Going back to school

I feel I should inform you guys about the actual educational part, as well. The registration for courses happens online of course. For reasons unknown the uni closed the registration right when we arrived, only to open it up again the next week. The registration was possible for two weeks and during that time you actually went to the lessons you were planning on taking because the courses might be full, so you were basically trying to get in by showing up. And sometimes pleading to the teacher quite heavily... Some of the people here had quite the workout when they were trying to catch a particular professor so that they could request a signature for a participation form.  

In my case, only the Chinese courses were full. I signed up for two: Introductory Chinese I & Introductory Chinese conversation I. These should be for students who have never studied Chinese and the other teacher actually kicked out all the students who knew even some Chinese. This was a good thing, since there were more room for us zero level students. And trust me the Chinese courses are popular so you really need to fight for your seat!

Dummy studying hard or hardly...?

So when comparing the language courses to my biology courses from the Institute of Molecular Medicine and Biotechnology the difference is like night and day. The courses that I chose have less than 10 people in them so we're fighting only for the seat farthest from the air-con, since it's usually freezing in the class rooms! I've 3 biology courses and I've been attending to each of them now more than once, but I've yet to figure out what exactly we'll be doing in them... It could be because of the fairly strong Chinese accents that the professors have. However, am happy that the teaching is actually in English, because I heard horror stories of supposedly English courses where the slides were in English but the actual teaching in Chinese and then you'd still have to participate in the three-hour long lecture! Must be an urban legend created just for the international students...

So far I can't say I've really started studying properly yet. Mostly my initial feeling is that the Chinese courses will be the most laboursome courses, or at least if you're serious about learning Chinese. The biology courses don't have any exams but some sort of reports and presentation(s), so I fear that most of the work will be done right before deadlines... Overall, it's the same here as it is everywhere: it really depends on the department/ institute you're studying in and the courses you want to take. Some courses just are better than others, and the same goes for the teachers. Luckily you can adjust to basically anything, it all depends on your attitude and how much work you're willing to put in your education. Luckily, everyone here seems quite happy with their courses and teachers.

Moreover, at times it feels like we're back in school. Especially in the Chinese lessons (I can't call them lectures). We're repeating phonemes after the teacher and usually before letting us leave the teacher asks each of us to perform a specific task and you can't leave until the teacher is happy with your pronunciation. Oh, and also, in the Kuang fu campus there's a bell that marks the beginning and end of a class! It is absolutely fantastic! Feels like I'm back in primary school! :') I'm quite thrilled that I don't live in that campus so I only have to hear it a couple of times, when I'm actually in class.

The bell tower at Kuang fu campus

Exploring Hsinchu - Guqifeng

It's a sunny Sunday. Very warm again. I see a billboard showing +34'C and there's absolutely no clouds anywhere to be seen. So overall, an excellent day for exploring the windy city. Today I'm heading to the Guqi mountain and Pu Tian temple, more casually known as Guqifeng. I've read about the place in my Lonely Planet travel guide and of course Google is a trustworthy friend of a traveller. As the place is located only 3-4 km away from our campus I decided weeks ago to find it. The first try a few weeks back didn't go quite as planned when it turned out that my map reading abilities were leading us to the opposite direction. Hence, I've been improving my Google Maps skills and today I felt confident enough to give it a second try. And boy was it worth the trip!
I walked in the scorching heat up the twisting and turning  road, almost losing faith of ever actually finding the place when I suddenly saw the huge Guanggong statue on top of the temple. I had found it! Finally! Excitement rising I paced quickly inside the gates to marvel the temple with its enormous statue of a famous Chinese general giving me the thumbs up for my efforts.

