First trip of the semester! My study abroad program, CET, organized a group excursion to Yilan, a beautiful county in northeast Taiwan known for its rice fields and arts center. I enjoyed this trip way more than I was expecting to – even though I arrived back in Taipei exhausted and with a pile of homework to complete, I felt so revived by a weekend away. Let’s get into it!
Friday
Right after class on Friday afternoon, we all hopped on the bus, excited for a long weekend away. One of CET’s goals for the trip was to enlarge our social circles, so we each had assigned seats next to students we didn’t know. I sat next to a super extroverted student from the University of Washington who actually grew up in Taiwan, so she spent the entire bus ride telling me about her experiences here. The bus ride flew by, but I was absolutely starving when we arrived in Yilan. Before dinner, we dropped off bags in our rooms and met our roommates, and I must say that I totally lucked out. My roommate was a girl I’d never met before who ended up being so sweet! We went on a walk together and talked about our time in Taiwan while snapping photos of the surrounding rice fields.
After our walk, it was finally time for dinner—a barbeque over several open fires. We arranged ourselves into tables and got cooking. My task was to pull the roast chicken into pieces (which was honestly a gruesome job, and I was glad when it was over). Dinner was fun because I ate with a couple people I had never met who ended up being very kind and brought the whole group’s energy up.
Even though I probably could have fallen asleep at the dinner table if not for the open fire, we still had a series of icebreaker games to get to after eating. I’ve blocked these from my memory because they were extremely competitive, and anyone who knows me probably knows that I shut down during group competitions and epically fail my team and myself. Seriously, piñatas are my nemesis, but that’s besides the point. All I remember is that I had fun playing charades and learning Chinese internet slang, and everything else was torture.
A group of us headed down to the beach after icebreaker games concluded, but I was so tired that I came back and went right to bed.
Saturday
I got up early on Saturday to get some alone time outside, but it turned out that I didn’t need to get up early to be alone—I ended up being the only one in the hotel lobby for the first 45 minutes of breakfast. I had a very pleasant experience reading Gone Girl while eating porridge and fruit. Fun fact: I’ve tried to read that book no less than four times, and it’s never captured my attention. I put it on my list of books I’m *going to* read this year, though, so I’m determined to make it through this time. I’ll keep you updated.
Once everyone else had moseyed down for breakfast, we were able to load onto the buses and drive to the Yilan Center for Traditional Arts. I had signed up for a workshop on candy- and toy-making, so my (regular) roommate Peace and I had fun decorating spinning tops and then cooking sugar candy together. At the end of the candy-making process, each person got to use a cookie cutter to press a design into their candy, and Peace and I chose a bear and an umbrella respectively, which meant that together we made Paddington Bear. (A raincoat or suitcase would have been better, but an umbrella will do in a pinch; it still captures the essence of Paddington.)
Since we finished decorating our spinning tops early, probably for lack of artistic talent, Peace and I headed to the theater to watch a very fun Monkey King performance. At one point, the Monkey King himself ziplined right over our heads, and the crowd went wild! I’ve watched many videos of Monkey King performances in Chinese classes over the years, so it felt full-circle to see one in-person. My only regret was being too old to be handed a balloon sword (like the kids in the front row) during the epic fight scene.
To kill time before boarding the bus to lunch, Peace and I walked along the riverside, fed some ducks with our local roommate, and then somehow found ourselves in a botanical art museum. At this point, we were all feeling a bit hangry, so we made our way back to the bus and napped during the ride to lunch.
Lunch certainly revived us. We had a full Taiwanese meal, which is something I did every Friday in Beijing but hadn’t yet done here. Each table was filled with a variety of dishes, but my personal favorite was the fired great burdock. The local Taiwanese roommates at my table were shocked to hear that we don’t eat great burdock in the United States. (Or do we?? Correct me if I’m wrong.)
Probably my favorite part of the trip to Yilan was our Saturday afternoon at the Meihua lake. I was part of a group that hiked to a temple hidden in the mountainside with a beautiful birds-eye view of the lake. Just seeing all the natural beauty made me feel calmer than I usually do in Taipei. We ended up biking around the lake as well once we hiked back down, and that was fun because we saw a monkey!
For dinner, our CET administrators released everyone into the Yilan night market where my group chose to eat stinky tofu. Hear me out: I was skeptical, but this was actually stinky tofu’s redemption arc for me! The first time I tried stinky tofu, it was plain with no sauce (AKA inedible). However, this time it was fried and came with a green onion & garlic soy sauce as well as cabbage to stuff inside of the tofu. Totally different and so tasty! I’m a stinky tofu convert. We finished off the night with some cheap ice cream and a talent show randomly happening in the park where the bus was picking us up to return to the hotel.
The last part of our day was a small group reflection section that I wasn’t looking forward to originally, but it was actually both productive and fun. My small group was just me and two guys I didn’t know at all, but we had a great time reflecting on our program so far. Shoutout to Owen and Ben!
After that, I hung out with some friends in an awesome two-level cabin attached to our hotel and then went to bed around midnight when I could barely keep my eyes open.
Sunday
I woke on Sunday feeling sad about having to leave Yilan. It was just such a peaceful experience for me—I didn’t want to leave the quiet environment of the rice fields. Unfortunately, our departure was inevitable, so I ate breakfast while reading some more of Gone Girl and then packed up my bags to head to our last group activity. That final session was actually held at a super fancy hotel where some of the students in the program were staying for the whole Yilan trip – I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! I mean, my hotel room was just three mattresses on the floor and didn’t even have a shower (just a showerhead attached to the sink), but some people were really living it up. You should have seen our faces as the crew from my hotel walked into this place for our group activity, haha.
The activity itself was pretty painless. We sat in our Taipei housing groups and had an opportunity to express any issues we’re having with our roommates, but luckily none of my housemates had anything to address. We spent our time just writing notes of affirmation for our roommates and other people in the program, which were delivered to us in red envelopes at the end of the session. Our local roommate was disappointed when she saw the envelopes because she thought it meant that we were getting money; sadly, it was just handwritten notes. (Rude that she doesn’t consider that priceless?! 😂)
You could have heard a pin drop on the bus ride home, since we were all either exhausted or stressed about unfinished homework. We made it back to campus around 3 pm, at which point I immediately took a nap and then started my mountain of homework. The fun I had this weekend was totally worth it, though. I felt myself letting go of some of my expectations for my study abroad and just enjoying the experience, which is something I’ve struggled with up until now. This weekend away set me on a positive trajectory, and I’m very happy about that!
Yilan Excursion Recap:
Highlight: Hiking Meihua and meeting so many new people!
Lowlight: Competitive icebreaker games. They truly send a shiver down my spine.
That’s all for now! See you next time. 🙂
很想你们，
婉婷
