Out of Taipei

Time has gone by, and so has experiences. During the last month I’ve been doing a lot of stuff out of Taipei – a city I really love.

It began with a big Chinese test I chose to take. I originally just wanted to do the test in Taipei, but apparently a lot of foreigners had been thinking the same thought as I, because when I wanted to sign up for the test there were no more seats in Taipei. It ended up with that only one other exchange student and I signed up for the test, as we had to go to another city about 3 hours out of Taipei to take it.

    But not only getting to the test was a challenge – so was the test itself, as we were crazy enough not to take the beginner but the learner level. It took a lot of studying by myself before I felt prepared for the test that is designed for test takers who have acquired a vocabulary base of 1500 words – a lot when it comes to remembering the strokes in traditional Chinese characters. Finally feeling okay prepared for the test I promised myself that I would not get disappointed if I failed, but that I would just give the test a shot.

    And I’m glad I did. Not only because I passed and now have a paper that proves my Chinese abilities (yay!), but also because I had a really nice trip to another part of Taiwan, with the other inbound exchange student, an upcoming Taiwanese outbound student, and his family.

    The test took place in Taichung (literally Central Taiwan), which is the third biggest city in Taiwan with a population of about 2.6 million people. The friendly family brought us to a science museum as well as a big night marked, and I really had a great time experiencing a place, that without being as crowded as Taipei still was a big city.

Video taken at a night marked in Taichung

The next time I went out of Taipei I did not head for another million city but for my teacher (in practice)’s hometown on the countryside. I went together with the two other exchange students from my school and going to the countryside definitely was a big change for the three of us who after about 8 moths in Taipei had become real “city ladies”. This was obvious to tell when we nervous informed our teacher that she was walking in the middle of the road, where after she laughing said, that it was okay here, as cars seldom were seen.

Jane, Chelsea and me having fun at a the famous "flying cow farm"

Me, Chelsea, Jane and our "teacher" Fiona in her home town

The last time out of Taipei for me so far was last weekend when I went on a bus trip arranged by my Rotary district. It took us to southern Taiwan where we got to see beautiful nature as well as we got to go swimming at the beach – something we all enjoyed as there are no beaches and almost no swimming pools in Taipei.

 In the beautiful mountain forests of Taiwan  

Finally playing on the beach! (covered in a nice factor 40!!!)

Even though I’ve enjoyed every minute of my many trips I still have to admit, that I would not prefer those places for Taipei. Taipei is the city I love.

Julia