2024 Taiwan: Day 1

你好 (Hello)! Welcome to our Taiwan Global Studies Blog, where students on the trip will be writing exciting daily stories about this unforgettable cultural and language immersion trip. I’m Nathan C. '24, a senior, and I’ll be writing the first entry of the blog series.

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After 20+ hours of travel, we finally made it to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. On our first full day in Taipei, we familiarized ourselves with our surroundings; we walked around the city and navigated our way through the intricate yet easy-to-understand metro system. Led by our fearless Bullis chaperones and local tour guide James Yen, our first destination was 象山 or Elephant Mountain. After stopping at a local stand to buy drinks and ice cream, we hiked up the mountain (it was much harder than we expected, haha). It was all worth it, though, as we were met with breathtaking cityscape views of Taipei. One building stood out amidst the dense skyline of the city: Taipei 101, our next stop.

After a quick photoshoot on the peak, we made our way down Elephant Mountain. As we walked towards the metro station to our next stop, we passed by a basketball court, where a couple of locals were playing hoops. Of course, many of us had to jump in to play with them. We held an impromptu 3x3 US vs Taiwan game, and the local players were particularly impressed when they heard us speaking Mandarin to them!

After basketball, we made our way to Taipei 101, the 11th tallest building in the world. We took the elevator to the observation deck on the 89th floor and witnessed incredible birds-eye-view scenes of the entire city. Mr. Koziel, a chaperone/physics teacher, even gave us a quick physics lesson about the Tuned Mass Damper (TMD), which helps to support the building in the event of an earthquake.  

Next, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch, which had the best potstickers I’ve ever had! With a bit of extra time on our hands after lunch, we had the opportunity to explore the world-famous Yong Kang Street, known for its amazing food stands and shops. I had a scallion pancake with eggs, along with some boba, of course (my mission for this trip is to discover the best boba shop in Taiwan). 

We then took the metro to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, where we saw the ceremonial Changing of the Guard and even had the privilege of getting professional portraits taken by a photographer! Marveling at the massive bronze statue of Chiang Kai-shek (the first president of Taiwan) in the grand memorial hall, I found myself taking a step back to appreciate just how special it was to see first-hand a piece of history that I had only previously learned about between the pages of history books.

We capped off a busy first day with a family-style dim-sum dinner. As we all encouraged each other to try out new delicacies and poured tea for one another, I felt our group coming closer together — the air felt warmer, and it wasn’t the humidity!