Week 3 :: Shu-Te University

week 3 at shu-te kicked of with some chinese painting... of bamboo. not gonna lie, it wasn't my strong point but it ended up turning out okay i think. it's all about the brush stroke and how you apply speed and pressure to the stroke yet again. i'm too impatient. but my quick incorrect strokes looked fine to me :)

in pottery we made mugs. i definitely prefer rolling out the clay flay as opposed to rolling out long strands and curling them around in a spiral... having to smooth that out is wayyyy annoying. but pottery still requires a lot of finesse. oh well. i made a nice square mug... eventually ;)

glass basically didn't happen. we somehow missed the memo that a LARGE group of high schoolers would be coming through and thus preventing us from having class. so basically we all woke up early to stand around and listen to a lecture... in chinese. we were all a little grouchy that morning. we did learn that we would be making glass necklaces soon though.. i took some pictures of the examples for ideas

metal class was nice. we got to finish our necklaces. i was really proud of mine. they turned out well... and now i have more presents for people :)

design studio was all about cranking out concepts and models this week. it was pretty crazy. i got all my concept sketches finished, but i only got one of three models done... at least they weren't technically due until the end of class so i had a nice buffer. i felt really terrible for the other students though because they have soooo much work to do in their other classes... not to mention this one credit hour class that a number of them aren't even enrolled for. apparently this class is basically a resume builder for them.

of course the high light of the week was the alleged talent show for international day on campus... that we didn't hear about until the last minute... oh tin-man. we kind of knew that we had to put on some quasi performance, but none of us knew that it was an actual TALENT show that we needed to take seriously! we started out thinking all of us girls would sing spice girls and be silly. we all had our characters picked out and everything when we decided we would be way to giggly for something we needed to take seriously. ...so we decided on lady gaga instead ;) still not SERIOUS, but at least one of the girls (amanda) knew the dance routine for 'bad romance' from her performance in 'rocky horror' this year. so basically we learned the routine in two days of 1.5 to 2 hour practices, and it turned out remarkably well considering! we were pretty much famous that day. we had sooooooooooooooo many people coming up asking for pictures with us. it got pretty ridiculous. a few times so many people kept piling in you couldn't even see us in the back of the picture anymore!! it was chaos... and i'm very glad i'm not for real famous. it must be incredibly stressful... but we were still pretty awesome :)

since it was also design week there was also a design exhibition of student exhibition of their work this semester from their craft classes. there were some pretty neat pieces... i took pictures :) accompanying the exhibition opening was of course a bountiful buffet of yummy foods. and a few of the students put on a mini talent show of sorts. lucia sang beautifully and rinatta played a lovely song on the guitar... accompanied by christine and sarah jayne as her back-up singers. it was pretty.

saturday morning we were leaving for hong kong, but before we left we were invited to the shu-te graduation ceremony. and it was AWESOME!! i'm so bummed that auburn's (and most american) graduations are soooooo boooooooooring!! shu-te had a mini drama performance and bands performing!! it was so cool!! they were really good too... they passed out the cutest flowery wand things too with a chocolate on the top. too adorable. it was definitely an awesome way to close on the first half of our visit to taiwan before flying out to hong kong.

NDD + Furniture Museum

wednesday morning in the middle of week 2 at shu-te, we took a bus excursion to tainan. a few stragglers almost missed the bus, but everyone made it. and that is what counts.

the first thing that happened on the bus was that terrible question: "should we karaoke??" NOOOOO!!! not again... too much! thankfully we had an alternative to watch a movie, and that was the option the bus went with. it was a silly movie... that one where jennifer lopez is artificially insemenated and then meets the man of her dreams... can't remember what it's called at the moment. oh well.

our first destination was NDD... the design firm where we will be interning later in the trip. it was pretty cool. nice and chill. they had some amazing snap-fit plastic lamps + chandeliers. there's one with flowers that create shadows when light is cast through and another that's shaped like a fortune cookie. i want them both.

next we stopped in a relatively famous market where we ate the legendary 'coffin cake.' it was esentially a chicken pot pie in a coffinesque shell. oh, and i gambled for ice cream :) you put your 10NT into the slot and pull the lever. the arrow lands on 1 through 5, and the number you land on corresponds to the scoops of ice cream you get! pretty awesome deal... for about 30 cents!! i got one :( ...but i had more eating to do anyways. we went inside one of the market restaurants and ordered shrimp wraps (yum :) and these adorable fizzy cola drinks with a marble in the bottom for playing with while you drink :) it was like a super bubbly sprite... usually soda isn't exactly my first choice, but i made an exception for the infamous childrens' drink.

