Rice and Hello Kitty

Yesterday was a bit sad because we all had to say good bye to Tom and Robin. They departed with a funny powerpoint showing some of the NTU students napping on the bus and some lovely photos of their family. I really enjoyed their company on this trip and it wouldn't have been the same without them. I hope they have a safe trip back to the states this Saturday :)

Earlier that day we started off by heading to the NTU farm for some rice harvesting experience. It was very fun but very labor extensive and sooo humid. I have never sweated so much in my life like I did yesterday. It was quite unpleasant. We even got to wear bamboo hats. Later on that day after a lecture on Food Security, Economic Development and Environment we went back to the field but this time transplanting rice seedlings. Ahhh it was basically a mud puddle that went knee high deep. It was a very scary experience because you couldn't see what you were standing on and just felt creep crawlers everywhere. Viven and I were buddies making sure we both didn't fall. I can't believe farmers would do this back in the day. I can now really appreciate their hard work and effort.

After washing all the mud off our legs and feet, Fan, Corinne, Flora, Rebecca and I went to a tea shop. I finally found a tea set!! I was very happy but about the price.....it was worth every penny :) I got  5% off because it was VIP status lol  I felt like the staff there was treating us like royalty. They allowed us to try several different teas so Fan and Corinne could see which ones they liked. We even all had a piece of pineapple cake. Yum.

The day ended with shopping at the little market by our dorm and a Vietnamese restaurant. I'm really going to miss Flora and Rebecca!


Today we visited the Taipei City Zoo. I enjoyed it very much. I wish we had more time to look around. I think that this zoo should set an example for the states. I was very impressed with the habitat they provided for the animals and how clean everything was. The Austin Zoo and even the San Antonio Zoo isn't like this. The most exciting part however was being able to get VIP status by seeing parts of the zoo the regular public doesn't get to see and a Panda! It was my first time seeing a panda and I was surprised at how small it was. For some reason I thought it was bigger. Little Jack gave me a pineapple cake with egg yolk today. I think Teresa and him went to the bakery earlier today and brought some for everyone. It was very nice of both of them. It was delicious and just the right timing when Jack gave me some because I was hungry :)

Next and because it was our only chance to, Carolina, Corinne, Ivy, Alicia, Jenny, Tracey and I all went to a Hello Kitty Restaurant. We waited a very long time to get seated and was very annoyed by three mothers and their children. The table we were sitting at was the table where our group was to be seated. These women just kept taking pictures after pictures! It was annoying because we had to be back at the NTU campus by 3:30. Unfortunately we didn't make it on time but we were only 10 minutes late. I didn't really enjoy it as much as I could have because I was worried about the time. All of us were but all of us were glad we got to eat our delicious food.

Our last venture of the day was at the NTU Veterinary Medicine Facility. It had the same feel and smell as Texas A&M Veterinary Building. I learned that students straight out of high school can immediately go to school here and start learning about the field. I think this is amazing and I wish the U.S was like this. I think our system often discourages students who are in the field by making us wait to learn hands on experiences until post graduate school. I'm quite jealous. Emily asked a very interesting question today. She asked if cats or dogs lose their fur during cancer treatment like humans do. The answer is no but they do lose their whiskers and eyebrows and they will never grow back. I found this very interesting and the professor giving us the tour guide said that most of the owners never even notice. Wow!

Lab Room 

Tomorrow is the last day of the BACT program and we present our projects. I am not looking forward to it. I know it will be very sad saying goodbye to everyone. I still have so much more to see in Taiwan and I'm not ready to leave! I hope that one day I will be able to come back. I'm really going to miss everyone soo much!

P.s this is my last blog. I hope everyone enjoyed it :)

Free Day!

