Free day! Beach!

30/6/2013

Today was a free day. I went to Fulong for sand sculpture festival.












It was so crowded when we get on the train from Taipei to Fulong. It was a beautiful big beach. We watch the beautiful sand sculptures, including Taiwan Old Street, Beatles, PSY, Ironman and some creative design. After watch the sand sculptures, we enjoy swimming in the beautiful beach.

Later on, we went to Houtong Station. Actually, there is famous for coal minding. After the coal minding industry had been abandoned, this village just become a cat village and we can see lots of cats playing around. It is a very nice place to play with the cats and I enjoy this place very much!

National Palace Museum

29/6/2013

In the morning, we went to Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines. This Museum basically show different type of aborigines with their clothes, house, weapons and traditions. I think the most impressive one is the Seediq. A movie talking about Seediq has been made, which attract me to know more about this aborigine. The weapons, traditions and tattoo of Seediq is very special and sounds interesting.

After that, we went to National Palace Museum.

This Museum show the pottery and ceramics, Jade, and crafting from Chinese history. The most impressive items in the museum is the elephant tooth crafting. Each crafting was well designed and crafted with extremely high technique. We can just observe it clearly with a magnifier. The tradition Chinese art  was so amazing!

Yingge Ceramics Museum

28/6/2013

Today, we had an lecture about experimental design at the morning. It is a quite useful class because it help us to know more about how to prevent the common mistakes when making the hypothesis. Actually, I haven't try to design my own experiment. This is a good chance for me to design an experiment, which is useful for my future studies.

At the afternoon, we visit the Yingge Ceramic Museum. Ceramis is an important art and culture for Taiwan. I just learnt about the history about ceramic in Taiwan. The museum is more modern than I expected. We all have a hand-free receiver that we could listen to the guide without affecting other visitors. I think that is a fancy design and I haven't seen this device before.

Beautiful Vase

My DIY disk

Just after the guided tour, we had a ceramic DIY in the museum. Actually, this is not my first time to make a ceramic. But I think that the method use in this museum is quite easy to learn and it got good result. The Ceramis in Taiwan is so beautiful! And I am looking forward to see more in National Palace Museum.

Yangmingshan Park

27/6/2013

Today, we went to Yangmingshan National Park, Yangmingshan was connected to mountain datun, which was a dormant volcano. We have a hiking in Yangmingshan and learn about the plants and insect there.

A beautiful lizard

 It is very impressive that Yangmingshan would be very cold in winter, so some endemic plant even had hairy like structure on leaves. However, I think the hiking is quick tough and we do not have enough time to observe more plant and insects. 

I climb up at the top of mountain!!!

After the hiking, we observe the volcanic scene in Siaoyoukeng. We are very lucky because this is a windy day!! So there was not foggy and we can observe the volcanic scene clearly.

We took nice photos there. After that, we went to a Hot Spring Museum in Beitou and know about what has happen during the to the hot spring industry during Japanese colonization.  

Rocky shore

26/6/2013

Today, we went to a rocky shore in Taipei. Actually, rocky shore is common in Hong Kong, which is the most common place for biology students for field studies. However, there are some differences between the rocky shore in Taiwan and Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, the vertical zonation is not observable, but it is quite clear in Taipei. In Hong Kong, there are lots of periwinkles in the shore with smaller algae.

You can see different layers of algae and barnacles

 In Taipei, it is easy to see different kind of algae, and the size are much larger than Hong Kong, which may due to the water temperature different. I think that it is interesting to visit other place for field study. Even Taipei and Hong Kong are very close and we can just find lots of differences within the same kind of habitat.

Brittle star

A little crab

Two chiton 

A beautiful sea cucumber

Rice Harvest and Frog watching

25/6/2013

In the morning, we went to experimental farmland in NTU to have an idea about the rice in Taiwan and experience rice harvest. Actually, I pretty like the rice in Taiwan. I think that the texture is better than the one in Hong Kong. We learnt how to harvest the rice and get the grain from the plant.

After rice harvesting, we have lectures about Geography  of Taiwan and plants in Taiwan, which is useful for me to understand why the biodiversity is so rich in Taiwan.

At night, we went for frog watching. We listen carefully to the sound of the frog, and we find Latouchti's frog Rana latouchii, Meintein tree frog Kurixallus idiootocus, Formosan toad Bufo bankorensis, and the protected Taipei tree frog Rhacophorus taipeianus. It is a just an amazing park to see so many different species of frog there!

Formosan toad

Meintein Tree frog

Meet new friends here!!

24/6/2013

It is just the official opening date of the 2013BACT program. We went to gallery of NTU to know about the History of NTU and the "Fu bell". We played a game to know about the famous place in NTU. 

After lunch break, we had lectures about the animals and insects in Taiwan. As Taiwan is a isolated island, it is expected to have lots of endemic species. In the insect lecture, we watched a film about the insects in Yangmingshan. It just sounds very interesting for me and I am waiting for that day!!

Hello! NTU

23/6/2013

This is my first time to visit other University outside Hong Kong. Since Hong Kong is a small city, our number of student and size of University is much smaller. In fact, NTU was bigger than I expected, there are lots of restaurants, sport grounds and plants here. It is difficult to imagine that each department has their own building. In Hong Kong, our department only have a office which is much smaller than one floor of the building in NTU. I think that can really improve the relationship of the students within the same department. I enjoy the lectures and life in NTU and I hope that I can see more natural things in Taiwan!

The dorm in NTU was very nice, the room is large and it looks like a hotel.

Each of us even has a single bathroom. I like that dorm very much. Taiwan is a much bigger island compare with Hong Kong. I hope that I can explore more new things in Taiwan. 

From Hong Kong to Taipei

22/6/2013

This is the start of BACT program, I took a flight from Hong Kong to Taipei and it just take 1hour and 20 minutes. This is the second time I go to Taiwan. I went to Taipei as a tourist when I was 13 years old, I enjoy the food and people in Taiwan. However, in this time, I hope that I can learn more about the Taiwan in academic way. I think that it is interesting to explore the nature in other part of countries.

In the first day night, I went to Ximending, which is famous for shopping and food.

It was very crowed and the first Taiwan food I tried is the "阿宗麵線". I was very delicious and not expensive. 

I enjoy eating and shopping in Taiwan!