Day 4

Today we travelled from Taipei to Taichung which is about a 2.5 hour bus ride. What we thought would be a normal drive turned into a karaoke party. The bus was equipped with microphones and televisions so we got the whole karaoke experience. It was a lot of fun especially to see how much our Taiwanese counterparts enjoyed singing. They really got into it. Kim started off the party by singing "Killing Me Softly."  Needless to say the bus ride passed by extremely quickly.

The bus ride begins!

Kim singing the first karaoke song

 Kai and Tony really got into singing

Danielle and her partner Angela

Ping and Carrie

Our first stop was at Asia University, where 6 of our Taiwanese counterparts attend school. I was impressed by the campus. It is big and beautiful. Here we ate lunch and heard a lecture from Dr. Seal on community based research. Dr. Seal is a professor at Tulane who has joined us for this trip. He has done a lot of research in Milwaukee and now New Orleans. He talked about bridging the gap between academia and community based organizations. He stressed how important it is to form relationships with the community, and to get away from the structured agenda of academia in order to better meet the needs of a community. One thing he does that I think is really great is every grant he received he gives the money to community based organizations. He doesn't keep any to pay his salary.

The Library at Asia University

Some of us in front of the library

A rose garden at Asia University

Dr. Seal lecturing

After Dr. Seal's lecture we went to the Earthquake Museum. In September of 1999, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck central Taiwan killing over 2,000 people. This museum was built to commemorate those who died and suffered injuries. We were able to observe some of the destruction and learn about why earthquakes occur.


We also found out that we made the paper for our protesting. What's wrong with this picture? Leave it to me!

We just checked into our new hotel in Taichung. Everyone is overjoyed because the beds feel like beds and not bricks! The rooms are super nice and below Maggie is holding the huge remote to our television! It looks like an old school phone or something...hilarious!

Tonight for dinner we ate at a kabob place. You could pick which ones you want and then they grill them for you. It was pretty good! I also had my first Taiwanese beer!

Taiwanese beer

Ray bought a mini keg so everyone could try.

Dinner!