Iceland

 

Djúpalónssandur, black sand beach with lifting stones, ship wreckage, and Elves' Church rock

My dad, brother, his college best friend, his son, and I spent ten days living in a van and driving the Ring Road around the perimeter of Iceland.  It was one breathtaking natural landscape after another.  Some landscapes were reminiscent of Hawaii with lava fields separating the ocean and the mountains.  There were almost no trees, just shrubs; as the Icelandic saying goes, "If you get lost in the woods, stand up."  The entire country was so sparsely populated.  I was expecting Reykjavik to be a hip European city for all the EDM it produces, but in reality it was a quirky seaside town.  There were more sheep than people.  This trip was all the more intense for closely following two years of the opposite weather in Taiwan (cloudy subtropical heat and humidity).  Even in the dead of summer, Iceland is sweater weather.  Despite going to glaciers and ice caves, I never saw a single local tour guide wearing gloves, and the al fresco dining scene was probably larger than in Taiwan.

Whales of Iceland museum

 

The weather became suddenly snowy on a steep mountain overpass

One highlight was slipping, sliding, and crawling into a lava tube filled with ice, including stalagmites that had taken 500 years to form.  It was a surprisingly physical spelunking expedition that tested our claustrophobia limits.

 

My only regret was it was too cloudy to see the Northern Lights.  Our visit was right around the time of the autumnal equinox, so the days and nights were fairly even, unlike the drastic daylight imbalances of the summer and winter.  Just over the ten days we were there, the daytime shortened by over an hour, as sunrises got later and sunsets got earlier.  Being so far north, the sun is always lower in the sky than we're used to.  There was an eerie feeling of my sense of time being off, because the midmorning was marked by the intense sideways light of an Indiana summer evening.

Dettifoss

Gullfoss

Skógafoss

Svartifoss, with naturally formed hexagonal patterns of dark lava rock

After a gorgeous super-Jeep ride from the green plains at sea level, through the lava fields, up past the mountains, we arrived at the third largest glacier in the world (after Greenland and Antarctica) to drive snowmobiles.  In addition to playing on top of the glacier, we also rode a Zodiac boat through the iceberg lagoon, where the glacier is slowly calving and melting.  In this lagoon and on every hike, locals would point out how much the glacier had receded in even just the past decade or two, unearthing enormous swaths of land.  A glacier is defined as ice so massive it moves under its own weight.  The ice is so densely packed that it refracts light differently to produce the beautiful pure blue color seen in fresh icebergs.

Seal

A hidden gem of the trip -- Petra's Stone and Mineral Collection

Fumaroles

Geyser that exploded every 8 minutes

When we weren't cooking in the van, we enjoyed meals at quaint restaurants often repurposed from farmhouses.  Local fare included arctic char, reindeer, beef, cheese, butter, bread, jam, yogurt, ice cream, chocolate, beer, and vodka.

A final treat of the trip was going to the famous-among-tourists Blue Lagoon the morning before catching our international flight home.  We enjoyed green juices, beers, face-masks, and waterfall massage in the spa-like complex of pools, naturally heated to 38 degrees Celsius, colored blue by algae, and surrounded by lava rock.  We got the more local experience earlier in the trip when we visited a community center for a much cheaper dip.  While the Finns appreciate a dry heat sauna, Icelanders love a hot tub.  The custom is to first scrub down nude in the hot showers of the heated locker rooms, then go outside in a bathing suit to sit in a mostly non-chlorinated hot tub.  All the outdoor pools at the community center were heated, so despite freezing cold, kids can go down the water slide or swim lengths in the the lap pool.

Taiwan 1SE Video

Looking back at first months in Taiwan

Reflections upon leaving Taiwan

Some reflections on Taiwan written from my yoga mat (aka 'my personal item') fully unfurled in the middle of the gate:  I’m wearing the same outfit as when my parents sent me off from the Indianapolis Airport.  It feels like nothing has happened since then, but also that I’m an entirely different person.  Moving abroad is something everyone should do at least once.  It teaches you what you value about a community, what you value of your material possessions, what you value in friends.

I didn’t realize how homogeneously academic my circles were until I came here and met teachers, billionaires, make up artists, yoga teachers, dancers, ping pong coaches, painters, chefs, unemployed travelers, people with foot fetishes, etc.  I feel like I can get along with any sort of person, after I’ve met so many new ones over the past two years.  Some transient, some very meaningful, like my acro community.  They surprised me with matching customized shirts during our last jam and made a circle to all base me without me touching the ground.  I was really touched. 

Taiwan is an extremely special place, not only in my heart but also as a model of a successful transition from a military state to a vibrant democracy, over the 80s and 90s becoming so safe it now feels utopian.

