Tourist

It's been a while now since I've donned the hat of 'tourist' in Taiwan. But, as it turns out, a weekend in Taipei with scheduled and guided activities does that to a person! All the tourist-ing has tired me out, so I'll keep this short (again--I'm noticing a pattern in my blogs from Taipei...), so I can sleep.

SO.

We began the day early--too early, given our 1:30am bedtime--and headed out to FSE. Once there, we were loaded into two buses (Jr. and Sr. Fellows in one; Kaohsiung and Yilan ETAs in the other--the segregation was just beginning), and headed off to the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines. 

At the museum, I got up my courage and struck up a conversation with one of the senior fellows, Linda Alper, who is studying "Shakespeare as a Second Language" here, and who has been a leading actress at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival for years. (When I asked her what roles she has played, she said she'd done just about everything; if I'd been to a play at Ashland in the last 25 years, she said, I'd probably seen her; looking at her resume, she's been Olivia in Twelfth Night and Rosalind in As You Like It, amongst many other roles. She also attended Julliard.) In any case, I had a great time chatting with her and with her husband, who grew up in Eugene and who attended Marist, my alma mater, for a year back when it was still run by the brothers! Small world.

After a brief, untranslated and gratuitously 3D film, we got a guided tour of the museum, in our individuated groups--Jr & Sr. Fellows, Yilan ETAs, Kaohsiung ETAs. It was really interesting, though I wish we weren't forced into the groups where we already knew people well--all that time spent mixing at the reception and no chance to follow up!


After that came a delicious lunch at the Silk Palace by the National Palace Museum, served family style and with way too much food for anyone at our small table to finish.


By the time our guided tour rolled around, we were exhausted--and our well-intentioned guide gave us headphones to hear her with, which just meant our group of 12 (Kaohsiung ETAs again!) were left to wander within hearing range, and/or collapse on every bench and nearly fall asleep. A real shame, given the priceless treasures we were seeing.


After that, Karina, Rachel, Brittany and I checked into our hostel (FSE only paid for the first night at a hotel), and then Karina and I headed out for delicious burgers and pear iced tea at a restaurant across the street before meeting up with Tom and heading to Taipei 101, where we stayed for a couple of hours, chatting. It was fun.


And now we're back, and still drooping from exhaustion--so that's it for tonight. Maybe later I'll reopen this post and add pictures--plenty today, really. But for now, this tourist is going to go try to catch some sleep on a hard mat in a room full of strangers. But it's cheap! :)