So what exactly is special about this place? Other than the above mentioned 20 m statue? Let me try to explain. The temple holds a museum of sorts (I think you could call it that) of various pieces of art, mainly statues. Apparently collected by the original founder of the temple over a 20-year period. There are some curiosities inside including various large jade-made pieces, cities made of wood and stuffed animals, of course. However, the main attractions are outside on the surrounding grounds. Unfortunately the place is clearly in need of restoration. Nature has overpowered large sections of the area destroying some of the pieces of art. Still, you can't miss the overwhelming feeling of out-of-placement once you dwell into the outside exhibition. The sheer number of statues is mind-boggling. Yet, fairly soon you'll notice something even more curious: the randomness of the displayed statues. They vary from traditional Buddhist and Chinese to more western-like. Which raises the ultimate question of why? Why these statues here in the middle of Taiwanese nowhere? I guess why not, is the only explanation we'll get. Frankly, I don't think anything I write can quite explain this magical place so I'll let the pictures try to convey the utter uniqueness of the place. Enjoy!

 

 

One of the wooden cities

Terracotta soldiers

 

Of course you need the bust of Beethoven

 

 From Egyptians to the Statue of Liberty

Monkeys with dogs tied to the water post...?

Closed off section, clearly it has seen better days

 

I hope the next mudslide won't take this guy with it

 

Dinosaur "skeletons", because why not?

 

Scooter! (back in the UK!!)

"Scooter gang" forming at the red light :)

As the title indicates, this post is about none other than my favourite mode of transporting oneself: Scooters!!
They are everywhere and I mean everywhere. It even feels like there's more scooters than cars. Parking lots for cars are very familiar to all, but one (or more) for scooters was a totally new concept for me. And these parking lots are naturally everywhere too! In our smaller campus alone there are at least three! I don't know how it is at the bigger Kuang fu campus but I bet it's a lot more than three. Also, every time you're waiting for the green light you'll see the scooters gather and I can't help but think that they're all part of a scooter gang! :) They're quite the sight. (see pic above)

One of the scooter parking lots at our Boai campus

Everyone is scooting around here! And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. I've seen people alone, with two even three people. Usually you see mothers with one or two kids on board. Once there was a family of four riding on one scooter. They have gone so far with the concept of riding with small children that they have even added kids seat in front of the regular seat (see pic below). However, the most exquisite sight is the people driving with their pets, usually dogs. Like the other day I saw a girl with her tiny dog scooting along the road the dog is just freely sitting on the leg space of the scooter, no leash no nothing! That really went to my top ten weirdest things I've seen here-list. It was just so bewildering especially if I think about doing the same thing with one of our dogs! It would never happen in a million years! :')

Scooter with a kid seat

Just the other day I was walking along the road browsing the shops on my way, when suddenly I hear an oncoming siren. I imagined a police car or maybe an ambulance on its way to an emergency somewhere far away. To my utter surprise I see this scooter stop right in front of me with red and blue lights a-blazing and an incredibly loud siren screeching. Off comes this officer who gets into a heated discussion with what I assumed was the shop keeper of the nearby store, and just as suddenly as he'd arrived he jumped back on the scooter and drove of. The sirens were screaming the whole time so I've no idea how the two managed to have an actual conversation amid the noise but it seemed that at least something got resolved.

Police scooters

Exploring the south in Kenting

At Kenting national park

So a few weeks back, the registrations to both uni and courses were over, lessons had kinda started and we were facing the beginning of routines and regular rhythm in Taiwan. Therefore, we decided to take a brake from the "stressful everyday life" in Hsinchu and head down south for a weekend. All the way to Kenting, the favourite holiday destination of locals and tourists alike. You can do a variety of activities there because it has a huge national park, as well as, beautiful beaches. Kenting national park covers the entire southern tip of Taiwan and it really is quite a fabulous place.

