Taipei: We're Locals Now

Where I watched the Royal Wedding. The taxis here have TV's for each person in the cab, even the driver! Now that's scary... 

One of our class dinners consisted of eating about 20 different traditional dishes and ending our digestion in soaking in some natural hot springs.  Swimming caps mandatory, swim suits optional. 

Taiwan National University of Art's campus cow, of course. They are used as lawn mowers and moved around campus whenever the grass needs some trimming. There are also about 20 campus dogs running around, one even came to class with us one day!

One of the most famous temples in Taipei. It is known for helping lovers find each other. You always know when you pass a temple because incense is constantly burning from the meditators.

The meditation ceremony for any person needing a prayer.

One of the newest and most ornate temples we visited. All of the temples are considered to always be under construction, since there can always be more ways to honor the Gods through adding more ornate beauty on to each pole, siding, room, ceiling, and roof. 

My favorite picture from the trip, a beggar in the street blocking traffic. 

Walking through a shopping area, a massively loud and explosive ceremony began in the street. There were fireworks and drummers and Gods dancing through the street passing out candy. 

A traditional Hakkan "tea" we made by crushing poppy seeds, green tea leaves, peanuts,  and various other ingredients to make this chunky concoction. After 2 hours of grinding, my arms were definitely sore the next day.

A few kids I befriended while they curiously watched our class hoola-hooping and playing with various traditional Taiwanese toys.

Venturing into the modern ceramics museum, the last stop on a culturally packed day trip around the city.

Taipei: And the "Classes" Begin

A huge part of our everyday life is riding the metro. A solid half of our days are dedicated to getting around the huge city of Taipei, especially between our campus and where we're staying. (Yes, we are taking classes, I swear!)

As a culture class, we went to a traditional tea ceremony where we smelled different teas, learned all about each type of tea, and learned how to drink and pray over the tea we drink.

Yeah, the tea was dang good. 

Each street has a type of store it specializes in. This particular street had Chinese medicine ingredients. It was amazing to see all the different, complicated types of ingredients that go into healing naturally. In this picture, there were different flowers to brew in tea.

Shark fin was everywhere! Who knows what that does.... or even how they got it.. eeek!

A typical day in kung fu class. After we learn a series of moves, we have to perform it to the class. Our campus overlooks the city, and we have class outside everyday.

Working on our calligraphy takes up a big portion of our time. We have to do 4-6 sheets per day and perfect each stoke. It looks easy, but is actually very intricate and hard. Each quiver of the hand shows up in your stoke, which can ruin the whole character.

Another cultural class was going to see a puppet show and puppet museum. The puppeteer showed us his hand movements outside of the puppets mask and it was literally like his hand was dancing. The incredible isolation of each of his hand muscles to create another life form was stunning. I never knew that puppetry is considered such an art form! Its pretty sad that it is nearly obsolete now, especially with how much culture and tradition it holds in asian culture.

The "Ugly Room" in the puppet museum.

There are temples all over the city to pray to various different Gods. The temples are extremely ornate and positioned between ugly industrial buildings. This temple in particular is known for blossoming love. Over 3000 successful marriages are said to have started from this temple.

Just a parting photo for you, delish, right!?