German(y) in Taiwan

It has been two weeks again since I last published a post now. Although I have been taking notes and collecting short texts about interesting topics to discuss, events and exciting encounters and even more cultural observations,  somehow I just did not find time to compose a cohesive essay.

Hualian and my first encounter with my AIESEC hosts

My, my... A recovery of my laptop is not in sight. Luckily, however, before it crashed I had already uploaded some of my pictures from Hualian to facebook, which again provides a download function. Somewhat complicated, but this way I can now post about my trip.

Culture shock? No! Culture rocks!

Welcome to the show again!

I am afraid, though, today there is not much to see. My laptop is on strike, the windows starting data is damaged. So with my laptop's operating system on vacation, my many pictures are inaccessible and I can only write to you, unsupported by images. (Yes, the rather aliterate among you should stop reading by now -  there are no shiny pictures to come, you can skip the whole text ;) )
Thus, I have to abolish my initial plan to tell you about my recent trip to Hualian, because I cannot let words go about it without adding some pictures of its magnificent nature. As I still have to revive this little blog here, I will for now resort to formulating my observations, ideas and thoughts on Taiwanese culture. The post about Hualian is in stocks! (In case I ever get my old friend running again...) But now, let me tell you of some cultural experiences in this strange place far from my home.

Hiking on the Caoling Ancient Trail

Hi everybody!

So the other day, it was a Sunday to be precise, I was lying in bed pondering on how to spend the day. On the one hand, I somehow felt really exhausted and just wanted to slumber away the whole day, on the other hand I did not want to waste the given time to explore Taiwan. Upon weighing up these choices, I finally decided I had to cherish every moment while I am here, thus  forcing myself to get up.

Taipeh Impressions Part III

Welcome to the last (I promise!) post on my trip to Taipeh.

Though it is already one week ago now that I returned from Taipeh, I still am not finished writing about it... There are so many impressions I would like to share with you, but words are hard to find at times, especially when I am distracted by all the other work I am doing here on the farm, most of it also revolving around developing concise English formulations for our webpage, writing other entries on other blogs, answering customer requests and last but not least even quite an amount of Chinese-English-translation works (I have to say I really like the latter part, as I feel it helps improving my language skills a lot).

Taipeh Impressions Part II

Good morning and welcome (again? :) ) to our little blog!

I am sorry for the delay on this sequel of my trip to Taipeh, but today I will continue to introduce further lovely sights in and around Taipeh that I visited during my stay there.

Taipeh Impressions Part I

Hi again everyone!

Today I want to tell you about my trip to Taipeh last weekend. This time I can especially address those among you who prefer to look at pictures and like to skip text, since I got a few nice shots to share with you!

My trip was an amazing experience, thanks to a good friend and her family who hosted me, showed me around the city and literally even gave me a ride to what might have been the rim of the world, haha. But more about that later.

I have so many impressions to share that I think I am going to split this into two, or maybe even three posts, so wait for more.

The world after Christina: Typhoon arriving.

Here we go again - my post number two!

I hope I did not leave you guys hanging for too long... I just decided to double my efforts in writing these paragraphs, since our dear boss Tina just revealed an interesting train of thoughts to me. Namely, that male individuals supposedly face more troubles writing about their emotions and experiences than females. I deliberately took this inspiring idea as a hint that I should do something about the hunger for entertainment of you all. :D

Now that Christina is gone the farm feels like a completely different place. Though we have only known each  other for two weeks, I sense that a great buddy has just left. And not only that, my mentor as well! At this point I would like to express my appreciation for the great introduction Christina gave me to everything and everybody around here. Thank you!

My little knowledge of Chinse might be a big help to me, but who is going to do all the designing and creative work now?!

Be it to my liking or not, I guess I have to try discovering all the programs and functions to do all that on my own. It seems like from now on I am going to benefit more from my work here than I could possibly have anticipated before.

Currently, the farm is comparitively derserted, as many visitors have cancelled their reservations for these days after a warning of a major typhoon arriving on Thursday had been published. Maybe it is just me being oversensitive, but I think I felt some nervousness in the air today in the morning. However, according to the latest news the typhoon has slowed down a great deal and is now believed to arrive at nighttime or on Friday.

