Day 10 - Art, Hoops, and Eats

 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!

    

After listening to an illuminating tour from our all-knowing guide Vincent, we made our way to the museum store where we bought lots of gifts for our folks back home (we hope you’ll enjoy). We then went to a family-style lunch restaurant where we tried scary food like squid balls, sea cucumber, and fried rice🫢.

    After our delicious family-style lunch, we loaded up onto the bus once again and headed to Danshui. Danshui is an old fishing village that, because boats can no longer dock there, has been turned into a shopping district with lots of trinkets and souvenirs. We stocked up on plenty of keychains and fridge magnets, took photos by the river, and Cavon even shot a BB gun 🦅🇺🇸. Then all of a sudden, eggs came into the mix and we found ourselves eating egg bread and the infamous “iron egg,” both of which were overflowing with true egg essence. While the ladies enjoyed a large makeup store, the boys found themselves astounded by many weird creatures in a fascinating zoo-like store for deformed animals (such as a two-headed turtle) and other creepy-crawlies. After a slightly derailed attempt to regroup, we eventually got ourselves together and made it onto the MRT towards Beitou’s hot springs.

Upon arrival, the overwhelming amount of elderly feet in the outdoor tubs made us reconsider and we ended up playing in the park instead🤢. Jack, Kalyx, and the other guys found a willing individual on the basketball court and played an intense 5 on 5 match in the rain with proper street ball rules. The rain deeply affected the field of play, with varsity athletes like Kieran Chan and Alex Teng airballing due to the “slipperiness.” All the while, Zhong lao shi watched from the sidelines at her designated “time out” spot to keep curse words to a minimum 🤬❌, and we played our hearts out while finishing a hard-fought game to 9 points (Jordan hit a game winner and managed to celebrate in everyone’s face 😔). We don’t really know what the girls did at the park, but it seemed like they had a good time too!

Balling out in the rain (and whatever the girls did) made us all really hungry for some dinner, so we went to a restaurant that served 牛肉拉面 (beef noodles) which the Mandarin IV students have been hearing about all year since our unit on Xi’an😔. The food was really tasty and filled us up super quick.

On the way back to the hotel, we played Concentration, a game where everyone joins hands in a circle, one person names a category, and you go down the line, each person naming something that belongs to that category without hesitating or saying something wrong.

Upon returning to the hotel, we all piled into Zhong lao shi’s room and began our daily debrief. However, today’s debrief had a minor twist: we were tasked with drawing a piece of importance from the museum to share with our college friends the next day. We also discussed how the trip had changed our points of view (or POVs) on Taiwan so far. Afterwards, we were granted the luxury of some free time in the building to go explore stores and buy various items. I (Kalyx) thrifted a cool surf shirt and some cargo shorts at 2nd Street, and also bought a few gifts for my beloved family, whom I miss dearly. We all searched through Uniqlo, Muji, and even Nike and Adidas for items to quench our spending habits. Finally, we hit Family Mart. I highly recommend trying the energy drinks in Taiwan as they are labeled appropriately (my favorite being “250 power”) and provide the boost needed when waking up in the early morning.

With our wallets drained and stomachs and suitcases full, we head down the home stretch of our stay in Taiwan!

Thank you for reading!

- Kalyx and Jack