To the Countryside - Writing Wishes on Sky Lanterns and Learning A New Way of Cooking

June 7, 2024 

Hello everyone! Right now it’s Emily and Aaron blogging. We started off the day at 8:00 AM at Fuhsing High School and then shortly left to make the hour drive to Shi Fen Old Town to make lanterns. Shi Fen is beautiful and filled with interesting shops and restaurants. We made lanterns in a street that had a train track running through it, so sometimes the train would pass. We would all move and pull out our cameras to take videos of the train passing by. All of our lanterns were made up of different colors that represented different things. The lantern that I (Emily) made with my group had a red side, pink side, blue side, and yellow side. Red represents good health and longevity; pink represents bliss and joy; blue represents good career and accomplishment; yellow represents wealth and fortune. We all wrote our wishes of happiness, prosperity, and health on the lantern (in Mandarin of course - note by Mrs.T.) and even drew pictures of ourselves before launching it into the sky. It was so much fun! Hopefully all of our wishes reached the gods! After we made our lanterns, we explored the town a little. There were so many cute shops and street stands to browse. I bought a shirt for myself and a few gifts for my family and friends. Many of us bought little lanterns that light up for ourselves, our friends, and our families to commemorate this experience. 

                                            
                                 

From the Shi Fen old town,, the contingency headed to the sweet potato farm - Wang Wang Sweet Potato Farm in Jin Shan (Gold Mountain) district outside of Taipei City. The bus ride took about an hour during which we played cards and talked. At the sweet potato farm, we were immediately put to the fun work of building a kiln out of a form of calcium carbonate rocks. From there, some of us challenged ourselves to use our martial arts skill we had learned from yesterday to break thin strips of firewood across our legs. From there, we put our firewood strips inside our respective kilns and wrapped the sweet potatoes with aluminum foil (shiny side in - note by Mrs.T.). Our teacher from the Wang Wang Sweet Potato Farm set up a game where we would bowl the wrapped-up sweet potatoes and mabo rice into our kilns. Once all the food had been bowled into the kiln we used the shovels to cover the kiln with soil. While we waited for the potatoes and the mabo rice to cook for an hour, we grilled pork, sausage, chicken, fish, beef, and other food over the BBQ grill. After lunch, we received a tour of the farm where we picked Wàn Shòu Jǘ plant leaves to make tea. The tea was delicious and was perfectly paired with our thoroughly cooked sweet potatoes, which some of us chose to garnish with marshmallow. After the farm, we made a brief pilgrimage to a nearby beach known for its surf waves. There, we enjoyed ourselves walking on the sand until the time of day pressured us to return to Taipei City. As we wrap up our day, I would like to thank you for reading about our adventures.
                                                                                    

谢谢你       Emily and Aaron