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Day 2- Cycling, Cha, Crafts and Confucious

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  Ni hao! This is Melanie and Kieran for the second day of the Taiwan 2026 GIP blog! Today, after a night of tossing, turning, and jet lag, we started our day off with a crisp wake-up call at 7:30 before heading down to eat breakfast at the hotel. At breakfast, there was a great variety of food, from traditional Taiwanese steamed buns to American delights like chicken nuggets and french fries! We then kicked off our daily activities by biking around Sun Moon Lake in the steaming hot weather. There, we followed Vincent and biked past beautiful views of the lake and different bridges, stopping very often to take pictures, until we finally reached the Sun Moon Lake Xiangshan Visitor Center. We parked our bikes and took a brief pause to take more photos, refill our water bottles, and enjoy the AC of the souvenir store! We then said farewell to the visitor center and biked back to the hotel; however, we enjoyed some free sample shrimp chips that a local store was passing out by our hote...
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We Are in Taiwan!

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     Hello everyone! This is Ayende and Mira, proud to write the first blog post for the Taiwan 2026 GIP Trip! After a tiresome 14 hour flight filled with sour gummy skittles and the newly released movies you always get to watch on a plane (how do airlines get access to them???), we finally arrived at Taoyuan International Airport located in Taipei, Taiwan. It felt great to finally step into a new country and leave a week of difficult finals behind, literally. We walked through the airport all the way to customs where we needed to fill out a long google form and then wait in a long line for non-citizen entry. We were able to push through these obstacles, but then another road block appeared. We needed to find our luggage. We searched through baggage claim areas, yet somehow our luggage was almost impossible to find. That was when Ms. Chung roared from the crowd and exclaimed that our baggage was in baggage claim number 7, in the back of the airport! Finally we were all ab...
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Last Day in Taiwan: Hand-made Paper and Fan Making

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  June 15, 2024 While breakfast is usually not a topic of blogging, I wanted to start by appreciating the waitress at the Puli Ease Hotel where we were staying. This incredibly kind and caring lady saw how rushed our breakfast was, and put in the extra effort to ensure we could take our food to-go, and then gave us more food from the buffet to-go. This was a level of helpfulness I had never seen before, and she was truly incredibly kind and helpful. But moving on from breakfast, we left the hotel (to the goodbye waves of the waitstaff) and headed towards a paper-making factory. This factory still made paper the traditional way, and gave us a new perspective on how such a frequently-used daily item is made. We learned how the inner bark of the tree is harvested, soaked, boiled, bleached, and shredded to make pulp, and then we got to actually make the paper from there. Using traditional trays and bamboo mats, we scooped up wood pulp and water, then shook it to distribute evenly. Afte...
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A Day of Cultural Immersion in Bunun Village

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  June 14, 2024 For the first half of the day we took a van to Bunun village. During the van ride we saw beautiful views of endless green mountains and rainy skies. The van ride was about 35 minutes and for the whole time I took pictures and enjoyed the view. When we arrived at the Bunun village, it was raining very heavily so we all had to get out our umbrellas. We took a tour around their village and saw their squash, mango, cucumber, and loofah plants. The weather was a nice balance because even though it was raining the temperature was still nice and humid. My personal favorite part of the hike was when we met a boy named Huang Shang, (Noted by Zhong Laoshi: sounds like “emperor” in Mandarin.) who went to Fazhi elementary school. Like my Chinese, his English was not perfect, but we were still able to communicate and become close as he was with us the whole hike. We went to a cafe with him and the whole group, and there we ate ice cream together and I ordered their passion fruit...
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Teaching at Fazhi Elementary School and Dinner with Local Teenagers

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  June 13, 2024 Playing Tee-Ball with Fazhi students on their beautiful baseball field! Today Hudson and Emma will be writing the blog. Because Hudson Wrote the second half yesterday, he will write the first half of the blog today. After we departed from the hotel, we took about a thirty minute van ride to Fazhi elementary school. When we arrived, we were warmly greeted by a small cohort of students, who graciously offered their umbrellas and walked us to Fazhi’s recently built library. Laying our bags and teaching materials down, a mixed group of fourth to sixth graders performed a traditional Bunun song and dance, which utilized harmony and call and response as a result of a rich hunting culture. To return the kind gesture, some of our Poly students performed a song that we had earlier presented to Fuhsing high school. Following a short preparation break, we were then directed into our teaching pairs in order to teach English songs to the Kindergarten class at Fazhi. My song was ...
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