While people on the farm are mostly waiting for the typhoon to pass by, annoyed by the effects of it drawing nearer, I for my part am actually a little excited to experience the first typhoon in my life.

Although I suspect that afterwards I will be just as annoyed by and nervous about future typhoons, I still cannot help my excitement in these moments.

I just hope that this typhoon will not undermine my plans to go to Taipeh this Saturday and explore the secrets of Taiwan's heart.

During the last couple of days, we had many activities and visited several places, all of which, in fact, were really fun and beautiful. But it is also nice to have some unhurried hours like today and I am going to indulge in that now.

So thanks for reading and hope to welcome you again to our blog (now it's all MINE! :D)

Niklas

Time FLIES! Goodbye Taiwan and Toucheng Farm

I will not be able to describe how I feel about my 7 weeks here. There is so many things that I am thinking about now. It is impossible to get all of that down on paper. I have had the greatest time here in Taiwan and I feel envious that Niklas gets to stay longer :D Of course I am looking forward to seeing my friends and family again, but I would rather wish for everyone to come here :D

I want to share some pictures and impressions from my trip...

Hi there, this is Niklas from Germany!

Hey everybody!

I am Niklas from Germany and the "new" intern at Toucheng Leisure Farm. Although I have been here for 10 days already, this is my first post on our blog. Now why did it take me so long to publish it?

Bye bye Toucheng Leisure Farm, see you next time(?) !

The end of my internship has come. 

Almost 7 weeks, exactly 47days.

Dozens new people met, hundreds new flavours tasted, 

thousands impressions experienced,

unknown but enormous amount of new abilities learnt.

And I still want more!

Going out in Yilan

Hey all

Yesterday we went out for dinner in Yilan with some of the people from the farm. We always appreciate very much when the farm's staff take us anywhere because it is always an adventure and also nice to meet new people and so on. We went to a restaurent, which is owned by a friend of one of the farm's staff. It was a really pleasant experience! I guess maybe we got the VIP treatment since we were friends with the owner but everybody was really nice and it seemed like everyone there was really satisfied with their meals and drinks. Yup, drinks! The restaurent is in fact also a bar after 22.00. Therefore they also had a wide variety of alcohol i all shapes and sizes! :) Oh and the food! My God! So great. I always take the opportunity to eat something different than Chinese because we get so much Chinese food here, and I am starting to miss the Western touch :D Although I was a little jealous of the hot pot dinner of one the others :D But my spaghetti was awesome too!! :)

We also tried very very pink drinks and they tasted a little like grape! It was really cool! Of course we were not drinking all night since we have work today :) But as you can see on the picture, they had quite a big bar in the background :) I have forgotten the name of the place, but I will get back to you on that one :) 

Love, Christina

A regular day at the office :D

Black peanuts

Red pitaya or dragon fruit

....And then you get all kinds of treats just sitting here working :D

A trip to Tom's World with the kids

Hi everyone!

I really want to share my experience at the game hall "Tom's World". I went with two lovely kids, the farm owner's grandkids. At first I didn't really know where we were going, because I have never heard of Tom's World. But after som inquiries to the kids I though I had an idea of what I was going to experience but you never know :D

Dance show in Yilan and nightmarket

This friday we went to Yilan to see a dance show.

Hot Spring in Jiaoxi

So the other day we went to the hot spring in Jiaoxi! It was really a great experience. Firstly when I tried to get in it was waaaay to hot. But then I realized that it was because I was trying to get in really close to where the hottest water actually was. So I moved away from it, and then it was more to my liking. After some time it was also possible for me to go to the hotter places... I guess you just need some time to get used to it.

Kasia leaving Toucheng Leisure Farm...

.... but on sunday Niklas from Germany will arrive!

I have already stayed here at the farm for 4 weeks and that meant a goodbye to Kasia this tuesday. Spending 4 weeks in her presence I must say that my room now seems juuust a little too big! But none the less, the people here at the farm are really awesome and everyone really cares about how I am or feel - so that feels awesome. I had the opportunity to accompany Kasia to Taipei and even though a typhoon has been making life in Taiwan a little difficult, we spent two almost three days experiencing Taipei - both sightseeing and nightlife! And I must say: Taipei is really a city worth seeing!