we walked around the market for a bit looking at and sometimes buying little knick knacks for friends and family, and then we boarded the bus again for our next destination.

the furniture museum was definitely pretty cool. it is actually a furniture manufacturing/restoration company that happens to have a number of antique pieces on display as well. the extents people go when given the right amount of money is just crazy! we saw a bed frame with inlaid mother of pearl in intricate patterns completely flush with the wood. even where the mattress would lay over it! insane. gorgeous.... but still insane. apparently there was a flood last year too... and the employees didn't get the furniture out in time... so they sat in water for days. these antique priceless pieces of art just sitting in water! ridiculous... that's one of the few things i caught of the tour... as it was all in chinese... and the lady just talked and talked and talked.

next we went through another little museum exhibiting the works made by this company. pretty neat. i snuck a few pictures :) we even got to try our own hand at hammering in a few joints... i think i'm a bit too impatient..

outside they had some scrap wood we could take.. really nice quality and it smelled delicious! so i took a couple pieces... i got a souvenir in the gift shop too... chopsticks with inlaid mother of pearl :) only $4US!! absolutely gorgeous too. arissa and i also managed to solve the puzzle cube thing... in about 2 minutes! we are officially puzzle masters. props to eric for me being so experienced :)

and of course before we left we squeezed in for a 'jump' picture. epic.

Week 2 :: Shu-Te University

week two back at shu-te was jam packed... as usual. we had our first chinese painting class. well, more like chinese calligraphy. i pretty much failed. apparently it's made exclusively for right handed people. it's all about the speed and pressure you apply to the brush... and the direction you do it in. and it's definitely made for righties. oh well, i still cheated with my left hand. the picture i took was definitely the example character tho :)

later that night made up for my failures, however, when we went into the town nanzi and ate at yom bow bow!!! (spelling is completely off). best food EVER!! i've never been so excited about a steak roll up. the onion bread is to die for too. we even went back a couple days later :) ...that wasn't the ONLY reason for our excursion, but it was definitely on my mind when we were on our way into nanzi.

ps kfc is a huge deal over here too... i don't even think they know what it stands for, but they are like starbucks in the usa. oh and they also have fries... to compete with mcdonalds. but the best part of kfc (and maybe even the only good part), would have to be the egg/cream tarts. they are AMAZING!!! tin-man was super stoked about them, and got a 6 pack to share with everyone... he of course got 2... but they were definitely as delicious as everyone makes them out to be.

in glass class we sand blasted glass!! it was awesome. i even made two in my super speed sand blasting... looks like two lucky parents will be adding yet some more arts and crafts to their collections :) ...for real tho. it's awesome.

studio was busy as usual. we had to create a story board of our concept. after we scripted everything out that our clothing device would be made to accomplish, we had to make a cartoon animation detailing all the steps and scenarios our design would involve. it was pretty hectic, but fun nonetheless. it was definitely awesome when we posted up the whole story on the wall and could see it all come together.

but the weekend made up for all the craziness because we went to the BEACH!!!!! potentially the best day ever so far. we went into chijing... about 45ish minutes away. just a note: the sand is black. i guess i didn't get that memo beforehand, because i was a little taken aback. another thing is that people didn't seem too interested in the water... no one had on a bathing suit. i almost felt indecent getting into the water, but we were there to have fun... even if there was a creepy old man watching us all for a while. i gave him the mean look. the water was amazing too! the only thing that would have made the day perfect would be the overcast going away. oh well. you can't have everything.

the street market food was yummy too :) we ate these mini waffle/cornbread snacks... soooo good. and of course we had to stop by the toilet bowl ice cream vendor :) for food i ate a whole whopper sized mango to myself. best mango ever!! they have many types of mango here, and i apparently got the tastiest one. happy taste buds :) they also served this massive bowl of ice with fruit and syrupy stuff on top, but i was just interested in the mango...

