My Exchange Semester in Taiwan: Taiwan

Posts mit dem Label Taiwan werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen

Sonntag, 18. Januar 2015

Week 13-16: (1.12 - 28.12.2014)

My December was busy with studying. I had many final presentations from group works and some reports. But at least I finished almost everything in December which gives more time in January.
At NTU it has no break between Christmas Eve and New Year, so for me it was the first time to go to classes on Christmas Eve (only the 1^st of January is off).

Some week the weather was not that good, cold, windy and sometimes even rain. So it was time to go to some hot springs. Went to the wild ones in Yangmingshan National Park, it is not allowed to go there but they were pretty full. To get there we had to walk for like 20 min after the bus ride.

On the way to the hot springs

small stream

"Entrance" to the hot springs with the sign

Waterfall

Waterfall II

Hot springs

No entry

On the way back

A really small lake

Samstag, 10. Januar 2015

Week 12: Back in Hong Kong (24.11 – 30.11.2014)

This week I went to Hong Kong for short trip over the weekend (Thursday to Sunday). With this trip I could as well extend my Visa for Taiwan. I applied for a Taiwanese Visa in Switzerland but it would not have been necessary because my Visa was valid for 90 days and I could have stayed in Taiwan for 90 days as a visitor. If you have a Visa and you want to stay longer than 90 days you have to extend it two weeks before it expires (as I heard it goes really easy and the process is quite quick) or you leave the country and come back as a visitor. That is what I did, went to Hong Kong and came back as a visitor.

In Hong Kong we went to do the usual sightseeing. But this time it was a little bit different because the demonstration camp was still in the Admiralty district (Umbrella Movement).
The time in Hong Kong was pretty nice, the weather was good, warm but a sometimes a little bit cloudy / foggy.

On the way to Hong Kong

Demonstrations

A tent which could be used for studying

Cabel car on Lantau Island

On Lantau Island

Prayer

Tian Tan Buddha

Statue

Flowers

1881 Heritage

Junk

Boat

Symphony of Lights

Chi Lin Nunnery at Diamond Hill Station

At Nan Lian Garden

Trail to the Peak

At least the fog disappeard after one hour...

and we could see Hong Kong

Water drops

Closed streets

Umbrella Movement

KFC is still open...

Umbrella Movement

Donnerstag, 8. Januar 2015

Week 11: Taipingshan (17.11 - 23.11.2014)

As the midterms were last week this week was not that busy as the weeks before. So I had again more free time.

On Sunday 23.11 we went to Taipingshan National Forest Recreation Area which is located in Yilan Country (around 65 km to the east from Taipei). To get there we rented a car with a driver who picked us up in Taipei and even brought us back in the evening. We were hiking around the Cueifong Lake (which is the largest alpine lake in Taiwan) and saw the old forestry railroad.
In the morning the weather was really good, but in the afternoon there were some clouds.

Old forestry railroad

Small water stream

The same railway a few meters further down the road

Taipingshan National Forest Recreation Area

Clouds are coming

Trees

Caterpillar

Bridge Nr. 10

Hiking path

Cueifong Lake

Hot spring (here you could cook eggs)

Mittwoch, 31. Dezember 2014

Weeks 7-10: Studying at NTU (20.10 – 16.11.2014)

I take 4 courses from the collage of Management and the General Chinese Course. All together this makes 15 NTU Credits which equals 30 ECTS credits. My timetable looks like the following, school on Monday morning, Tuesday to Thursday afternoon and the Chinese course on Monday and Wednesday evening.

Comparing the course level to my home university (FHNW) I would say that the level of the courses is higher at the FHNW. Here the lectures are not that interesting, and in around 50% of the courses I did not learn that much. But all of my courses have at least one group work with a presentation, some require term projects and final projects. Two of my courses had a midterm and a final, and that are the only exams I will have here (one of them is the Chinese course). The midterms were held in the week 10 (10.11 – 16.11). In the other courses the grades are made through the group work presentations and assignments / homeworks.
In one course I was busy over the whole semester because we had to do a presentation or a case report almost every week, and it even had a term and final project.

To learn Chinese takes for me a lot of time to learn to write the characters, normally every lesson has a dictation or a review test. In addition to this we have to do homework as well, so learning Chinese really needs a lot of time and effort.

Here are some pictures from hiking and the university + campus.