Day one: Orientation, NTNU campus tour, and National Taiwan College of Performing Arts

 Sleep was hard to come by last night! I took some melatonin and tried to settle down at about 10:00, but I definitely woke up about every hour or so. Taiwan is 10 hours ahead, so it's enough to make jet lag a very real thing. Everyone in the group woke up between 3 and 5 am, so we're all feeling it. I woke up at 5 for good and was able to check in with family a little. 

We went to get some bottled water at the 7-Eleven, I grabbed seaweed chips to try out as well. Breakfast was an egg and bacon sandwich (meh) and a surprising good Americano at the cafe on campus. We met up with more of the group and went to get some cash and found a Starbucks. I got the most amazing drink I think I've ever had, black tea with ruby grapefruit and honey, iced. I'll be getting that again tomorrow for sure. 

The little message and bear is so cute!

(And here I'm realizing that Blogger is not awesome for uploading photos, sorry about the formatting.)

We had our orientation to the program first and learned a lot about National Taiwan Normal University. They have a ton of programs but we're in with the teacher development side of things, and they produce a lot of teachers from the program. 

Two ambassadors from the University took us on a tour, and it is a very cool campus. 

The lion is coming out of the ground next to a giant chess board, it's very cute. 

This is their school museum with over 190 separate sides. The building looks kind of like an iceberg. 

A statue outside the engineering hall made by students with their skills. There's a tradition where you don't step on the grass as a student or you will fail, so the first time anyone steps on it is after graduating. 

The library is stunning. These floors go all the way up and the lighting was fantastic.

There's multiple campuses, so this is entering the main campus area. 

Hang out with a bunch of social studies teachers and we're going to focus on the globe. What did you expect? 

Sister schools all over the globe represented here. They're in a partnership with the University of Northern Colorado!

This was in the Bejing Olympic opening ceremony and then was gifted to the University to display. It's huge!

There's so many trees and plants everywhere, so different than Colorado. Anyone know what kind of trees these are? They're everywhere. 

The reflecting pool just inside the gates with one of the main buildings. 

Lion and Teacher in Mandarin are either very similar words or the same word, I didn't quite understand the guide. There are lions all over the school representing the future teachers they produce. It's really cute!

Lunch was back in the conference room, a tasty meal. After lunch and a short break we went to the National Taiwan College of Performing Arts. This is a school where kids who want to be professionals in different areas of theater (Peking Opera, acrobatics, tech, etc) attend from all over Taiwan. They live on campus and attend class from 6 am to 8 pm. This was the most fun I've had at a school in a very long time! We got to see some kids practicing their skills, fought with some stage weapons, and I rode in a "car". 

Then we had a lesson on the masks used in Peking Opera and learned all about how you know which character type someone is based on the mask style. Our instructor was incredibly knowledgeable and has painted masks for several ad campaigns as well as the giant ones outside the school.  He painted some designs on us and we painted our own masks! I did ok on mine, I had to keep reminding myself to not be a perfectionist (Stargate students will understand...) but I'm really happy with the final product. 

After struggling to stay awake on the bus ride back we went to the Shida market for dinner. I had Braised Noodle Soup with thick noodles, they're a flour based noodle and it was very good. Now we're back in the hotel room getting ready for tomorrow! I took almost 12,000 steps and went almost 5 miles walking overall today.