Academic connections Personal connection
Academic connections Personal connection
On Day 14, we take our final religious tour of an institution that doubles as a university and a monastery. We got to sit in and practice various staples of meditation, such as walking meditation and outdoor meditation. Due to the bad weather, we didn’t get to experience the entire university, but I still enjoyed the time we spent focusing on meditation and relaxation. We then moved on to my favorite part of our visit, tea time. We had an instructor who would make us tea and explain the process of making tea in groups of 4; I loved the […]
Day 13 was more of a solo adventure for me, but we started with a group cooking course. We were making rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves. I don’t cook, so I had my work cut out for me, but I still had a great time. Our instructor was very friendly and even made us boba from scratch. It was a good way to start the day. We had free time for the rest of the day, so I took the opportunity to visit the Taipei Zoo. All the animals in the zoo seemed to be well cared for, and […]
Day 12 was one of my favorite days of our trip so far. We began by traveling to this mountain to visit some historic sites in a small town that was once very popular due to its gold mine located on the mountain. When the gold ran out, however, the people left the city, making it a ghost town. Now reinhabited, we must explore this massive market, which is part of the town bursting at the seams with people and tourism. It was cool to see tourists and locals alike going about their day-to-day lives while discovering many interesting things […]
On Day 11, we make our way back to Taipei for the last time, as our time in Taiwan comes to a close. We start our day by visiting another temple, but this time it is a Confucius temple. I enjoyed the simplicity of this temple, but I missed the enormous statues and monuments of different deities that were absent here. We then made our way to a museum dedicated to the history of Taiwan’s struggles on the 2/28 incident. This is a time when the Japanese colonization of the island ended, and a lot of people from mainland China […]
Day 10 was a fantastic day with a variety of fun activities. We had the honor of visiting the Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum, where the largest statue of the Buddha in Asia is located, and it was magnificent to see it in person. I enjoyed the museum and our tour guides, with the intimate experience we had with the museum. I walked away with a wealth of knowledge and saw many amazing things related to Buddhism. Did you know early Buddhist temples were man-made caves? After visiting the museum, my academic responsibilities were fulfilled, and I went to the […]