Since we finished all our data collection today, all of us wanted to look around the forest before we leave tomorrow. While discussing our plans at breakfeast, Flora decided to go with us. So Flora, Heng-An, Anbo, Corinne and I all started our venture climbing the Riverside Trail stairs. Ahh I hate stairs! I always wanted stairs to be in my house one day but now that I have gotten older I think it really has become a pain, especially on the knees. The weather seemed nice and cool but it was still humid. All of us were sweating, and Anbo looked really tired. I asked him and he said he was. I think all of us were but we kept pushing forward. Along the way we saw a monk sitting on a rock mediating! I thought it was awesome! Like Heng-An said, I thought I would only see this on TV. Finally we made it to our first destination, the giant Cypress Tree. What a big disappointment. I thought it was going to be at least twice the size it was. Then gladly, everything was downhill from here we walked along the skywalk. It was pretty cool. There was even a little frog on the skywalk. We all wondered how it even got there. Flora had us all take pictures at each place we visited. I'm glad she made us because I usually don't like taking pictures.

So while walking down, I had a scary moment. Everyone gasped because I kind of slid on the side of the road with my shoe, but luckily nothing happened. Oooo I was so relieved. There were alot of tourist today venturing out like us and Tom and Robin happened to be in the crowd but with a golf cart. They were so lucky! They said they felt bad because they have been seeing people their age hiking and walking up the trail but they were getting a ride up to the top. So Tom said he would make a face like he was in pain so it would be less embarrassing. Both of them are wonderful and happy people. I'm glad to have met them :)

Next we visited the University Pond. This was a hotspot because alot of people were here. We made a pit stop and got some delicious ice cream. I got strawberry swirl and it was very yummy!

After making our way back, we headed to lunch and waited for "superman" ( as they call him because he can get you almost anything you need) to come and bring a pH meter to read our soil samples. I think everyone was a bit on the edge at this point with frustration. For our group it was because the pH meter wasn't very accurate and it was from 1998, so I suspect it was because of this. I'm very thankful though we only had 4 samples and not 20 like Alicia's group did.

I was getting a pretty bad headache at this point but I still wanted to go to Monster Village. So Corinne, Anbo, Flora and I went. It was very Japanese style and I loved it because I did alot of shopping. Anbo was very hungry so he decided to get a bowl full of different foods like tufu, noodles I think and etc. Flora got a really nice portrait of herself, and she was really happy about it. Anbo came back with some bamboo thing in his hand and told us it was from some rice thing he bought. He loved it lol. We all got free fans because we bought so much stuff we collected enough stamps to get them. I saw yet another crane machine. I try them every time I see them but I have yet to get one. These crane machines are even more rigged than the US. I saw a little domo today that I really wanted :( sadness.

Can you see Flora's nice portrait? 

I'm excited to go back to Taipei tomorrow! There is so much I need to do before I go back.

Data Collection

Ahh all day today our group collected data. We first started early in the morning at the Bird Watching Trail. Whooo!! We walked over 800 steps!! Corinne took soil samples, Heng-An recorded all the data, Anbo worked the GPS and I took the pictures. Carolyn and June also accompanied us. This trail was very steep and most of the steps were very unreliable. If you stepped on one sometimes it shifted and there was alot of moss too so that didn't help. Anbo and Heng-An had a few moments that were very scary! Thank god nothing happened :) I found it quite weird though because this trail is called the Bird Watching Trail and we didn't really see any birds at all. It was also quite difficult to classify the ferns into healthy and unhealthy because we really weren't sure if the dead material was natural or caused by environmental factors.

After lunch (a very nice needed break) we headed to the Fern Park. There was a little over 200 tree ferns in this area!! It took quite a while to collect all the data but once we were done we were all very glad and excited. About half way through we took a break because we had already been standing for quite a while. I honestly was tired even though I was just taking pictures and helping to make sure Heng-An and Anbo didn't count more than one tree twice. As a treat we all headed down to mini market called High Lite. It's like a little convenient store. I bought what was supposedly chocolate Mexican bread but I didn't like it very much. There is a Mexican restaurant in Taipei very close to the dorms I'm staying in and I wonder just how good it is. I really do, but it might not be what I'm expecting.

Common Tree Fern

Dead Tree Fern

Does traditional Mexican Bread even use the word Souffle??

