Day 11: Bottlemate

   The Bottlemate visit was probably the best one so far. They manufacture bottles for cosmetics and the really cool thing is that I have some of the bottles they make at home. I don't own a bike or have an HTC phone (I do drink a lot of tea but from different brands) but I see those bottles every day even if I don't use the products daily.

The Bottlemate containers I probably see most often in my  house since they're so colorful

    The company started out making plastic tools and things and got into cosmetic containers in 2003. They use injection and blow molding processes which is what the factory I work at in the summer uses. We were split into two tour groups by gender so the boys went first while we investigated the contents of the containers used as samples. Then we went on a tour of the factory. We saw the printing process of the bottles, including one that was Hello Kitty. The process takes place one color at a time. 

   

Day 10: Yungshin Pharmaceuticals and Giant Bicycles

   The day started with a post office fiasco. The night before we had been told that the post office opened at 8 AM and that we needed to be at the bus at 9 AM. So Carol and I made up our boxes of things we wanted to ship back (to save space and to have less things to lug around Japan) and got them taped and addressed the night before. So that morning we left the Alumni House just before 8 and took the "10 minute" walk to the post office which turned out to only be 4 minutes. Upon getting there we learned that the post office actually opened at 8:30 so we waited around figuring we'd be first in line and it wouldn't take very long. When the post office finally opened there was only one person behind the counter. We got the customs forms and filled them out. Then Carol went first getting her package weighed and processed but the scale was acting up a bit so it took a while and the whole time the process kept getting paused in favor of students who only needed stamps or to mail letters. By the time it was my turn it was 8:47ish and by the time I was finished (since I was interrupted constantly  too) it was 8:58 and we had to run back for the bus but luckily we made it.

    Then we took the bus to Yungshin Pharmaceuticals. We watched the standard videos about them having the most superior technology and a human free environment (which is impossible) before taking a tour.

   

   They did have an awesome automated warehousing system though.

   Then after lunch we visited Giant Bicycles and toured one of their assembly lines. We saw the standard promotional videos, learned about how they manufacture bicycles for other companies as well and how they're trying to promote "cycling culture". Most of the media exposure that the company gets  is from the events they host and the cyclists they sponsor. 

   Then we stopped at a super nice rest area. There was a ton of restaurants a little grocery store and a couple coffee places (in addition to the requisite toilet facilities) but the best part was probably the park area outside. 

   Our final activity of the evening was to go to a night market. Several of the guys bought more luggage to transport their souvenirs in.

Day 9: Tunghai University

    We started our first day at Tunghai with a lecture on Taiwanese Financial markets. It was interesting, but I think the rest of the class liked it more than I did since many of them kept saying it was their favorite lecture so far. I think this was partly because I was tired that day and partly because financial markets aren't my main area of interest while the cross-cultural communication and brand management lectures were more of my thing. The professor, Dr. Chen-Jui Huang, was really energetic and enthusiastic about the material and would be great to take a class from and still had me enjoying the lecture much more than I would have otherwise (it isn't that I hate financial markets but I don't love them and combined with not sleeping well for days, it's a miracle I found the lecture interesting). We learned about, among other things, the low inflation rate in Taiwan.

   After that a professor from Belgium gave us a tour of the school. It was founded when 13 christian schools came together and is most famous for it's chapel.

   We also saw the famous women's prison (aka the female dorms)

    Then we had our group discussion and met some Tunghai students and did a little presentation about university life in America.  When the students asked questions at the end and when we sat with them to talk they seemed really shy and only the "good English speakers" talked a lot, the rest only asked maybe one question and only in the small groups.

     Then a bunch of us went to the small night market near the school.

Day 8: Free Day Adventures

  We were given a "free day" to do whatever before we left Taipei. It was really more of a free afternoon because we left the hotel at 10 AM (packing took a while) and had to be back by 7 so that we could catch the train to Taichung.

   A few of us headed out to the movie theater by Taipei 101. Tiffany and I chose Star Trek, so we bought our tickets at the automated machine (which even lets you chose your seats) and had some time to kill.

Ireland's Potato was a fry and drinks place next to the cinema, it played hardcore uncensored rap music that no American restaurant could get away with

The movie was amazing (I love Star Trek an Benedict Cumberbatch almost equally so it was an awesome combo) but it made me really homesick because when I was little I'd watch Star Trek with my dad.

   After that we visited Taiwan's largest bookstore (which had random clothing shops and a food court in it as well). 

   The whole group took the HSR (high speed rail) up to Taichung City and then a taxi to Tunghai University's Alumni House where we'd be staying. It was really hard to say goodbye to all the friends I'd made in Taipei.

