Rural Day

We spent Friday (4/21) morning teaching at a local rural school, about thirty minutes outside of Kaohsiung. We read aloud a story to a group of fourth graders and sang a song with them. Some of the students put on an amazing performance for us that I have a small video of below. After our large group time with students we went down the the courtyard area and split up to set up our own stations. Each of us teachers had planned a fifteen minute lesson around Mother's Day to teach to four groups of fifth and sixth graders. My station was making a Mother's Day card for students to be able to give to their moms or grandmas by drawing a flower and writing a few English sentences. It was fun to be in a new environment and working with new students all over again.

Friday Afternoon:

We took a trip on a bus to Tainan again as a big group. The road trip went fast because we were singing KTV (karaoke) the whole way there, it was great! After we grabbed a bite to eat, at a traditional Chinese style restaurant, we went to 'Chikan Tower' which served as a Dutch castle, Chinese pagoda, and Japanese army hospital under different Taiwanese reign a long time ago. I love visiting all of the historic places with the locals because they are so knowledgeable about them and are able to rely information onto us very easy, making it fun to learn in good company. After this we checked out the famous department store in Tainan that was the very first one ever in Taiwan. It was a special feeling to be able to walk through all of the floors with unique shopping areas within it. The last stop was Confucius temple, which served as the first school in Taiwan years ago when going to school was not available to every student, and was a special opportunity. People go here to make a wish on the wall before the big teacher exam or for luck finding a job. Naturally, with graduation upon us, we had to make a wish in hopes to soon find the perfect job for all of us. It was time to head home on the bus and get cleaned up for dinner!

Friday Evening Host Dinner:
With our professor being in town, it is tradition to have an ISU host dinner that we invite our teachers, principals, directors and the bureau to. It is a way for us Iowa States students and Iowa State in general to thank everyone who has made this experience possible. We went to a pasta/Italian restaurant called Pasadena in Kaohsiung. It was great to be in company of all of the influential people in our lives here and to thank them for everything they have done for us. The only picture I have from this event right now is my meal, hopefully I will have more soon! haha