2019 Fall Exchange Program -- Tamsui Cultural Trip
Published At:2019-10-31 
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 2019-10-31 updated

By Yu-Chien Liu

 

September 28th is the annual Teachers' Day, but it was more important that today we have an appointment with our foreign friends to go to Tamsui trip.

Today's weather was unfortunately affected by the east wind-wave in the Pacific Ocean. It was raining heavier than the typhoon and everyone's shoes were full of water since the beginning of the trip. It seemed like this was an auspicious day.
 

Even if the weather was bad, there were still foreign friends who punctually showed up at 9:00 in the MRT station.
 


The first stop, we took the MRT to Tamsui to visit Fort San Domingo to experience the ancient history and culture of Taiwan and understood the land’s regimes’ changes. We looked down from the turret and imagine the situation of the gunfire in the past, and Tamsui port’s rise and fall of commercial demand in different periods.

Since there were not many people came, we decided to bring foreign students to the local restaurant to have a Taiwanese local food feast at noon. The dishes combined with local seafood and traditional Taiwan famous dishes. We chatted happily while eating with foreign students. We exchanged local food cultures and shared so many interesting stories, it was like a cultural exchange between the East and the West.
 

When we talked about Taiwan. So far, the biggest impression of them in Taiwan is humidity. I think maybe it’s because they are from the continental climate so they are not still very adaptable. The topic during our meal was so broad that we could talk about everything. After the meal, we proposed to eat the most famous milk mochi. To them, mochi was a brand-new food for them, so we demonstrated how to eat it through the forks and chopsticks. We ordered so many flavors and they evaluated the oreo taste was the most delicious. Sesame and peanut flavors might be too novel to them. They ate them with satisfied smiles, it seemed that this was a perfect dessert!
 

 

Then we took them to the Tamsui old streets. The foreign students were most interested in the ancient flavor cakes sold on the street, so everyone went to queue to buy a box of cake as a souvenir. After that we took the ferry to Bali while enjoying the greatness of the Tamsui River. Fortunately, the Sand Sculpture Festival was held on the Bali coast. So, we all took photos with the lovely artworks and took a group photo in front of the most famous representative of art.


On the returning ship, we cherished the journey that was coming to the end. On this day, we came to the north of Taiwan's border, and the rainy atmosphere brought us a kind of Tamsui’s autumn beauty. As the journey ended, we also wished all the students exchanged in Taiwan will have the most memorable memories of life in the next six months.