Trip to Taichung

Happy 4th of July! Today we took a trip to Taichung, the 3rd largest city in Taiwan. Some of the group went by bus but a few of us took the train. This is the first time I had been on a real train (trax doesn’t count).

It was a petty short train ride. Maybe 20 minutes? While everyone else went to church, me and Lien went exploring around the city. We didn’t really know what kind of things to do or see so we spent most of our time in a gorgeous park. One prominent feature of the park is a giant goat statue. It has two mountain goats in a little mountain, all made of metal

The park also has a massive pond/lake full of ducks, turtles, and fish. It is divided into several sections with beautiful bridges and there is a large fountain and even a lotus flower garden in one corner. You can rent little rowboats and row around the pond/lake but it was a little more than we wanted to pay.

For lunch we ate some fried chicken from a street vendor. They put some spicy powder on it that was pretty good. They also put the infamous 5 spice powder that they put on everything here which isn’t very appetizing. The is a very distinct smell when you walk through the streets of food vendors and I didn’t realize until just barely that it is from this 5 spice powder.

Tomorrow is my first day of teaching. I will have my two elementary classes. I think I am as ready as I can be and the rest will just come with practice and as I do it. As usual, all the pictures in this blog post and more can be found on my photos page. I made a new album (since Week 1 is over) called Taichung