We woke up bright and early to begin our journey to southern Taiwan on the 27th. Professor Young and Professor Chen very kindly gave us breakfast boxes before we headed to the train station, where we rode for one stop and then transferred to the high speed trail. The ride over to Hsinchu was really gorgeous — after we arrived we got a tour of Hsinchu Science Park, a technology park with highly innovative and progressive engineering. There were titanium joints, precision machineries, concepts of various items (like a moped) and many more high-tech inventions. I’m not very versed in biomedical engineering and some of the other very sciencey stuff that we were shown, but it was interesting to see all these very futuristic looking items and products that likely will become staples in society later on. After we left the science park we explored a really beautiful temple — it was smaller than the other ones we had visited but honestly might have been my favorite we had seen thus far. It had intricate details and a gorgeous mix of gold and red all around. In the center area there were also a dozen plants surrounding a dragon sculpture, a detail of the temple which I really liked. As beautiful as the temple it was getting quite hot, however we soon boarded our tour bus and headed to Taichung. The ride over there also offered great views of the mountains, and I took some of that time to draw some of the sites that I had seen in my miniature sketchbook that I bought from the gift shop at TNUA. After reaching Taichung we made a stop at Rainbow Village, a very colorful art installation created by Huang Yong-fu, and then drove over to our rather fancy hotel. As it had been a long day took some time to relax before we went to Hanxi Night Market, which was very lively and bustling with people and vendors — it was quite crowded but I really enjoyed the snacks/food I bought. It definitely had a different vibe than some of the night markets we visited in Taipei, as there were less traditional shops and more street vendors, however I had a really fun time there. Taichung has been really cool so far, and I’m excited to see more of it tomorrow!