Oh our cottage. There are three rooms. One for the guys and two for the girls. Two bedrooms are upstairs and one downstairs (the one I'm in). The place is nice but there are alot of dead bugs and live bugs around. Corinne keeps finding spiders and she even killed one before we went to bed. The internet wasn't working and a man came over for a while but could not get it to work. So he headed over to Tom and Robin's cabin to see if theirs was. Unfortunately it wasn't but little Jack and Heng-An came back with snacks, gifts from Tom and Robin. I didn't like any of them. Almost all of them had fish in them including the peanuts. What?? However Anbo really loved this one snack, he literally scarfed it down.

Although today was all collecting data, I enjoyed it very much because I spend time with Anbo and Heng-An. The days are winding down and I'm starting to get sad but I'm trying not to think about it too much. I have really enjoyed Taiwan so much and the whole BACT program.

Common Tree Fern Proposal

 I'm not really feeling normal today. Perhaps I am just getting tired and stressed out about our research project. 

Not much to report today. Our first lecture of the day was on Soil Biodiversity. It was a review for me because it was a combination of soil science and soil microbiology classes I have taken this past year at A&M. Then Tom gave a lecture outside-nice change of view- on Biodiversity: who, what, where. It was mainly a discussion lecture about societal problems and conservation biology and how it is affecting our environment. The nice weather was cut short though because it started to rain :( so we all moved back inside. I was very surprised to find out that the Taiwanese birth rate is roughly 0.9.  The natural replacement and growth rate for a women is 2.1 and so just like Japan and Italy I think Taiwan's population will start declining. Some of the NTU students said it's because more of the women here are deciding not to have children because they want to provide the best possible education they can, and if they can't they do not want to have any children. Tom also gave us the fact that 9 billion people will be on this earth by 2050 to ponder about. I can't even imagine what 2 billion more people on this planet will mean for us. I'm quite worried actually and can't help but wonder what can we do.

Ahh at last Corinne presented our proposal. She did very good despite her nervousness. I told her and the rest of us did that she would be fine because we would be there to help her if she could not answer any questions. Anyways everything seemed all good because we spent all night trying to figure out what our hypothesis was going to be until one of the professors suggested to Anbo and Heng-An that we compare the natural vegetation and artificial vegetation areas and compare those tree ferns. We were all quite puzzled because how can we compare these two types of vegetation with so little time and how are these ferns different from one another besides the vegetation around it. We were asking ourselves what are we comparing. So as a result we decided to scope out our research area and did  see a drastic change in the landscape. Along the bird watching trail, there is more forest area compared to the plantation like area of artificial planting. This helped us alot to help us change our hypothesis but it is still very stressful because we will be counting alot of trees tomorrow and the bird watching trail is very steep.

I wish that we had so much more time because I really want to figure out what is causing all these tree ferns to die. It would be amazing if I could actually take some samples back so that we could analyze it but unfortunately it is not possible right now. Ahh it would be so interesting and I'm so flustered that I can not :?

I hope everyone is safe tomorrow as we all venture to collect our data :) I must pack now because tomorrow we are all moving to cottages somewhere along the experimental forest.

Sitou Experimental Forest

Breakfast was wonderful because it was buffet! There were so many things like fried rice, rice noodles, rolls and alot of fruits. Although this isn't the typical American breakfast at least I had more options. I tried what I thought was normal apple juice but it turned out to be a sour apple flavor like the green jolly rancher. I think I prefer it as candy.

Then we had lecture on " A Glance of Tea Culture and Science in Taiwan". Lets just leave it at that....... However we all had the opportunity to try a tea that was 4000 NTU per pound, which roughly comes out to $100 USD per pound! Very expensive, delicious and probably the most expensive tea I will ever have in my life.

Tea Expert 

Expensive Tea

Next and thankfully the last lecture of the day because we have been cooped up all day long. Professor Hsiao-Wei Yuan presented Beautiful Island, Beautiful Birds an Introduction to birds in Taiwan. She told us of a bird called the Chinese Crested Tern. I found this interesting because it is a mysterious bird because nobody had seen it in 70 years up until 5 years ago. It was found by a man who was taking photographs and noticed that not  all of this species of birds look alike. Some appeared whiter and had a white bolder on their head. She showed us several birds and for the second part of her lecture decided to take us out in the forest area to have a look around.

