David on Formosa

On a hot sunny Taipei morning our class from Shi-Da met at Taipei Station. From there we caught the train to Yingge (鶯歌). We joined a number of other classes so there were about forty students and five teachers. 

It was a great chance to meet some other students at Shi-Da. Most of the students were from Japan, Korea and various other countries. There was another blogger in the midst, but I was unaware of her presence. Mandarin was the lingua franca. I quite enjoy speaking to other foreigners in Mandarin. All the students on the excursion were in the more advanced classes. As most were not native English speakers then speaking Mandarin was quite a natural way to communicate. 

We spent some time looking around the Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum (臺北縣立鶯歌陶瓷博物館). I visited it last year and I think it is one of the best museums in Taiwan.  

Next we went to the basement of the museum to try our hands at doing some pottery.  

This is a cup that I made and carved my Chinese name into. Some of the other students were a lot more creative than me.  

The photo above shows me with my Korean and Japanese classmates. Our Czech classmate had to leave early so she is missing from the photo.  

After lunch we went to Yingge's Old Street to eat lunch and walk around. There was a big thundershower in the afternoon and we had to walk back to the train station in the downpour. We all got a bit wet, but it was still a fun day.