In my last few weeks in Taiwan, when I thought I was done adding people to my life, I befriended a Taiwanese guy (he came up to me on the street in Wanhua) who is a basketball agent.  He specializes in bringing Taiwanese American college players, who could never dream of making pro in the US, to Taiwan where they’ll become MVPs.  As a result, he’s an expert in Taiwanese immigration policy and uses KMT historical records from when the party was still in mainland China.  He can spot Chinese heritage by the chunkiness in a player’s calves—Taiwanese people have often praised me for my slim calves (actually they’re quite muscular, thank you very much), another beauty standard based on the colonizer.  “Imports” or foreign players, i.e. Dwight Howard, are otherwise tightly controlled in the two Taiwanese professional leagues because they have such an influence on the play.  Only two from each team are allowed on the court in the first three quarters, and only one in the last quarter.  My new friend got us VIP passes for a game which only when I got to the stadium (和平籃球場 right across from my dorm building) did I notice that it was THE FINALS.  Jeremy Lin’s team had already been eliminated, but I got to see his little brother play, a contender for MVP.

In my last few days in Taiwan, my friend who is a semi-professional table tennis player took me to the ping pong dungeon, where I got free lessons all night.  Ping pong is so dominated by Asians, that my friend learned Chinese as an adolescent to better communicate with his coaches and as he was traveling to Asia for competitions so frequently.

My friend also happens to be opening a chicken & biscuits restaurant in Taipei

My last day in Taiwan, I wanted 刮痧, an anti-inflammatory scraping technique of Traditional Chinese Medicine.  My friend and I ended up at a stall inside a traditional market that had one massage table and a curtain.  My friend got too scared, but I had a great scrape.  First was a warmup of vigorous massage.  Then the masseuse used a glass jar suction-cupped to my skin to rub along my back.  He used oil and a bilobed wooden disc to scrape my neck.  Finally, he cracked all the bones in my spine.  It didn’t hurt as much as I was expecting; he said I have good pain tolerance and that men are more scared of the pain.  The redness supposedly indicates that your muscles needed this detoxifying anti-fatiguing process, but I think it indicates you’re an extremely pale person.

I had a last lunch of 小籠包 soup dumplings and with T and Juliet (she brought me a matcha mochi doughnut as a going away present).  After a last dinner at Din Tai Fung with April, Ryanna, and Charlie, my friends accompanied me to the airport.  I’m excited to be moving on to the next stage in my life.  I have a lot that I’m looking forward to.

MS Graduation

The last weekend in May was NTU commencement.  In Taiwan, university graduation festivities occur before final exams start.  In fact, Taiwanese students order their graduation gowns at the very beginning of their senior year so then they can take graduations photos on any good weather day or vacation they may take over the next year.

Another major difference from the United States is that Taiwanese universities are rather siloed into departments.  Instead of picking a university, high school students pick a specific department based on which ones they qualify for with their test scores.  Almost every single class they take in college is determined by their major.  Clubs and extracurriculars are sometimes within the department too, for example the College of Public Health badminton team I played on for a year.  This loyalty is reflected in commencement ceremonies.  The departments all had their own graduations, where each undergraduate, Masters, and Doctorate student’s name is read as they cross the stage.  For graduate students, our research advisor turned the tassel on our graduation cap for us.  I was honored to give the valedictorian speech—the one part of the ceremony in English and thus understood by my mom watching the livestream in the middle of the night on the other side of the world. Everyone clapped just because I did a very simple intro in Chinese and then later because I mentioned stinky tofu.  Since the departments have more limited space, it is standard that not many family members are able to attend in person but may watch the livestream from a designated nearby auditorium or join for photos after.  That evening, my class went out for a celebration dinner in Yangmingshan with scenic night views.

The overall NTU graduation was the next day in the light filled gymnasium but was not as well attended as the respective departments’ graduations.  It still felt huge to me and reminded me of my cousin’s commencement in Alabama.  The commencement speaker was a Taiwanese American corporate tech billionaire.  At the end, all the students stood, removed their caps, and bowed deeply to the faculty and then again to the parents.  There was an exit procession to the ominous gongs of the Fu Bell and a startling confetti explosion.

My mom and I both graduated with our Masters degrees within one week of one another.  While my family could not attend, my roommate’s mom was visiting from the United States, and some non-student friends joined me for an international students party, making the day feel very special.

The next week, after successfully receiving a grant to organize an event, I hosted Vivi Lin, the CEO of Taiwan’s only menstrual health NGO, With Red, to speak at the College of Public Health.  It was exciting for the research and advocacy worlds of my academic interest come together.  The very next day, I successfully defended my Masters thesis.  I had three very cool professors on my defense committee.

That weekend, to celebrate before starting on my thesis edits, I went swimming in a natural geologic park called 和平島 with one of my best Taiwanese friends, Eroo.  It was my first time walking around Keelung and its night market 廟口夜市.  It was a much more bustling harbor city than I was expecting.

Eating 石花凍 (local speciality: algae jelly)

廟口夜市