KFC as I will refer to one of the professors (this is his initials and not the fried chicken chain lol) showed Heng-An, Anbo and I three of the local tree ferns in this area. We are considering this as a topic for our research project. The Common Tree fern and the Taiwan Tree fern have very distinct features and the third species is very short and stumpy compared to the other two. I can not recall what this species is called. But nevertheless we are considering this topic because the Common Tree fern is dying at a rapidly alarming rate. Researchers have not yet figured out what is going on because ferns have not been studied very well. Also along our walk I learned that figs and bees are very mutually exclusive and lets just say I may never eat fig newtons again. Somewhere along the process the females that are hatched in the fig itself never leave because they cannot fly, etc and end up dying inside the fig. Ahh!! The complexity of this whole process KFC described was amazing and I'd like to look more into it once I get some more time. He also told us that Taiwan is not allowed to cut any of its trees because it is against the law. He said that most of the trees here in the forest have already reached their peak growth and need to be cut down but they can not do anything about it. He said that Taiwan imports most of its wood from other countries as a result. I also learned that Taiwan right now is sort of in an environmental movement right now and this is why they are so strict. I can definitively tell you that Taiwan is doing alot more to help save our planet than the US. I wonder if the US can ever be so bold but I think if we were the people would object to any change.

KFC

Can you see anything?

Tea Ceremony

This place is beautiful and I loved the view especially at night. The room was quite small and today is the first place that we are staying at with no air conditioner. :( Ahh soo hot but not hot and humid like

Taipei and I'm glad for that. At least this area gets nice and cool at night. Little Jack played his guitar last night and he was awesome.  I hope he does it again in Shitou, maybe a campfire?? Teresa also played and sung a song for us too! Great night :) 

Our day started off with a tour of the Phoenix Tea Plantation. despite just growing tea, there were alot of trees called Sakura, a tree from the Japanese. It's leaves have a reddish color. This plantation area also happened to grow coffee as well. 

Next and my favorite part of the day was learning about the Art of Brewing Tea. For those of you who don't know, I usually don't like tea. It's flavor is very unappealing to me, but this tea was DELICIOUS! I think I like fresh tea leaves over any artificial tea, or perhaps the tea that I have tried back in the states has a different taste acquired for Westerners. The staff was very helpful and graceful in their tea practice and the master was very knowledgeable and proud of his tea production. At one point during the lecture the whole entire staff was conversing in Chinese and all the teachers were trying to explain in English the long and complicated process. Heng-An performed the first round of the tea practice and she did it masterfully. She told me that when she was little her parents would take her to the tea gardens and drink tea. Today in the modern Chinese culture it is very rare to actually sit down and drink tea like this because it is too time consuming, but may I say very relaxing and peaceful. Definitely worth it :) Instead it is very common to buy the tea leaves and just put it in hot water. The most interesting part of this though was the very specific brewing time. I can't in the slightlist bit recall the time duration for each brewing session. In the whole ceremony it important to know the quantity of tea leaves, water temperature and brewing time to correctly master the art. I also learned that tea can be classified into three categories. Non-fermented, partially fermented, and fully fermented. Although I"m not quite sure about the whole tea process due to translation difficulties, fermentation in this context means oxidation. After all this fun, Robin, Alicia and I really wanted to know where we could purchase some of this tea and possibly a set. Jack was kind enough to even stop by a store so we could look but unfortunately I didn't see any that suited my taste. Perhaps once we are back in Taipei I will head to a night market and look around. 

Complete Tea Set

Robin, Carolyn and Heng-An

Lastly we traveled to Bamboola Taiwan: bamboo products and marketing. This company made amazing products that were like puzzles to figure out how to open. They even made an iphone 3 case, but unfortunately the iphone 4 won't be available until later on this year. Everything was made out of bamboo  and because the quality was so nice it was very expensive.

This one had a hidden lock inside the hole 

At last we arrived at the Sitou Experimental Forest and will be staying here for five nights. This is my greatest fear because not only does this mean the program is ending, it also means we will all have to face our projects. I hope my group can find an interesting topic and conduct enough research in two days. 

My impression of this forest was not what I expected. In my mind I thought this area would be secluded but instead its very much like a tourist attraction. I was very taken back by this. Not to mention I also learned that all the trees in the lower elevation area are artificially planted! What??? This is because the Japanese at the time only knew how to grow only one tree very well and so they planted it in this area. Definitely not what I had in mind. 

