2012.7.11_we are carpenters

We had a full day at the Shuili Wood Factory touring around the factory and making our one and only stools, which I really enjoyed making things a lot! By the way, the night before we all got a set of Luban's lock and had fun figuring it out. One thing worth noted is that.......the food here is reeeeeeaaaaally good! Home-made, fresh, simple, and lots of dishes reminded me of my mom's taste. OH! I MISS HOME!

We start off at the Shuili Wood Utilization Center, where work of arts and furnitures made of woods and bamboos are displayed. 

The thing that caught my eyes were the sampling chairs for NTU’s main library. It was originally made by a wood that is too heavy for a chair. So they decided to use another wood which is also a top-leveled quality wood. However, since in Taiwan, people are not allowed to cut down any trees (except for NTU’s Xitou experimental forest since they need to thin the woods), so these are made by imported woods.

Then we went to visit the utilization practice factory, where masters were there cutting and processing woods. The photo below shows the most important part of the whole factory: sharpening the blade of the saw. This process requires technique and experienced masters.

Now here’s the fun part! The master was making a rolling pin (and also made a baseball bat), which we all were amazed by his skillful technique!

Then, this is the part where we all got excited: DIY-making stools. Originally, I was so confused by the schedule which said we are spending the whole afternoon finishing our own stool, since the only seemed to take 15 minutes to put the pieces of stools together. Then after learning the whole process......I realized a whole afternoon...may not even be enough. Here is the process below:

Sand every pieces → get one of our own pieces carved with words or logos we wanted → put them together

The two lines carved on my stools is actually the same as the couplets at our home's front door, which was written my my aunt for our family since mom and dad bought the house when they got married. Since my dad is a tea and plant lover, and couplets are changed every Chinese New Year, so this is what the right line means:we you can smell the tea from the neighboring seat, and the scent of the flower, you will know that the spring is here and a new year has come.

→ spray the paint for the first layer → dry → sand → 2nd paint → dry

→ stick on the tiles: we were suppose to do so, but I was so obsessed with the color and pattern of the wood, and I really like how it feels with the words carved on my stool. Therefore, I took my tiles with me, and after I take my stool back home, we could have a family meeting to decide whether it should be on the family stool.

Done! Thank you teacher and master!! We love it!

2012.7.9_another one of the best days

The night before, I wished we didn’t have to wake up and watch birds in such an early time, especially with an empty stomach; however, after our “sneaky” adventure starts, I couldn’t help but got enchanted by the amazing bird world. We not only did bird-watching, but also got a chance to see how marking birds an doing research on birds in the wild would be like. Thanks to (?!....well, at least in my prospective) the mist net, we got to see a real field-data collecting on the scene. 

We stayed at Meifeng farm, where I love and enjoyed very much, for the whole day. The schedule is as below: bird watching, a guided tour in Meifeng farm, a lecture on composing, sugar-beet juice making, and finally an introduction on moth.

We got a baby White-tailed Robin; however, it was not the research’s aim, so after taking photos of it, we let it go.

Their aim was Taiwan Yuhina, and we were just too lucky that they just caught two Taiwan Yuhinas; therefore able to demonstrate the data-collecting process.

It was worth noted that one of them, the one with a green-white mark was incubating, since we could see that they didn’t have any feathers on their stomach.

Later on, after a brief introduction, we got to see them measured. Then, the most excited part came: the injection of a chip. Since the color band on their foot is hard to observe when they are incubating, so the chip will help identifying who they are; therefore, observe their cooperative breeding behavior.

After bird watching, we went on a tour guide around the farm. The most impressive thing is the peach orchard. Since freshman year, our teachers kept showing us pictures of the beauty when peach trees are in full bloom. Therefore, to me, this was a precious experience to see the place with my own eyes. Noted that they were all Y-shaped pruning.

In the afternoon, we had a lecture from Mr.劉力學 on table waste composing, which I totally enjoyed it very very much. He gave me a different thought that things could possibly be different: the waste could be reused, be turned in to valuable qualities. By the way, it totally made sense that as long as nutrients are abundant, plants are able to start their pest-resistance system, which I think it’s a really cool mechanism (attacked-->spreading perfume-->poisonous sweet for specific pests). And we really should think it over carefully: let the nature be nature.

Sugar-beets harvesting and juice making.

Let Meifeng’s maze end this day of amazement!

2012.7.8_Mt.Hehuan: a beauty of nature

After having a fine and nice sleep in Meifung farm, we headed to Mt.Hehuan, hiking again. At first, I thought it would be like other hiking we had so far, in groups, non-stop, sweating, so and so. However, after we gradually winded up the mountain, sceneries of awes kept emerging. Bright sun, blue blue sky with decorating clouds, and the lively angles of the land, made the day as if we were in a paradise.

Rebecca and I were "hiking mates" along the way. We love the weather, which was just moderate and not even close to cold, and we were able to hide in the shade for cooling down a bit or let the sun shine on us for a soak of warmness. Beside the weather, we adored the landscape and vegetation along the trail. We were having so much fun since we got the chance to take our time and appreciate the everything around us. Since this was my first time here, I was too excited that I kept asking Rebecca to take photos of the mountains and me.

The hiking entrance of the main peek of Mt.Hehuan. Here's Rebecca at the entrance.

Along the way, I just can't get enough of the beautiful sceneries and I those plants that I had never seen at a lower elevation.

