A week in my life with the NTU students!

After the first few days of gathering and seeing the NTU students, I slowly got to know everyone and made more fun memories. We then visited the TDRI place. I got the opportunity to learn about their journey and background, their making and innovation, and what they do as working towards building their future purpose in Taipei. Seeing their business and work field gives me insight into the new convenient looks and user-interaction of the product and production in their work for the customer to invest and look for the purposes of improvement and for them to live a convenient life. We also got the chance to see the Miniwiz Trash Kitchen and I learned how we can use our daily-lifestyle material plastic that are water-bottle caps, milk bottle, and other thrown material of plastic to recreate new daily use product, for example they show us how to make the sunglasses out of plastic that Amelia picked out, coffee grounds, and small crashed plastic that was already broken to smaller pieces. I find it interesting that the machines there are not the same as those we would have in Seattle. We then had lunch in the area called Songshan Cultural and Creative Park. Afterward, we went back to the NTU Design Building to work on brainstorming. My group was Amelia, Dora, Judy, and Zoe; we were group 5. Everyone's ideas and thinking processes were different, so we had to think and plan more to work on achieving our common goal in researching for our workshop project. I got the chance to get closer to the girls. Dora and Judy are the sweetest girls, and we got the chance to talk about our backgrounds to get to know more about each other. 

Check out the TDRI

08/26

We went to Pinglin Tea Landscape, and it was very beautiful. I got the chance to learn more about the cultural understanding of teas, their history, and how they are made. Hearing about their system of the process in the making and management of how they produce the marketing of their tea brand. I got to see the landscape and hike up to see the beautiful field. It was so hot, and I was dying from the heat and the sun! Luckily, I got my handy portable fan and umbrella with me. We then explored the area more and had lunch. I really enjoy spending time there and seeing the museum. It was giving me the chance to be away from the city and learn more about the local and how Pinglin values their tea journeys. After a long day, some of the students went together to the shaved ice place, which was very much needed after staying out in the heat! 

Group 5! 

Mango Ice Shave

08/27

National Palace 

I got the chance to go see the National Place Museum. I find it very fascinating and interesting in all the history of each of the artworks, the place has made and kept the history going on forward. I learned about the history of the jade cabbage and more about the jade; it was by far my favorite piece to look at at the museum. The other pieces were different, and for me to learn more and discover more of the background story behind them. After the tour, we had lunch there at the palace. The chicken rice that I got was good! I enjoyed my meal and then went to explore the palace. After that, we went and explored Yongkang St. I got to learn about the different spots of shops and gained more inspiration for my group's preparation for our project. We stumbled upon this madeleine store and tried the selection that we picked. It was good for us to take a quick break from walking around! Afterward, we went and got DING TAI FUNGGG! I caught up with my group, and we all discussed more about the project, what material to get, and tried to create it. 

08/28

We went to Yingge pottery and got the glaze at the place and a mug! I was enjoying my time there and focusing on making my set of pieces there. It was a great experience for me to take a moment and make something that I get to step back and focus on something in front of me. I recall that at that moment, I felt like I needed to sit and do some fun painting exercises. The funny part was everyone was rushing to finish their pieces by 1pm! I had lunch on the bus when we were on the way back to the NTU Design building. My group and I got the chance to start working on our project, it was a lot of planning, thinking, problem solving, and working all together to make our project. We even went back to the hotel and continued the work and discussed our project to be ready to present on our final day together. 

Final day!

It is sad that we’re leaving the NTU students and saying our final goodbye! I had fun making memories with everyone, laughing, and learning all together. I will miss Judy and Dora a lot, hopefully we will meet again soon.