Apr29
I remember my first introduction to bubble tea was when I visited my brother for the first time in Houston. I was amazed at the list of different fruity flavors I could choose to mix with black or green tea and large black chewy tapioca balls (called boba or bubbles). When I returned to Maryland and Nashville where the bubble tea scene is severely lacking, I was disappointed in the lack of selection and the outrageous prices.
Little did I know that there is so much beyond even the best bubble tea shop in Houston. Oh, so much more. Here in Taiwan, you almost literally can’t go an entire street block without walking past a tea shop. In more crowded areas, usually even more than just one tea shop.
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On Friday night, Deborah, Kim, Anjie, Monica, Carmen, and I went to Magic Power’s first mini concert ever! It was also our first concert in Taiwan. Deborah and Kim discovered the music group from watching a Taiwanese drama called “P.S. Man” since they play the theme song for the show. When we later checked out the groups’ songs, we got really excited when we found out they were having a concert in Taipei a week later.
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On Saturday, we took a group-organized day trip to Turtle Island. It is named Turtle Island because from Daxi, it looks like a turtle in the water, literally. Turtle Island used to be a military base, and only in recent years was open to the public to visit, so you must apply in order to receive admission. The island was beautiful, filled with scary snakes and beautiful vegetation.
To reach the top-most part of the island, you must climb 1706 steps. After about 100, I was already tired. When we made it to the 1000th step, we were finally allowed a little bit of rest time before continuing on. Overall, it was a great work out, even though my legs ached for days after.
View from the highest point on the island
After hiking and walking around the island for a bit, we boarded the boat again to go in search of dolphins! We were really lucky and after about half an hour, we were surrounded by hundreds of dolphins. It was absolutely incredible and breath-taking. I had never seen that many dolphins before in my life and never seen them before in their natural habitat. Maggie, Deborah’s LET, even started crying because it was so beautiful! Some of the dolphins even did a few tricks for us, leaping out of the water and showing off their skills.
As July starts to creep up on me, I’m realizing more and more all of the things that I will miss about Taiwan. One of the biggest things that I’ll miss is teaching my sixth graders. They are amazing: hilarious, smart, sweet, mature, kua zhang, cute, crazy, and everything in between.
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