Tea Farm Tour

If anyone had actually read my last post (and didn’t just skip to the pictures) then they would have realized that I had the next update set for November 3rd and if they would have checked back on November 3rd you would have also that I was lying. Since I received no nagging e-mails or comments then I take this to be that you’re all lazy and aren’t reading anything and that I spend a lot of time writing and that I just called myself a liar. But now onto more important things, like the update.

On the weekend of October 27-29, Rotary held a tea farm tour for all of the exchange students in district 3480, 3490 and the other little district that no one really knows it exists (j/k). In total there was about 60 students and a number of chaperones (I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to them so I’m not sure of a number – not even a guess). The weekend started out with us (students from Yilan) heading up to Taipei at about 4:30am on Friday morning in order for us to make it there for the 6am check in time.
Side note: I started getting sick Thursday night – if that honestly surprises any of you, please kindly take the nearest hard object and inflict some sort of bodily pain upon yourself.
We boarded the buses (2) and sat back for a 2/3 hour drive to Nan-To County where we would be spending the weekend. On the way there the buses stopped at a historical museum that we toured and ate lunch at. I could recollect ever little detail of the museum to you but my intention is to get you to read what I write and not bore you to death. If you want to learn more about Taiwan’s history then by all means look it up on Google.

We stopped by beautiful Sun-Moon Lake (the biggest lake in Taiwan) and took pictures of it and traipsed along the beach and successfully covered ourselves in prickles that were very hard to get off. (There was also the throwing of a dead fish but that’s a story for another time).

When we finally arrived in Nan-To everyone had received their second-wind and dinner and traditional dancing were offered. After I had dinner (a buffet of food) I went for a walk with a couple of other exchange students and I ended up being dragged kicking and screaming along a rope bridge (literally). After that escapade we were all ushered away to our host families whom we would be staying with during the evenings. I shared a room with three other 18 year old girls (it was really REALLY nice to have girls of my own age to gossip… I mean chat with). My host family were really nice but didn’t speak a lot of English.

The next morning the members of my host family took us out to their grape fields and we indulged ourselves in wine making grapes. These things were delicious! They had a thick skin (which is spit out) but the inside was like drinking the best grape juice on Earth! After the grapes all of the exchange students met up and made these little paper twirly things which we would later throw of the above mentioned bridge. Luckily (you can look at it that way) one of the chaperone’s saw that I was really sick so they took me to the local pharmacy where they gave me some drugs and nose spray. You could be wondering why I just referred to that as being lucky – I got to miss crossing the bridge!!! Anyway, after that we ‘carved’ some pencils (which as you may have guessed I failed miserably at and even managed to cut myself) and then we went to a “tea factory” for about a total of a half hour where we tasted tea.

Nothing else to exciting happened after that. We went back to Taipei on Sunday and since Rotary made the time that we were to get there earlier then what was in the e-mail that they sent us, the Yilaners hung around for a while until or train arrived.

Now, if you’ve made it this far your about to be rewarded with the pictures! Unfortunatly they were all taken on another students camera (I gave up with mine) so there are only a couple but oh well, enjoy them anyway (or at least pretend to)

Thank you for joining me once again in Karly’s Adventures In Asia. Until next time-

Much Love
Karly
xoxoxo

Side Note: I dont feel like making the pictures smaller, my apologies for any viewing inconvenicences this may cause

Oh crazy Taiwanese uniforms

Some of the tea we tried

I saw an angel

The Life of a Taiwanese Student (a true story):

Random booth


A squirrel that did flips


The bridge at night


People shaking it during the day (I wasn't there)


Side view (I was actually that high up and lived to tell about it)


Kiln at a pottery place


Inside said kiln


A picture of the inside of our bus at night time... what an eye sore

Guess which arm is mine?!

Group photo...yay.