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...