Sun + Moon Lake

oh what a day! i had been completely stressed out + frustrated + and just in general out of whack, but this day was very therapeutic for me. it was the thursday right in the middle of the NCKU workshop. again, retarded planning as it was right in the middle of the work we were trying to get done for our presentations. but whatever. it was nice... and probably better for us this way after all as i think a good number of people were pretty stressed out already too.

so we have more professor presentations in the morning until about noon. at noon thirty we hop on a bus with to-go lunches (of sweet bread... not my favorite sustainance wise, but whatevs) and head to sun + moon lake. it was basically a nature park complete with boat rides, gondola cable car rides, and an aborigine theme park (which we did not get to go into as it was too late and too expensive).

our first line of action was to purchase tickets for the boat + cable car + bus ride loop... that in itself was a bit of a headache... getting the wrong tickets and all, but again it worked out in the end. so we took the ferry to the other side of the lake where we walked around for a bit while we waited for our tickets to be exchanged for the cable car. amanda and i walked up a quaint little walkway for a better view for pictures, and along the way some taiwanese women got really excited and asked for pictures with is. it's pretty adorable being treated like a celebrity just because you're different.

we were on the cable car about 3o minutes later, and it was awesome. we pretty much went up and down about 4 different mountain/hills. from the cable car we could see the stairs that wove up and down them too... crazy! we got to the other side and saw the entrance to the theme park we couldn't go into... it was too late anyways. we only had a few minutes there too since the cable cars stopped running at 4 and it was already 330... so weird. so we got back on and rode back to get on the bus.

along the way back to where we started we made a pit stop at some temple with a little market set up outside it. we found these necklaces made from this crazy stone with flower formations naturally occurring within... they were pretty exquisite (+ cheap :), so arissa, amanda and i each got one :). the little market also had grilled pork sausages and boiled duck egg for food... apparently taiwan is very famous for the duck egg, so i got the egg. it was ok. it was an egg. the temple was wonderful though! beautiful. apparently it was a temple/shrine to the god of 'testing'?? arissa asked a question through a series of stones and manuscripts? it was interesting. very pretty.

we also saw the CUTEST little girl blowing bubbles on the steps of the temple. everytime she noticed we were looking at her and taking pictures she would run a little further away and start blowing bubbles again. her parents kept telling her not to be shy... i think. but i think they thought it was cute how we thought she was cute. so funny. she was precious though.

after meandering about a bit we headed back to our start location... where the buses were. i was a little hungry but not so much, so i just got some papaya to eat... sadly it wasn't that good though. i missed shu-te fruit :(

the girls and i had all been pretty pumped when we arrived at sun + moon lake after seeing a sign for spa. the prices here are AMAZING! like $30 for an hour / hour.5!! and after all the stress and frustration i was really pumped about this. but by the end of the day when we got back there really wasn't much time, and at this time i was feeling much more relaxed anyways.

it was a pretty amazing day in nature :)

NCKU

we come to find out tuesday morning after our stay at the 'asylum' that maybe our lodging wasn't so bad after all. the campus where we would be doing the workshop only had a certain amount of rooms that would not house us all, but they were very much like dingy dorm rooms... with communal bathrooms. the asylum, although it was sparse, was still more like a hotel than a dormitory. and the dorm lodging didn't seem to have a much better internet situation than we did. so we didn't complain so much anymore ;)

first thing we did after we were bussed over to the campus was take a tour of the craft building. there was a room/studio devoted to each craft: metal, glass, pottery and wood. as well as rooms telling the history of craft making. it was pretty cool, but i confess the majority of us were more interested in talking with the international students who came from all over! we had students from taiwan, china, japan, korea, indonesia, malaysia, india, italy, denmark, and even as far as chicago. it was pretty cool to meet all sorts of people. we also got caught up looking at all the cute trinkets for sale in the craft shops too of course. i got a few presents for people :)

after the tour we broke for lunch and then gathered in the main auditorium afterward for the individual student presentations. we still didn't know if we would all be presenting or if it would just be a few, so we were all prepared. a few of the group was really dead set on presenting their work, but i wasn't super passionate about presenting today so when we found out that only 2 could present i was more than willing to relinquish my spot to someone who was more excited. relaxing and checking my email was much higher on my priority list for the time. i got dressed up anyways though just for fun... got to wear my new dress :) it ended up being sarah jayne and arissa (who wore her new qi pao dress she purchased at the riverside market) as presenters... and matt presented too even though he wasn't in the competition. yeah. we didn't know it was a competition until the time of. very disorganized workshop/conference... we learned to just accept it and go with it as the week went on though.

