These last two days have been really fun and busy.  Both days we had classes in the morning and then went out on field trips in the afternoon.  I really enjoyed listening to Dr. Tom Gavin (Cornell emeritus) discuss his 40 years as an ecological researcher.  He is a great story teller, and having him and his wife Robin with us has been a pleasure.  On Friday afternoon we went to the ceramics museum.  Our timing was unfortunate because the museum was in the process of changing the displays in their exhibition galleries, so we were only able to see the permanent displays of the history of ceramics in Taiwan.  These were fairly cool, but I think seeing the art pieces would have been even better.  The wares in the gift shop, however, were gorgeous.  If I had a lot of cash to throw around and didn't have to worry about transporting highly breakable products overseas, I would have brought home half of the store.  At least I got pictures. :) 

These are some of the items for sale in the gift shop

After we toured the museum, they took us to the kids' activity center, and we painted candle holders.

I had mentioned earlier that the bus was classy looking, so I took some pictures to show it off.

After we got back from the ceramics museum, we had about an hour break to eat dinner.  I went with a group of students to a little waffle stand that is on campus right across from the building that our classroom is in.  They sell waffle sandwiches both in savory and sweet flavors.  I bought a ham one and a chocolate one so I could experience both.  The ham sandwich had ham, ketchup, mayonnaise, and lettuce on it, and the chocolate was a rich spread. I thought they were delicious, and I have no idea why we don't have them in the U.S.

Following the dinner break, we took a combination of city bus, MRT, and walking to get to a nature park where we went frog hunting.  The park was in a valley that had been used as an ambulance storage facility during the Japanese rule in Taiwan.  The place was a bit like a jungle, or at least in seemed that way in the dark.  Our instructor was amazing at spotting and catching frogs.  He would move in fairly slowly, then all of a sudden, his arm would flash out of nowhere and grab the unsuspecting amphibian.  At one point we went through this sketchy hole in a fence and walked on a concrete wall with a three meter drop off one side in order to get to a place to find more frogs.  That put everyone on edge, but overall it was an exciting adventure.  In a little over an hour we found two species of toad and seven species of frog, including the Formosan Toad and the Taipei Tree Frog, which are both endemic species to Taiwan.

Today (Saturday), we went to the National Palace Museum, which houses over 680,000 pieces.  The museum actually only displays about 1% of the collection at any given time because of space constraints (68,000 is still a lot).  This collection is actually only about 1/4 of the original collection that was founded in the Forbidden City of Beijing in 1925.  This collection was packed and sent into rural China during the Sino-Japanese war in 1931 to protect it from the Japanese.  When the Nationalist Party fled to Taiwan in 1949, they brought around 600,000 pieces with them.  The most popular objects in the museum are two pieces of jade artwork.  One looks like a cabbage, and the other like a piece of pork.  Their likeness to the actual food is astounding, and the fact that the coloration is all naturally occurring in the jade (except for the "skin" layer on the pork, which was dyed) makes it even more so.  Unfortunately, photography is not allowed inside the museum, so I just has a few pictures from the outside.

Scenery looking out from the museum

After visiting the Palace Museum, we took the bus and MRT to the Shinlin night market.  Night markets are a huge part of the culture in Taiwan, and they are all over the city.  The best comparison in America is a carnival midway.  There are all sorts of food vendors, carnival-type games, clothes, shoes, purses, and jewelry.  All of this is happening every night of the week, but they are especially crowded on the weekend.  The amount of people is crazy.  The pictures don't really do it justice at all.

Fried oyster and shrimp dish with egg 

Milk tea

They had an entire store filled with claw machines!