Nicer rooms tonight but no air conditioner again. Its really nice and cool here too, so I think it won't bother me too much. I don't think that I will ever complain about sweating in Texas anymore once I come back from Taiwan :) Side note for those who may read this in the future. Bring luggage with wheels! My bag has grown substantially and you have to walk up alot of stairs to get to your room. 

Endemic Species Research Institute

Hmm today I'm don't really feel like writing this blog.I thought it would have gotten easier as time went by but that hasn't been the case.

The whole day we stayed at the Taiwan Endemic Species Research Institute. We had a collection of two lectures, one on the Preparation of Avian Species and another on the diversity of bats in Taiwan. The professor who gave the lecture on bats even brought in a little bat that was really cute and had huge ears. I couldn't really get a good picture of it so I hope this one will do. But I had asked him if any of these species of bats in Taiwan have had or do have a disease like the White-Nose Syndrome in North America. As I can recall from Dr. Shaw's class back at A&M, this is actually a fungus that gets on the nose of bats and eventually leads to their death because of their unusual behavior. The professor said that he had not come across this disease or anything at all, well at least not yet. Since most people stereotype bats as evil in Western culture, I thought I'd tell you that only 3 species in the whole entire world are vampire bats and the rest are fruit bats. Interesting fact too, there has been no reported cases of rabies either. Huh..

I think the most exciting part about this day though was being able to visit the Wildlife Rescue Center. We were able to get a first hand look at their work area and what they do exactly. The facility as a whole was very small but it seemed very suitable for their work. I learned that alot of people will bring in birds thinking that they cannot fly due to an injury but in fact that isn't true. In truth the birds just haven't had enough time to develop that skill, just like it takes time and practice for babies to walk. Also our tour guide told us a story of a man who raised a little owl thinking he was saving this birds life. Well as he raised the owl, he only fed the bird store bought food not any normal food it should eat like worms, lizards, etc, and so as a result the owl gained alot of weight. So one day the man noticed the bird was standing on only one leg and brought it to the rescue center to find out that both it legs were broken because of its obesity. Such a sad story. The rescue center uses birds like these as ambassadors to teach and educate the public about these problems. For example  they had an African Grey who had to wear a collar because when this species gets depressed it will begin to pluck all its feathers out.

Female turtle with cracked shell and eggs

Only survivor when a tree was cut down 

African Grey

Sometime during the day we also watched a video on the Oriental Honey Buzzard. There are roughly 300 species of raptors in the world but only 3 species feed on bee pupae, including the Oriental Honey Buzzard. They live particularly in the Forest of Ninety-Nine Peaks and have evolved thick scales to prevent from the sting of a bee. The male is typically smaller than the female and no two Oriental Honey Buzzards looks alike. This is very rare and I can only imagine how skilled one must be to be able to identify this bird species. I also learned that there are 7 different species of hornets in Taiwan all of which have stingers and even prey on one another. This is both a blessing and curse to the Taiwanese because their toxin can be used for its medical effect and their deadly sting can kill you.

Lastly we headed to Mingsin Academy, an old school just to look around and as we made our way off to the Phoenix Tea Garden, we stopped by a temple's remains that had been damaged by an earthquake a few years back. I thought to myself why haven't they restored it,  but maybe it served as a sort of tourist attraction or remembrance. So they moved the temple to worship across the street next to some little market. I bought a BUNCH of bananas for only 30 NTU, a bargain. The lady gave me a discount, it was so nice of her :)

Lots of mosquitoes here today. This institute even had a meter indicating the level of mosquitoes in the area. How do you measure mosquito density?


Tomorrow we tour the tea farm!

Wood Factory

I'm feeling much better today :) I think I was just a bit tired and needed some good sleep. Our breakfast was good today too. I had some bread with strawberry jelly and an egg. I think Jack may have asked the cook for more of a Western style cuisine because lunch and dinner had french fries, chicken nuggets and some good radish with meat. It reminded me of my mom's cabbage soup. I haven't had any for a while because I’m always away at school and its too hot to eat soup during the summer in Texas, perhaps Christmas break this year. But anyways since the place we are staying at is a wood factory, we first took a tour of the exhibition center. All of the furniture was beautiful! The manager Jason Chuang even designed a chair with two legs. To be able to support the weight of a person, he said inside the wood there is metal.