There was a free weekend ahead of us so what better way to escape the realities of the beginning of a new semester than exploring the South and just laying on a beach!? The trip was bound to take some time, since we're currently quite north, so we took an early train at 7.40 am on Friday to Kaoshiung and, this is quite incredible, a taxi to take us the rest 100 km to Kenting. The train crossed the 280 km in 4,5 hours and the taxi took another 1-1,5 h. After checking in to our hostel we headed straight to the beach. A short bus ride we arrived at Baisha beach to this view:  

The ocean is scary :)

As you can see, the beach was (and is) awesome! The water was warm and the waves incredible. One thing that caught our eyes immediately after we arrived was that the sandy beach was rather empty! Don't get me wrong, there were crowds at the waterline, but the actual beach had only few groups here and there. So, we spotted a good place and started the sun worshipping ritual immediately. Of course straight after we had smeared ourselves in sun lotion (not the whitening kind!). A few moments passed and it was time to test out the water! And boy, was it nice! Warm and wavy ;) and salty. The waves were strong and they either pushed you back on shore or then wanted to take you away with them. Balancing between these two turned out to be a fairly good workout.

While exercising we noticed that we were basically almost the only ones in bikinis. Most of the Asian tourists that swarmed the waterline were wearing their normal clothes and even swimming in them!? And by swimming I mean either playing in the water by sitting and laying down while the waves came or posing for the camera while the waves crashed into you. Which brings us to the next observation we made: cameras, and more importantly, selfie sticks were everywhere. One could only wonder why the people felt the need to take sooo very many pictures. Especially of the ocean. Where were they going to put them all?? And more importantly, why would you want to have a picture of yourself with a complete stranger?!? Let me elaborate on that. We stayed until sunset, which happens around 6-6.30 pm, to take a couple of 'sunset beach' photos. While we were snapping a couple of photos of the beach and ourselves one brave fellow came to ask if he could take a picture with us and we foolishly agreed. Though it felt kinda strange, we figured what's the harm in one picture? Well, it turned out that it wasn't just one picture, because as soon as the rest of the crowd noticed what was happening an actual line started to form, where people were seriously queuing to take their picture with us!! Needles to say it started to feel rather awkward so we fled the scene.

Sunset at Baisha beach

Instead, hunger was churning up inside so we headed to the nearest restaurant area, which basically was a collection of tiny stalls offering a variety of street foods. We took some light dinner and sat there half across the world watching the wonderful scenery when I suddenly realise that the reggae music I heard on the background was in Finnish!?! You can only imagine my sense of bewilderment at the realisation that the soundtrack of our journey to the southernmost part of Taiwan included the Finnish reggae artist Raappana. I mean, sure, why not! :)

 

Taiwanese sausage and a rice sausage, very delicious but very garlicky as well.

For Saturday then we rented scooters in order to get around the national park more effortlessly. For a scooter we paid 500 NT$ (=13,5e) for 24h, and since there were four of us we took two. And off we went!

 

The day went by fast (kinda like us with the scooters) just driving through the whole area, stopping here and there to ogle at the gorgeous scenery. The changes in the surrounding areas were quite fantastic. You first drove up a mountainside through a jungle only to come down to a rocky coastline and plain fields. Kenting is also famous among birdwatchers and butterfly enthusiasts, because of the huge variety of species found in the park. We didn't really notice a massive flock of either, but the amount of dragonflies was rather daunting especially whilst driving as our helmets lacked visors. Fortunately our faces remained almost bug-free throughout our high-speed drive.

Vroom vroom!

 

 

<-- ^-- The southernmost tip of Taiwan

To me it looks like a head, what do you think?

Doing the peace sign -selfie like pros! ;)

Girls from left: Kimberly, Viktorija, Dorien & me

After the long day you had to go to the night market at the city centre. It was quite remarkable to see so many people out walking along the street from stall to stall while cars were still allowed to drive through, as well! It kinda reminded me of cattle being herded to slaughter house but in a happier, less fatal kinda way. I think we spent over 4 hours walking end-to-end through a street that definitely wasn't longer than 2 km, but that was filled with a range of tiny shops, boutiques and stalls that completely had our full attention. Hence, I too succumbed to the Chinese mentality and was practically forced to acquire none other than a selfie stick... As we already mastered the peace sign selfie, we figured that the next step in our Asian selfie school is the 'everyone jump at the same time' -picture. More info on that as we master the fine art of synchronized jumping while taking a selfie...

Strolling along the night market street

Waiting for food, glorious food!

Mojitos anyone?