Blog Entry #2

8/26/26~8/29/26

Hello :) 

Today was super fun and it was our last day working with the NTU students. The past few days have been super busy with ideating, prototyping, touring around Taiwan, and also collaborating with teammates. Every day has been so chaotic but so much fun with all the memorable things we are able to experience. 

Day 4 - Pinglin Tea Cultural Landscape

For day four, everyone woke up super early to ride the bus to hike near Pinglin. At first, everyone was super scared and worried due to the extensive hot weather and also hiking in nature due to our non fitted gear. All of us with our “hiking gear” we headed to the hiking area. Initially, we imaged the hike to be somewhat of an extensive hike with dirt trails and grassy paths. However, after arriving, all of our worries were blown away by the beautiful scenery filled with teafields and nature. Although Taiwan has some greenery in the cities, Pinglin was filled with nature having so many types of bugs flying around. Even though the heat was something that was inescapable, learning about the Pinglin Tea culture was super intriguing. 

Understanding their local tea creating process and how it differs from so many other famous tea companies was something that was not considered. Additionally, witnessing their working fields and actually visiting the place gave a different perspective on the whole tea culture process which was very inspiring. 

Project Group 4 :) 

Day 5 - National Palace Museum & Yongkang St. 

Day five was our day of going to the National Palace Museum! I was so excited for this and super excited to see the famous Jade Cabbage. I had visited the National Palace Museum before, however, I was unable to witness the Jade Cabbage due to the Pork Chop being on display at the time. I was very disappointed at this and really wanted to see the Jade Cabbage, so this study abroad visit was the perfect opportunity to witness what I had originally missed. 

As I imagined and remembered, everything in the museum was very well organized and astonishing. However, what differed from my previous visit was our guided tour of the entire museum. I really enjoyed this guided tour since we were able to learn more in depth about each art piece in the museum and learn its history. Since my current minor is Art History, understanding the history behind each artifact was very intriguing and something that I thoroughly enjoyed. 

The Famous Jade Cabbage

Exploring the garden at the Museum

After our visit to the National Palace Museum, we briefly visited Yongkang Street with our designated design groups. Yongkang Street was filled with cute tourist gift shops that contained many adorable artisan crafts. Being able to walk around the street was a great break from all of the work we had previously done and a perfect opportunity to bond with our design team mates. 

Day 6 - Yingge Ceramics Museum & Hand-Painting Cup Set 

On day six of our visit in Taipei, we first headed to the Yingge Ceramics Museum which was very inspiring. I loved seeing various different forms of ceramic works and also the interactive portion on the first floor of the museum. I also highly enjoyed the special exhibits with foreign artists' works. Knowing we were also designing and creating something for our projects, seeing such artistic works laid out in front of us was very inspiring to work in a more creative direction. 

Yingge Ceramics Museum

And finally for our hand-painting cup set session! Ever since we learned about this program, I was very excited to experience this workshop and was filled with so many ideas to draw on my point. Being able to paint and draw with people from both NTU and UW was very eventful and I was able to create such amazing work while enjoying my time with everyone. 

Hand-painted cup set

Day 7 - Final Presentation Day  

Day seven was officially our last day working with our NTU group mates. We had all spent so much time and effort figuring out and ideating our design product and it was finally time to present all of our work. 

Gifts from NTU & UW

Overall, working through all of our presentations and working together has been such an amazing experience and I am very impressed with how much our group was able to produce in such a short amount of time. Additionally, I was thoroughly impressed with my other classmates’ group works and was inspired by how each group had created such unique products. Although the actual process was very stressful and did cause some challenges, in the end it created such a strong bond between each team and pushed us to use our design skills to the limit. 

I hope in the upcoming days, it will be a little bit more relaxing where we are able to regain some of the sleep we lacked in the past few days. However, I still hope to explore and learn about Taiwanese culture while doing so and go to many places that the study abroad has in store for us! 

Next up, Taichung! :D