Day 7: There's Gold In Those Mountains! (And Sky Lanterns)

 

 Saturday started off with a long bus ride into the mountains.

Our tour guide Jenny

  We toured an old gold mining town and saw the residence built for the crown prince of Japan at the time (but he became emperor right after it was finished so he never visited)

    The main street was really packed and winding as we tried to make it through the crowd and stay together to get to the restaurant where we had lunch reservations. 

   Then after a little bit of wandering around and shopping we got back on the bus to go to another town for the "sky lantern" experience a lot of people had been talking about for days.  I don't believe in it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't really fun.

The hardest part was filling up all 4 sides

   Basically we stood on a set of train tracks holding a paper balloon with a huge wad of fire inside it...

   Every so often a whistle would sound and everyone would hurry off the tracks before a train came through

   They looked really cool in the air though.

   The bus ride back was really long most people got off at the hotel but I went wandering around with Shelly, sadly I wasn't used to the nighttime settings on my new camera so the only one that turned out was of part of the Ferris wheel we went on.

   We went back to the hotel to see who wanted to come to the hot springs and picked up Laura and Theresa. It took us two MRT trains and a 15ish minute walk to get there but it was worth it.

Interesting statue at the Xinbeitou station (where the hot springs are)
 

   We didn't go to the public hot springs, we went to the ones where everyone has their own individual room with their own tub and you get 40 minutes. It was super relaxing and we didn't get back to the hotel until almost 1 AM. 

Day 6: Tamkang University and Tam Sui old town

Hmmm I wonder what this building is used for...

   We went to Tamkang university for a tour and lecture. The students there were a lot more shy with their English.

They also had a gorgeous traditional garden

Their Maritime Museum was cool 

   Then we had a lecture on cross cultural communication. The teacher was really funny and awesome and we got to learn through playing games. The best was probably the telephone game. We were split into groups based on nationality (all American, all Taiwanese, and mixed) and then given sentences to pass along. Some were written in western news order others in eastern. I think the desired outcome was for unmixed groups to have the best results but that isn't what happened at all.

    We had lunch with the students. Basically they took us to their cafeteria and most of us got what they usually eat. The group I went with took us to a potsticker place. It was amazingly good (but I made a poor choice for the accompanying soup, I like fishballs sometimes but that wasn't one of those times). After lunch we had one of our group discussions in the library, we got some pretty weird looks from the students who had no idea why we were there but the discussion was good.

   Once our discussion was finished we rejoined the students and went on a tour of Tam Sui old town.

We visited a really cool temple 

A church built by the first missionary

Gorgeous building (part of a university)

There were two turtles (there's a little guy back there) and  some fish, we got irrationally excited 

We all needed pictures of the turtles

Day 5: Brand Management, Taiwan Stock Exchange and Franz

   We started out with a brand management class at NTNU, where we listened to an analysis of a case study about E-harmony and contributed to the discussion. The presentation itself wasn't that interesting but people raised really good questions. In the end we had to leave early to make it to the Stock Exchange.

   At the Taiwan Stock Exchange we got a brief presentation of how trading there works. The presenter seemed almost apologetic over the polices. Share prices can't fluctuate more than 7% a day so that no one looses all their money which makes sense because most traders are housewives. They also have very short trading hours, only 4.5 hours a day. Honestly I have mixed feelings, it's good that so many women are getting involved in the stock market and I wish it were that way here, but at the same time the speaker said something about how buying a stock was like buying a lottery ticket and how most people follow trends or listen to TV personalities which isn't healthy.

   After the presentation we had lunch at Taipei 101 and I finally got to buy a new camera! My old camera had been having issues with the lens sticking no matter how much I cleaned it and the  day before it had finally given up and refused to close. I bought a cheaper Sony model ($140 USD or so) and the clerk was so nice. She asked me if i wanted to use it right away and when I said yes she traded the battery in the box with a fully charged one, put the wrist strap on the camera and set the menu to English for me.

First picture with my new camera!

   Then we visited the vase and porcelain manufacturer Franz. I think the most interesting part was watching the sculptors making the decorations for the vases out of clay (and applying them to perfectly symmetrical plastic vase molds). They were all so breathtakingly beautiful and the thought that less than 40% of them will ever see production makes me incredibly sad. We also visited the upstairs showroom which was both terrifying and gorgeous because you were surrounded by extremely expensive and fragile objects. 

Steps of the porcelain making process (in the only room we were allowed to take pictures in)

 

   The last item on the agenda was an appreciation dinner for everything NTNU had done for us, but the NTNU students got to chose and they chose McDonald's... it was a little ridiculous.