星期五：Today we went after class to a high school in Tainan to meet students who, in a month would collaborate with us in a project with an elementary school. They were super excited to meet us, and we started out with a few ice breaker games before jumping right into making baozi (steamed buns filled with various meats or other fillings) together. We first made traditional meat baozi, and then made cheese filled ones that we made to look like adorable pandas. From there we all attempted to learn this super complicated traditional Indian sport called kabaddi that's really just a super intense version of red rover with about a hundred more rules. We then went back to eat our baozi and plan out our activity for the elementary school. Since it's in December, our froup decided to play different games involving Christmas things. We also had a small birthday party since three NSLIY students and two of the high schoolers have November birthdays.
(some of the panda baozi)
(the little birthday party)
星期六：Mackenzie and I spent all day all day today walking around the city. By the end, we had walked about 13.5 miles around the city. We started out hiking Monkey Mountain, which lives up to it's name as it had a ton of monkeys. While there were a lot of cute baby monkeys, there were also then a lot of decently scary mother monkeys, but it was cool to see all of them up close either way. We also got some great views of the city from the top.
From there we headed to Siziwan where Mackenzie showed me a fish restaurant her family took her to that is famous for it's fish noodle soup. We then headed to the British embassy because she hadn't seen it yet, and then rode the ferry to Cijin where we walked around and saw the sunset. We were going to see a lighthouse, but it was getting late by that point, so we headed home, both happy but very sore.
(looked up and saw these cute guys)
(the monkey immediately tried to unzip my backpack after this picture was taken)
(view of the city from monkey mountain)
(view of the neighboring mountains)
(so many monkeys)
(also we saw this little guy)
(had lunch in Siziwan)
(then headed to Cijin where we saw this temple)
(we were pretty gross and tired by this point)
(but we stayed and watched the sunset)
星期天：Today my family also took me hiking. We started at a place outside of the city called Moon World. It's essential a bunch of small mud volcanos that don't have any plant life growing on them, so they look kind of like the surface of the moon. It was really cool and definitely different than any of the mountains I've seen here so far. We then went to a Hakka township called Meinong where we ate Hakka noodles and then went on another hike to see butterflies. Turns out it's the wrong season for the butterflies, though we saw like two little yellow ones; in the summer there apparently swarms of them. Also there were many signs warning of poisonous snakes the whole way up the mountain so I was definitely having a small heart attack the whole time, but the hike was still beautiful. After we finished that, we went back to Meinong where we visited a traditional arts shop that had traditional umbrellas, pottery, and snacks.
(Moon World)
(picture with my host dad)
(a nice lake with a good view)
(here's the view over the rest of Moon World)
(now for a picture with my host mom)
(view from the car window)
(trying to find some butterflies)
(the craft market)
(a lady making traditional umbrellas)