University Graduation Trip -Fulong!

To wrap up second semester at my language university, I traveled with 30 foreigners who are classmates in Chinese, to a place called Fulong, in Northeastern Taiwan.

We hopped on our tour bus in the morning and drove an hour to Fulong. My language university has a wide variety of foreigners learning Chinese and living here for periods of time, just like me. I was the only American in a mix of Vietnamese, Japanese, English, Australian, French, South American, Thai and Indonesian. That morning, we arrived  in Fulong for a bike ride.  There were some fun tunnels to go through to get a break from the morning heat. Very necessary! It was a nice way to start the morning.  This was a Taiwanese organized trip, so of course in just one hour, hundreds of pictures were taken, many of which look a lot alike. The time we take to set a picture up, go through what seems hundreds of cameras, and finally get a picture is truly incredible. It quite an experience and I can tell you that my patience level has grown leaps and bounds from just these picture taking moment alone!

It is days like these that I remember how lucky I am to have had the opportunity to come across the world and learn Chinese here in Taiwan, and meet all the great friends who I have at the university. I often forget, until I lay in bed at night and realize that I didn't speak to one person who speaks American English as their native language or that looks like me. This experience is incredible and really fun!

After biking, we headed to lunch by the riverside. For lunch, we had Fulong's famous "biandang", which means lunch box in Chinese. The Taiwanese eat these everyday for lunch and on occasion for dinner too. It is a little cardboard box that is sectioned of to put rice, vegetables, meat, egg, and other food items. I  don't really enjoy them because the Taiwanese cook with a lot of oil.  The vegetables, meat, eggs, and the rest just don't taste good to me after being cooked in all the oil. In the beginning of my exchange I was able to try it and find the joy in eating it, but I am now bored of it and try and pick out the few things I can eat in every box! I think of it as a scavenger hunt...find the healthiest food and then make sure it is not oiled out.

Once finished eating, we headed out to the river for some kayaking! We were able to play some fun games in the water and just ride around the river. Fulong has a famous sand castle building contest that was happening while we were there, so we were able to see some of the creations. Of course, we had a hard downpour of rain while we were in the river! Seems to be a daily event in Taiwan. But, overall it was really fun to just enjoy the water and end the day with a fun activity.

Thank you to all the great friends I have met over my year taking Chinese classes. I have enjoyed getting to know you using one common language!