All made out of bamboo

Next we went down to where the workers were in the factory. I immediately noticed that none of the workers were wearing gloves, proper shoes or goggles! Ahh insane. Tom and Robin even said that you would never see this in America, and I thought to myself yup because someone would sue the company for an injury or some mishap. I still can't believe the goggles part or even a face mask, because alot of sawdust was flying around and for some reason my right eye teared up two times today on separate occasions. It looked like I was crying. Maybe allergies?? The most exciting part of the day though was getting the opportunity to make our own bench! It was very labor intensive though in terms of time. Sanding, spraying a finish on it twice, and waiting to engrave the top part of the bench via laser engraving was time consuming. I originally wasn't going to do any of that but I figured that it would cost some money when I get back home, so I thought why not do it now. It was very fun but the only thing I regret is not changing my font and not putting my sentence in Chinese. I don't know what I was thinking :( ( another regret, but I still love it, plus a bunch of people liked my wood they said it looked really nice :)) I can't wait to put it together when I get back home :) 

p.s. one of the professor's husband had a shih tzu, but I think she was mixed with another breed. Ahh she was sooo cute!! Reminded me of Mia and Bigboy J I’ll try to get a picture next time.

Yummy Tomatoes

Today we left Meifeng farm. It was really beautiful here and I wish that my college had an area like this for students to go and do their studies. I hope the NTU students realize and cherish what they have. Breakfast was good today. Jack and the volunteer NTU students were kind enough to buy all the American students some oatmeal and bread because the breakfast here is very different. I really appreciated it and I can't express how wonderful the whole staff has been this whole trip so far. I couldn't have asked for anything better :)
Our first stop we arrived at Chuenysang sub-farm  where we picked our own tomatoes. They were so delicious! There was a red and orange grape sized variety and we each filled our own little carton full of them to take with us. Although I wasn't sure what type of tomatoes these were, I did learn that they were resistant to Tobacco Mosaic Virus. This virus (as I recall from plant pathology lab)  is typically spread by growers who smoke and the residue on their hands (the tobacco) is able to infect the plant. It is called TMV because it leaves a mosaic pattern on the surface of tomato leafs and is systemic. I also noticed that in the greenhouses they have these little yellow tapes to trap insects on as a method of keeping pests away.
Once again we were not able to see one of Taiwan's  aboriginal tribe particularly the Wangxiang tribe this time due to concern of bad weather. However we had dinner at a local aboriginal restaurant. Jack mentioned that this particular tribe (sorry I cannot remember which tribe) only has about 600 people left in Taiwan, so being able to see someone of aboriginal descent was very rare. Dinner was okay. It was good and beautiful, but I think at this point in the trip I really want some of my mom's homemade food. I am getting home food sick. At the end the tribe even put on a little performance for us.

After lunch we walked to Sun Moon Lake. This place is especially visited by alot of Chinese tourists because it is rare to be able to come to Taiwan due to the political tension. Tracey mentioned that when growing up they learn of this place in their textbooks so its a very popular place to visit. It is also home to the very first hydro-electrical dam in the area. Today was a bit hotter like the city, so after our guided tour I purchased some chocolate and whiskey ice cream. I thought it was very good, but I wasn't really my normal self because I wasn't feeling too well at the time.

Lalu Island- it is so small no one can travel to it anymore

Tonight we arrived at the Shueili Wood Utilization Center. Every place we have stayed at has been beautiful, including this one too. I really like the art in this room, especially the furniture. Down on the first floor we then  learned how to put together a "Luban lock". Ha, at first I'm puzzled on how to put this thing together and just when I thought I had figured it out, the manager Jason Chuang would come by and have to help me again :) We even had a contest to see who could put it together the fastest. Unfortunately I wasn't even close to winning but Corrine made it to the finals :)

The bed isn't very soft :(

Yay I did it!