the following days we had professor presentations + group workshop time... but not nearly enough time! again it was very disorganized. we actually had about 8-10 hours total for research + concepts + final design + presentation. and on thursday we even took an all day break to go to sun + moon lake... but i'll go into detail about that in a later post. pretty crazy, but it was kind of a rush too. and it all worked out in the end :)

as for the groups we were divided into, now that's a story. we were split up in groups of 3 or 4. i was with a girl and boy from NCKU.. but the boy was an exchange student from mainland china. ohhhh that boy. i really thought i would kill him. i don't think i've ever been so upset and frustrated by one person so easily. he was bizarre. crazy. invasive. and absolutely obnoxious. i basically just ignored him and wouldn't allow any input from him on the design. all of his suggestions were COMPLETELY off topic anyways. so it was just me and joyu (the girl in my group). and we ended up coming up with a pretty cool product i must say. our final presentation must have gone over pretty well too considering we got the SILVER AWARD!! oh yeah. pretty slammin... especially considering it was just the two of us when other groups had 2 or 3 other students helping them... and MOST students were very intelligent... i just got stuck with the creep i guess.

we were presented our awards in this quaint little tea house restaurant.. we had to take our shoes off and everything and were given little slipper shoes to wear inside. it was really nice. we were served a pretty extravagant buffet style meal as well. it was definitely nice to be eating something i could CHOOSE to eat. granted it is difficult to order lunch for 50 something people in a contained campus, but we just kept getting a lot of heavy/bready foods... this was nice.

by the time it was all said and done with we were pretty sad to go and leave our new friends, but it was also very comforting to be heading back to shu-te. i missed my bed jaja! even this 3 inch matress on bamboo is more comfortable than the super hard matress we had at the asylum.

it was a fun + interesting week long excursion, but now i'm ready to start class again here at shu-te... it's chinese painting and pottery class tomorrow and i'm excited!!

YODEX (student exhibition)

monday is the day we head to the NCKU internation student design workshop, but we don't do that until the evening. during the day we are going to see the student exhibition... YODEX. we don't really have a lot of information, so tin-man tells us the we need to wake up in time to be checked out of the hotel by 8 because the bus will be leaving to come pick us up around 8:15. nope. it didn't arrive until a little before 10? can't really remember at this point... all i remember is that we woke up wayyyy too early and i could have gotten AT LEAST another hour of sleep. lame. oh well.

so the bus finally arrives and we're split onto 2 different buses... didn't know that was going to happen. but don't worry... this is just the first of many disorganized occurences we were unaware of... but more of that later ;)

in a nut shell: yodex = awesome! i definitely started to feel a little insignificant as a designer after seeing some of the student works. it was amazing. but maybe if we had such an awesome venue to display our work in, then maybe it would look better too :) basically these students have an amazing resource for fabrication: china. some things you could tell were rapid prototyped... but still even the foam models were pretty amazing.

beyond the work itself we saw, we met a lot of super adorable asians. it's so cute how they get excited to see us, and even more excited when we can speak some chinese to them! we took a lot of pictures with strangers ;) and of course we got a lot of free stuff too :) i spent about 300NT as well though on a t-shirt from one school and a bag full of goodies from another school including their book of work. pretty cool. i was glad to support them.

after a few hours of looking at school after school of student designs, we were hungry and a little overwhelmed by it all... so we went across the street to the taipei 101 mall for some food.. and a little shopping ;) sarah jayne and christine needed shoes and an outfit for presentations. i didn't think i needed anything, but after seeing the fancy dress sarah got i felt a little under prepared now. most of the clothes here don't fit my figure, but one of the shop clerks was AMAZING at dressing me. he must have put me in 5 or more outfits... accessories and all. i couldn't exactly afford everything, though i really wished i could. but in the end i gave in... i did buy a dress that can also be a jacket... it's very pretty... and since it was a little more versatile i figured it was worth it.

being girls, we were a little late meeting up with the rest of the group, but they didn't seem to really notice. we split up again on our buses and headed to nantou for the NCKU conference. we stopped at the most amazing bus stop along the way too! it was like a full out dining hall... with all sorts of fancy fixings. we had eaten so much for lunch though that i wasn't hungry. i really wish we had these in the states though.

we final reach our destination, and again we get a surprise split from the group. apparently the other bus went to one lodging and we went to another. i was a little upset that no one had mentioned this before... plus the location where we were was anything but pleasant looking. all we could see around us were trees, and the building itself was dark and lifeless. we stood outside for a while waiting for someone to let us in, the gates start closing us in, and i'm getting a little agitated and creeped out by this weird place. we finally go in and it looks like an asylum... what i ended up dubbing the place. the three girls are assigned different rooms, but at this point i'm so angry and upset with the situation that i just make the decision to have all of us together. there were only 2 beds per room so we bring in a 3rd mattress for arissa. the lady in charge didn't look to happy, but i was beyond caring. jaja! looking back it's pretty funny to think about, but at the time i was anything but a happy camper. but don't worry, we all survived the night, and it really wasn't that bad after all :)