped up our visit to Ye Liu park, we ate a delicious lunch with the college students overlooking the ocean. After our delectable lunch filled with dishes of mapo tofu, watercress, popcorn shrimp, and many other scrumptious dishes, we headed on to the port to learn about crab cages. These specialized enclosures made out of mesh with a four-sided pyramid shape are used to lure and capture crabs for seafood consumption. The strategy the trap uses is a natural scavenging sequence in marine ecology–a perfect fishing technique. When bait...

  大家好! Kalyx and Jack are here to enlighten all viewers about our 10th day in Taiwan!      Today we started off with a slightly later, but still quite early wake up call of 7:30am. Surprisingly, all of us made it to breakfast and were prepared for yet another amazing day in the lobby by 9:20am (No sorry notes for morning tardiness today!! 💯🔥). After leaving the hotel, we packed into our bus with our professional driver, Mr. Anthony, and our great guide, Vincent, and headed to the Taiwan National Palace Museum. At the museum, we plugged in ancient (early 2000s) headphones and proceeded on a tour that explained the history of Chinese art throughout the different dynasties. After the Chinese Civil War, the Kuomintang (KMT) government brought many artworks and artifacts to Taiwan that show the evolution of Chinese art through the ages. One really interesting item among all of the intricately painted pottery was an ivory ball that was carved into 23 layers!   ...

大家好! This is Cavon and Mira excited to tell everyone about our ninth day (last one digit day 🥹) in Taiwan. This morning began with another early 6:00 AM wakeup call before we all groggily made our way down for breakfast in our hotel. After some great food we all walked through the rain and Xiqian subway station to get to our bus and head over to FuZhong for our last day of exchange.                                    Once we got there, we were immediately greeted with a class that combined biology with English literature. Each of the students were split up into groups of four, and they presented on the different environments and habitats found within Taiwan. We learned how Taiwan has environments across almost every category—from tundra to sand dunes—and became familiarized with some of the wildlife in southern Taiwan (where we haven’t traveled to). But, the twist for this activity was that we w...

  大家好! This is Caralee and Ryan clocking into our first full day in Taipei!      We started the morning with our earliest wake up call at 6:00 AM followed by a delicious breakfast in the hotel lobby consisting of boiled eggs, bananas, and a cinnamon roll breakfast sandwich. We then piled into the bus for a 40 minute drive to FuZhong, but traffic made the bus ride even longer. We were all full of anticipation because after nearly 6 months of club meetings and multiple Padlet videos exchanged, we were finally meeting our FuZhong exchange students. As soon as we pulled into the school parking lot, we could see a large group of students, smiling, waving, and warm with welcome. Stepping off of the bus, while some students immediately found their student and rushed in to give hugs, I (Caralee) was a little more hesitant as I didn’t immediately find my partner student. But as soon as I recognized my two exchange students, I was immediately filled with excitement to finally ...

大家好！You guessed it. It’s your favorite, Momo and Russell.  We have officially crossed the halfway mark! Seven days into the trip, and it's safe to say that we are all ready to cancel our flights back home and stay here permanently in Taiwan. Today was packed, yet again, with exciting cultural activities, starting with a slightly difficult wakeup call at 6:30 (We slept for another 30 minutes) 😩 . We woke up in the Toucheng leisure farm, had a traditional breakfast while conversing with some of the locals honing our Chinese skills, and then all piled onto the bus to head to the Yilan Cultural Center. I (Momo) must be honest and say that while I loved the Toucheng farm with all my heart, I was kind of glad to leave behind the gargantuan spiders that looked as though they were made in a military lab.  After a 40 minute bus ride by some beautiful scenery of the ocean and getting to know someone better that we didn’t talk to much on the trip, we arrived at the cultural center,...

  Day 6 - Travel, Travel, and More Travel 你们好! Jordan and Keira reporting for duty Today, we woke up early and prepared for a long bus ride to Yilan. Everyone was very tired from the activities we had done the previous day and slowly got on the bus, unsure of what awaited them but still excited. Most people ended up sleeping after a few minutes on the ride, but some of the students who wanted to contact their parents were given the opportunity to sit in the front of the bus and make a short phone call. To pass some of the time, we talked about our highlights of the trip and played bonding games like Wavelength. We took a rest stop where students used the bathroom and stocked up on snacks for the rest of the ride. It was pouring rain, and all of us sprinted back and forth from the store to the bus because many of us had forgotten our umbrellas. Afterwards, Zhong Lao Shi arranged our seating by drawing names. Each person drew whom they would sit with for the next hour of the ride, an...