I think it was because we were still adapting to the environment in hight mountains, so it was harder to walk fast. But slowing down was just what I needed, being able to take a closer look at the world, this paradise.

This was how the scenery on the top of the main peek looks like. We counted that we could see 10 layers of mountains through this angle.

This is the sign of the elevation: 3416m. It is worth noted that there was another sign showing the elevation of the peek; however, according to a hiker who seemed very experienced, this should be the exact point where they measure the elevation. And he also said that the scenery level there on the sign is level 3, which means the distance we can see from there is at most 4km (if I memorize it correctly).

Before ending my post here, I would like to mention about our driver, who was a really nice and experienced person, he already had 30-year experience being a driver. One thing special about driving in Mt.Hehuan is that the drivers are all equipped with something like a walkie-talkie on the car, and they have to report constantly about where they are so that cars won't run into each other so that the traffic won't be stuck. Also, the driver called normal cars "小烏龜" and the motorcycles "風火輪".

2012.7.6_are we really in Taiwan?

We went to Taroko National Park and had a walk along the Shakadang trail. We were supposed to go somewhere else afterwards; however, due to safety reasons, we had to drive all the way back to Taipei and take another way to Meifung farm.

The two best parts of the walk along the trail, I say it would be the fun and rest along the river and the “shopping” at the aboriginal products’ stands (well, you know girls.....after spending so much times in the mountains, it feels great to see beautiful hand-made things, especially accessories for sale!)

There was a spot where everyone, most of everyone, went and had a dip in the water. However, I was one of them that didn’t feel like getting wet, so we stayed along the side and enjoyed the beautiful color of the water, the texture of the rock, and the fun watching people climbing up and down on the rocks. This scenery just doesn't look like Taiwan, it looks like the time I were visiting a george in Canada three years ago.

Rebecca, Carolina, and I wanted to take a photo together, but we couldn’t think of anything to do in the photo, this is the best we could come up with.

Again, Rebecca, Ivy, and I on the rock.

Ivy’s look was precious!

Look at Jack! Basically, he looks like he was having a pretty cozy time on the edge of the rock.

And these are the hand bands I got! LOVE THEM! I love the combination of the color, the texture, the everything! And they only cost 100 NTD each, which I thought was a nice bargain!

I’m glad we got to go back to Taipei for a night that I can “charge” myself a bit since the tight schedule was driving me nuts! 

2012.7.4_follow the step, sending the voice

This is the first day of our "staying-out" field trip. We head to Gold ecological park, Jiufen, and stayed in a B&B at Shifen. Jiufen and Shifen were my favorite.

We were able to visit the gold mining spot, which is the only one left in Taiwan. Before getting into the tunnel, we were all given a blue "hat", which I thought was the "helmet" and thought maybe it would only act like one to give us an experience of what it might be. However, after we enter an introduction area, we were given the "real" helmet.

This tunnel owns a Japanese name.

When we were about to get into the tunnel.

It's worth noted that a taboo of this tunnel was "no women are allowed in the tunnel", hmmmm........so we should be in there?!

A demonstrate of how gold mining would be in the tunnel.

Later on, we moved to Jiufen to get our lunch!!! Since last semester we did a project on introducing Jiufen, I so wanted to taste the taro balls again, especially the "阿甘姨's". But before the sweetness filled our stomach, Rebecca and I were looking forward to filling something that feels like a meal first, so we got this deeeeeelicious fish balls with tofu (豆腐包). We also had the peanut sugar with ice-cream (磨花生糖＋冰淇淋卷), which made my day:))

After this tired day of walking, it was good to be at our cozy traditional B&B. I have to say that the place was beautiful and the owners were so hospitable.

We were able to draw and write on our own lantern. So Jenny and I wrote blessings like: stay healthy, happy life, wish upon the star, and dream come true on it. And on the other side we wrote our Chinese name. Since Jack told us not to write our name or any contact on it, so I made my name looked like a graph.

Let us "which upon the sky"~

2012.7.3_intertidal zone=exciting

The first thing I heard when I got off the bus were yells screams from the children. It reminded me that  as a child, there was once our family went to the intertidal zone together. Grabbing a bug net in my hand and having a bucket in my other hand. I didn't get to go too far back then, but today, with these "special shoes", I got to have a tiny adventure.

After Jack made the first move in the water, we all got too excited that we really could possibly explore the area. It felt tighter when the shoes was soaked with water. ( I really like those shoes, by the way.)

This is Jack showing us that the first layer is algae and the second is mussel, since during high tide only the upper part of the water is able to get the sunlight.

sea squirt

brittle sea star

hermit crab

I think they can hear us, since once I made a noise, it will soon hide in its shell. So I waited patiently and it eventually came out and grab my finger!

sea grape

It looked sooooo juicy that I really wanted to take a bite. However, someone tasted it and it turned out to be really salty.

Sea lettuce (Ulva lactuca)

This is one kind of green algaes, and every piece is actually consists of two layers of cells, which is the reason why they are so thin. They actually looked like seaweed soup with runny eggs to me (the white part resembled the egg)! Jack told us that they will turn white after they release their spores.

fresh

dried

This is a kind of algae (石花菜）, which after drying them it could be made into jelly. We got our own serve, it tasted.............really.................."fresh", I wouldn't call it bad, but if they could add more flavor to it, I would be pleased.

My skin is getting even darker. But I guess I'll just let it be. 

Let's call it a day.