Karaokeee!

A couple of days ago we went for a goodbye dinner for Kasia with people from the farm! The food was really awesome and they had one of those turn-tables where you can share all the food that you order. It is a really cool way to eat I think - very social! :) I like it!

Yesterday I tasted a delicacy in Taiwan. "1000 year old egg" or "century egg".

Being Taught While Being a Teacher

To be honest : taking part in the Toucheng Leisure Farm's Summer Camps 2012 was the first time in my entire life to spend whole days with kids younger than 13 years old.

After all, I'm really grateful for that opportunity!

The Turtle Island

Last Sunday I and Christina used the opportunity (and tickets) given to us by 

Tina - the farm's manager and our 'host mum' : we took a cruise around the Turtle Island. 

Trip to the Farm's Winery

Hi guys

Today we were so lucky to get picked up by Grandpa here at the farm. We were on the way back from working with the kids to have lunch. He waved us into his car and asked us to join him.

Hi guys!

I want to tell you about our trip to Hualien. Hualien is located below Yilan and we took the train for 2 and a half hours. We arrived at Guangfu, which is a small town in Hualien. It is a little bit confusing because there is "the county/district" Hualien but there is also a town called Hualien. The same goes for Yilan, which is both the county or district but also a town in the district. Well we were going Hualien to attend a trainee conference hosted by AIESEC Taiwan. The purpose of this conference was to prepare us for our time here in Taiwan and also give us inspiration for traveling in Taiwan. 

Lectures at nearby school

Hi everyone!

We would like to tell you guys about our experience of giving a "lecture" about our homecountries to the kids at a nearby school! Sometimes it is easy to forget all the amazing things about your own country especially when you are out and about experiencing totally different culture. So it was actually a lot of fun even just creating the presentation. Also trying to figure out what kind of information the kids would like to know. It turned out to be really difficult to anticipate what they wanted to know, but more on that later ;)

First up was Poland:

Hellooo to Taiwan

Hi everyone!
I am Christina from Denmark and I have finally arrived at the Toucheng Farm. I know that Kasia mentioned here on the blog that I was arriving the 6th of July and now it is already the 10th of July! So I want to update you on my first days here. SO many things have already happened.

Luodong Night Market

Explore Asia without going to any Night Market? It's almost a sin. 

Visit at this place should be the first position on everyone's 'To Do' list 

while staying in any Asian country.

Summer Camps at the Farm

Summer Camps Season has already begun at the Toucheng Leisure Farm! 

I spent 2 first weeks of my internship watching the farm's staff preparing the camps,

 but I didn't expect such an amazing effect!

National Centre For Traditional Arts

Thanks to the kind and friendly farm's staff members, 

I was able to visit National Centre for Traditional Arts in Yilan. 

The centre takes up about 24hectares on which there's a whole traditional Taiwanese street, a temple, a library, an exhibition hall and a residence.

Culture Shock on Discovery Channel?

At the very beginning of my stay in Taiwan I thought that nothing could really suprise me here. After watching so many TV programmes about foreign cultures and visiting most of European countries I considered myself as well prepared for 2 months in Asia.

Food, food and once again food!

What everyone should try at least once in a liftime is Taiwanese food. It's completely different from what I'm used to eat in Europe but really delicious!

Since I arrived in Taiwan, I've already tried what seems to me like hundreds kinds of food and I still find new ones to taste! Rice, pasta, vegetables, tofu and pork are the most popular ingredients and Taiwanese can serve them in so many different ways!

If you don't like rice or pasta - don't worry, you will find something else to eat, e.g. ...

Taiwanese dumplings served in many different ways: with pork or with curry, spicy or delicate ones.

Hello Taiwan! Nice to meet you!

Hello!
My name is Kasia and I come from Poland, Europe. This summer  I’m gonna be one of three interns residing at the lovely Toucheng Leisure Farm and updating this blog!