Upon our arrival, we were welcomed by Mr. and Ms. Huang( they are both so kind, caring, and welcoming.) I was pretty exhausted, but also a bit hungry. She made us some soup and shortly after eating the soup, I went to bed. I was very tired and knew that I would be waking up early in the morning.
I woke up Saturday morning at about 7:30, took a nice hot shower, and then had a delicious breakfast with the Huang Family. The breakfast consisted of a variety of fruits, walnuts, pecans, sunflower seeds, and yogurt. It was a wonderful way to start off the day. After breakfast we headed out to a town called Luguang( I was still a bit tiered, so I ended up sleeping for a majority of the drive.) When we arrived in Luguang we met a former principle of the town that is a friend of the Huang Family. Our first stop was the Long Shan Temple; although there are several Long Shan temples in Taiwan, this temple was important because it was one of the first temples that was built in Taiwan. The town of Luguang is a very historic place as it is the town where a lot of people during the cultural revolution fled to from Mainland China. It was cool because the town has pretty much remained untouched in terms of its historic buildings. I also appreciated that it didn't have any mainstream corporate stores or restaurants like Starbucks.
The tour around the town of Luguang was really interesting; the principle was very enthusiastic about showing us everywhere! He also spoke in Chinese the entire time, so it was a lot to comprehend. I understood about 50 percent of what he said, but sometimes he spoke too quickly or used vocabulary that I didn't know.
After the visit to the temple, we went to to a coffee shop and took a break; the weather was very hot and muggy. I sweat so much in that one day and drank so much water! I was definitely needing a coffee break by then. The coffee was actually quite good; I do believe in the idea of drinking hot drinks on a hot day, so yes I had hot coffee.
After relaxing and having coffee, we went to explore the town a bit more. We walked down this street, that had all of these Japanese architecture style buildings. It was really an amazing street, because inside the buildings were craft and artisan shops. I had no idea there were so many beautiful artisan shops in Taiwan. It was so much fun to go inside each different building and see the artists at work. It was very fitting for the day, because Saturday was also the anniversary of my Uncle Josh's death, who was an amazing artist. I was so lucky to be surrounded by so many different artist's at work. I also got some lovely art, which consisted of a beautiful hand painted fan and a beautiful handmade flower pin. The flower pin is very important in that it is worn on a woman's wedding day and represents the happiness of her marriage, and the many children and grand children she will have in her future. I felt so lucky to receive this beautiful pin from Ms. Huang.
I got to try some local food in the town, which was really delicious. One of the foods however I just couldn't stomach. It was this powder like substance that was mixed with hot water. It tasted very sweet and kind of had a peanut like taste to it, but it was not appetizing to me.
I have so much more to share about the weekend, but I must go for now. I'm going to head home before it starts to rain! I wish I had internet at home, but unfortunately I only have access to it here at school. I will write more tomorrow.
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