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?