My life at NCTU: Travelling in Taiwan

I have always loved to travel and spend quality time with family and friends. The holidays, like Spring break, Chinese New Year and even long weekends, in NCTU have allowed me to have some fun with my friends here in Taiwan and explore some of the most amazing places in Taiwan. So, I this second part of my experience at NCTU as a student, I will share some of my experience outside the NCTU campus while hanging out with the amazing friends from NCTU.

Kaohsiung was the first city I visited as a tourist after joining NCTU. Since it was an impromptu one day tour, we were able to visit only a few places like Liuhe night market to have some seafood, a sushi restaurant and the famous Lotus pond. It was my first experience at a night market and I was just amazed at the variety of seafood and snacks that were available. It was also my first time trying sushi! The sunset at the Lotus pond was a just an extraordinary experience.

After the end of Chinese New Year, I decided to visit Jiufen in the north of Taiwan, for the sole reason of revisiting the Japanese animated movie ‘Spirited away’. Our main aim was to visit the streets and the sights that inspired the movie. So we headed to Jiufen Old Street, which is about 20 minutes away from the Ruifang train station. There are direct buses from the train station to the old street. My excitement had no bounds that day. The food, the drinks (especially bubble milk tea), the Chinese fans, the traditional slippers, toys, jewellery, shoes and clothes, and the tea houses showed such a beautiful side of the Taiwanese culture to me. It was a lot to take in and at a lot of times, I had to stop myself from buying things and even control my greed for the snacks. There was just so much to choose from! And the view from the old street was just mesmerizing. On our way back, we visited the Raohe night market which was so shiny and busy, especially post the New Year celebrations. Again, the snacks were so difficult to choose from. The night markets in Taiwan never disappoint.

My first ever hiking experience came along with my trip to the Yanmingshan national park and Mount Qixing. I went there in the summer and it was really humid like most of Taiwan (hehe) and the healthy mosquitoes gave us their company throughout. Even though I found hiking really difficult, I must say that I enjoyed going there with my friends and they were really encouraging. And we were there to support each other every time one of us wanted to give up. But, when we reached the top of the Qixing Mountain, it was surreal! We could see all of Taipei, including Taipei 101 and the Tamsui River. It was really surprising to see the extent to which the Taiwanese people of all ages love hiking. It is such a great way to experience nature and exercise at the same time.

The Bilin waterfall, in Jianshi, is where I visited with friends during the summer to cool off. It took us about an hour to reach the falls from the NCTU campus. The route is so beautiful and green that we weren’t even tired of an hour-long scooter ride. The waterfall is so beautiful and the river water along with it is so clear and fresh. We saw some kids playing around and some families too. We bonded with some kids from that neighbourhood and played in the water with them. 

In the first week of August 2018, we had the pleasure of witnessing the Hot air balloon festival on the 64 Hectare Qingqing Grasslands, Hsinchu city. The organizers had announced that the first 350 visitors would get free balloon rides so we jumped at the opportunity and camped there from 3 am till about 5 am, but ended up being later than the 350th visitor. To our disappointment or mild pleasure, it was so windy that morning that none of the balloons went up in the sky. But, we did have a lot of witnessing the beautiful balloons and the giant slides at the grasslands. So staying up all night did not really go to waste at all. 

  

Speaking of slides, I visited the amusement park in Taichung called Lihpao land. We tried to ride almost all the rides at the park, even those meant for the kids to the scariest ones. To our disappointment, the Gravity Max roller coaster was temporarily closed. Nonetheless, we probably had more fun than any of the kids around (hehe). We surely devoured on the snacks in the amusement park, most of which included hotdogs and popcorn.

Being away from home (India), something that I miss is the food and the culture of my country. I was able to introduce some of it to fellow students at NCTU during the International Week at our university, where we sold some yummy snacks like Chaat and Dabeli, and the famous Indian milk tea. We easily sold out (phew!). At the end of the event, we even did the henna tattoo for some of our NCTU friends. I was really happy that our fellow students from Taiwan and other countries were able to exchange their culture at this event.

Speaking of Indian culture, which is associated with being colourful and fun, I must not forget to mention my first Holi, the Indian festival of colours, in Taiwan. The association of Indians in Taipei organized the festival of Holi and people from so many countries came to enjoy and get together at this event. It was really exciting to experience my culture, food, music and dance with my friends from other countries.