Honored by the Buffalo Common Council

Above, from left to right: Council member Bonafacio, Dr. Kresse, Council member Smith, Council member LoCurto (a City Honors graduate), Mrs. Banas, Jimmitti, Kayla, Cliff, and Council member Kearns.



Notice the beautiful art deco glass ceiling (in the shape of the sun) and other, notable architectural details.



On Tuesday, December 11, 2007 the Buffalo Common Council (the legislative body of the City of Buffalo) honored our team. Council Member Michael Kearns was the main sponsor of the proclamation. The proclamation named each of the team members, described what the team did, and then proclaimed Tuesday, December 11, 2007 International Baccalaureate Diploma Program Day in the City of Buffalo. Thanks to Stefan Mychajliw, Buffalo Schools Public Relations Office, for the great pictures.

We're back home!!!

We had to leave the hotel at 5:00 a.m. Taipei time on Saturday morning (4 p.m. Thursday in Buffalo) for the airport. It was about a two hour flight from Taipei to Osaka, then 11.5 hours from Osaka to Detroit, and, finally, about 45 minutes from Detroit to Buffalo. The flights were fine. We were really fortunate flying over Japan because Cliff spotted Mount Fuji and I got some great pictures.

We arrived in Buffalo around 2:45 p.m. today. Our families were waiting and the were VERY HAPPY to see all of us.

Saturday, December 8, 2007 will have lasted 37 hours for Team Taiwan.

It's been a great trip and it was extremely worthwhile for me and the students.

Our last day: Part II

After lunch we went to the National Palace Museum which recently reopened. The KMT took most of the treasures of China's Forbidden City with them when they left. It was absolutely amazing. Many, many vases from the Ming Dynasty and tons of intricate carvings in jade. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. Everyone loved the gift shop as well.

We came back to the hotel and had dinner here. After, most of us went to a very large night market. We said our goodbyes as we are all leaving at different times tomorrow.

The kids all wish we had another week. It's been an absolutely fantastic experience and the students and I have learned so much - much more than any book could teach.

Our last day: Part I

We woke up early and went to the Presidential Palace for a tour of the building and grounds. We could not bring anything in with us and the guard with the gun didn't seem happy that I took his picture before putting my camera away. (One of the Taiwanese teachers had a connection and was able to get his camera inside - hence the few pictures you see here.)

Afterwards, we went to the Martyrs Shrine. It is dedicated to approximately 330,000 men who sacrificed their lives to the overthrowing of the Ching Dynasty before the establishment of the Republic of China in 1911, and who fell during the Sino-Japanese war (1938-1945) and the Chinese Civil war (1945-1949). We viewed the changing of the guard at the memorial.

We went by this huge square with many large buildings dedicated to Chiang Kai-shek. There were demonstrations and lots of news crews. There is a national debate going on over changing the name of many areas dedicated to Chiang to names involving "democracy."
We went for lunch from there.

Taipei and Taipei 101

After going to the coast, we drove to Taipei. I forgot to mention that, on the way to the coast, we drove through a newly opened tunnel - the longest in Taiwan. It is called Hsuehshan and it's an eight-mile road tunnel that took 15 years to build and opened to traffic just over a year ago. It slices through the jagged peaks that separate Ilan from the capital, Taipei, and links to a new southbound highway that rises above the rice paddies. The tunnel is the longest in Asia.

We arrived at Taipei around 7 p.m. Many of us chose to immediately go up the tallest building in the world: Taipei 101 (it opened last New Year's Eve). We went up to 89th floor. This floor is inside and there is no access to the outside. In order to go outside, you have to pay extra to walk up to the 91st floor. The other teachers and I went for it and paid extra to go up. It was worth it. The view was much better (a lot of the glass was foggy down below).

Taipei 101 is not just a tall building, it is full of offices and the first five floors are a mall. We felt like we were back in the USA - all of the signs were in English and they were mostly stores found in the States. We ate in the food court in the basement. After, we went to a local night market (basically a street fair at night).

Taiwan Top

We left Bagwa Mountain and drove several hours to a city known for the Taiwan Top. It's a native spinning top and the two men we watched spun small to very, very large ones. There was a Buddhist temple across the street and we walked over there afterwards. I drew a stick for my fortune and received a Number One fortune (those of you who read my Japan blog know that I received the same type of fortune there). The students received decent fortunes (nothing bad or ominous - so that's good).

From there, we went to the northeast coast of Taiwan and looked across the ocean back to the United States (about 6000 miles away). There is an island out off the coast called Turtle Island. The rock formations along the coast are really cool because they were formed by lava flows. Some of Taiwan's mountains were formed by volcanos AND others by uplift - very unusual.

Thursday, December 6th

I left the Liang household for the last time this morning. They took me to the school where we met up to depart for Taipei by way of a few stops. I took a picture of one of the English teachers, Jeff, Mr. Liang, Miya, and Steve (teacher from Australia).

The first stop was the Buddha of Bagua Mountain. You can see the whole city from the top of the mountain. It was the place where the local Taiwanese held their last stand against the Japanese in 1895. The Buddha is huge! There is a beautiful Buddhist temple behind it.

The temples in Taiwan are MUCH more colorful than the Buddhist temples in Japan. There are dragons everywhere!

Dinner and Goodbyes

Our host families were waiting for us at the school when we came back from our day of visiting. My host family brought me back to their house. I changed quickly and then it was off to a new restaurant for our last dinner together. Dinner was great. The restaurant had a shrine to a god that brings money - I thought it was neat, so I took a picture. When we were back at the house. Everyone came to my room and we exchanged gifts and took pictures.





The Liangs were absolutely fantastic hosts. They were so kind and thoughtful and gave me so many things - including two beautiful Chinese dragons made of jade for good luck. You can see one of them below.

Final Stops: Hospital Hotel, then Orchid Farm

We next stopped at a hospital that an alumni of Changhua Senior High School helps manage. It is supposed to make patients feel like they are NOT in a hospital. There's a barber shop, food court, shops, etc.... It was pretty unique. We also visited their medical museum. The photos show me comparing tongues with a large tongue model and Samurai attacking bad germs entering the body. There were lots of interactive displays. I guess it's the only medical museum in Taiwan.

Our last visit for the day was an Orchid Farm. They export 80% of their products and they have two facilities in the United States. They had many, many beautiful species of orchid.

Second Visit: Taiwan Paiho

Taiwan Paiho started out by making hook and loop (velcro). They now supply all of the major sneaker brands with this material. They've expanded into bamboo charcoal products, and cable tie holders that are made of similar material. There were several
Americans from New Hampshire working there because their company makes the machines Paiho uses. They provided lunch and gave us gifts of cable holders, bamboo charcoal socks and luggage tags.

Wednesday, 12/5: Visits in the Changhua Area

We met early this morning at the school campus, boarded a tour bus, and departed for our first stop of the day: the Giant Bicycle Corporation. On the way to the company, the Taiwanese students had us singing songs. Almost everyone knew "Brother John" in their language. It was fun.

We were given a tour of the facility, shown a video on the company, given time to shop in the company store, and presented model bicycles as a gift from the company to us Lewis asked me to accept since I was the only one in the group that owned a Giant Bike (birthday present from my husband this year).

Giant is number three in bicycle sales in the USA and number one in Taiwan. They helped sponsor the conference.