Fulbright Conference

Last weekend was the Fulbright Orientation Conference! This was fun and all, but not really picture worthy, so I didn't really take pictures of the conference ... Basically we heard all the researchers and other ETAs present on themselves! It was very interesting to hear what the other researchers are doing!

This is a picture of Jess and Liz at the Fulbright Party after the Conference. 101 is in the background!! We were in the World Trade Center building.

Me and Jess at the party

After the party, we went to a sake bar and had really really good, interesting tasting sake!! Way better than any I've ever tried before. It almost made me like it!!

This is a picture of Mia, Ashley, and Liz at the sake bar!! 

We stayed at a really nice hotel, as you can see. This is the view from the breakfast room. My favorite part was the showers though!! The shower in our room had HOT WATER and drained properly, unlike my shower in my room in my apartment. That is always the thing I miss most, I love hot water showers. Oh well.... What I give up to be in Taiwan!! 

This is Mia, Liz, and Ashley, all of us at the breakfast room, right before we left. After this, on Saturday, we went to more meetings and then to the National Palace Museum. I didn't take pictures of it though, because I'd been there before. I'm definitely going back too, it's awesome. 

This is the view from outside the museum though!

Then, we checked in at our ridiculously sketchy hostel. Scary!! They wouldn't turn on the ac before 11 so we went to Shilin Night Market. Then Liz got lost, so we went to go find her and on the way found the cutest little cafe! We went in and had coffee with some of the Fulbright researchers and their friends. 

Yes that picture definitely needs to be extra large. Here is a researcher, her British friend, and Ashley. 

Sunday, we all split up. Me and Liz went to Maokong, which is basically a mountain to the south of Taipei. It was AWESOME. 

To get there, you first take the metro to the end of a line, right next to the zoo. Then you get out and walk a block to the gondola station. Then you wait in like for a while until you get into this little gondola car, which seats about six people. Then you fly up the mountain. Whoooo. Here are some pictures from the gondola window. It felt like an amusement park ride. 

Look, you can see 101 in the distance!! 

Overlooking the zoo.........

Looking straight down.

We got off at the second to last stop, at a temple area. It was beautiful: the temple, the view over Taipei, and the art and landscape. Here's a few pictures of the area!

It's kind of cool how plants grow on the temple roof. 

The incense burner and Liz. People here were both burning incense, praying, and taking pictures with enormous cameras all at the same time. Very odd. We just took pictures, no incense or praying. 

The view! Kind of hazy, but still beautiful. The very farthest you can see is where the ocean is. 

A hand painted walkway down to the less touristy, 100 year old temple farther down. 

View of the temple from farther away.

Next, we took the gondola to the end of the line, to a road lined with tea shops of every variety and age. It was kind of intense. Before sampling these though, me and Liz walked down the mountain a ways to a stream with interesting rock formations that was labelled the "pothole," not the nicest name in English. The Chinese was pot (like teapot pot though) and "cave" or "hole", but it sounded nicer. Like, teapot holes or something. It was pretty anyway. We climbed all over it and ruined nature a bit. 

Christine looking sweaty after hiking down to the pothole, pondering the rock formations.

Pretty cool though hunh. Lol.

The hike down looked like this, it was probably the best part. The bamboo trail was very pretty. 

Later, we sat at a teashop overlooking all of Taipei and had tea and waffles. Awesome combination and it felt great to rest after all that hiking. 

This is where we sat!

And there's my drink, all gone!! So yummy :D

As a side note, as we were walking back from the pot hole, we saw a GINORMOUS spider. I don't know if you can see it in this picture, cause i didn't want to get too near, but it was definitely the size of my had. Eek!! Scary!!!

Bad picture, but it's that thing in the middle! Scary!!! 

Anyway, a great weekend! This weekend has been boring, and a typhoon is coming tomorrow, so nothing special going to go on, but next weekend I hope to go see a fun concert in Taipei, and Wednesday is moon festival, which im going to spend with my new host family, so stay tuned for more adventures from Taiwan!!! 

:D