Making Rings + Building Models

Today was a busy 13.5 hour day.

In metal, we made rings from copper and brass sheets. First, we had to hand cut strips out of the metal sheet. After sanding and making sure the sides are perfectly smooth and straight, we could etch or add texture to the surface. Etching is a cool concept, but the part I really enjoyed was adding texture. I took coarse sandpaper and pounded it into the surface of one ring... the result, I think, looks sweet. [see left]

I made a few other rings, but for secrecy purposes I'll hold on to them for now. Believe it or not, I actually stayed an extra hour in class trying to make as many as possible! When the design is to your liking, you then smooth it out with the torch, wrap/pound the strip around the sizing rod and finally, join the two ends together with a powder chemical adhesive and solder. A little sanding and buffing, and the ring is complete.




After a quick bite to eat, everyone met up at studio to start building our conceptual scale models. 4 hours of cutting, scoring + gluing foamcore is rarely a grand occasion, but with all of the different people in there, it wasn't that bad at all surprisingly! I started working on 2 out of 3 models.. Tomorrow afternoon/night will be spent finishing everything up for Thursday's Studio.

Time to catch up on some Zzz's.

Design Workshop + Whistle Making

The design workshop at NCKU ended yesterday. Our final concept, I think, turned out pretty neat for only having actually designed it in 7 hours. Here is an example of our website interface, done by yours truly.

After the presentations were given, NCKU treated everyone to an incredible Japanese dinner. I've said it before + I'll say it again, I was so blown away by the extravagance of this meal.. .for only about $10/US we ate until we couldn't eat anymore [fried shrimp, tempura, soup, salad, a few other side dishes unknown to me] and they just kept bringing out plates and plates of sushi/sashimi as if it was free water.


Here is a picture of my group..

















This morning in pottery class we were given the assignment to create a whistle out of clay... Little did I know, this was going to be no easy task! I spent a good 2.5 hours tediously trying to make this thing whistle, finally I caved in and asked someone for help. I have no problem admitting when I'm no good at something. Some people were whistling in no time flat... Apparently, I just wasn't supposed to make that damn thing whistle! haha.

Studio ended up being another chaotic affair. It's pretty funny at first, but after 4 hours of yelling and carrying on, you start to feel slightly overwhelmed. Our new assignment is for each person to build 3 scale models of three different concepts by Thursday... hopefully it doesn't take as long as it sounds like it will.

The rest of the day, I've been catching up on sleep. I'm planning on heading back for round two of Chinese Cupping for my shoulders/migraines sometime this week.

Our group leaves for Hong Kong on Friday, until June 10th. The reason we're going, besides sightseeing, is that we don't have Student Visas in Taiwan, so after 30 days we have to leave and come back. Way to beat the system!

Stay tuned for more fun filled adventures from the other side of the world!

Design Workshop + Other random activities

I've been tired the past few nights, without the energy to update. Sorry!

On Thursday we left campus around 10am and took the subway to an old Sugar Refinery not too far away. In a nutshell, we saw some neat old trains which were used for manufacturing the sugar, gorgeous flowers and a ton of worker bees!


Here's some pictures from around the facility...



Please notice the bee in the picture below... [dead center on the flower]

















































For lunch we headed to 'Dream Mall', the biggest mall in all of Asia [fully equip with a giant ferris wheel on its roof]. I saw a stranger eating what appeared to be a box of pizza, but unfortunately had little luck finding a pizza place + settled for squid spaghetti instead.. yeah not the same...

The picture to the right is actually in the Subway! It's called "dome of the light" and is made entirely from glass. The subway here is unbelievably nice and this just makes it that much cooler...











After some shopping in the "mall of dreams," we decided to go see the ever famous Dragon Boat Race- it was quite the festival on the river, for those of you Pennsylvanians, similar to Kapona on the riverfront, but involving huge dragon boats.

Friday, the entire campus was closed, no food. zip. zero. zilch. Tin man took a few of us out to this great little restaurant. The food is really hard to explain, but it was mostly delicious flat, flakey breads with green onion, salt, and beef all wrapped up into a burrito [sort of]. Took a 2 hour nap with the full stomach... and woke up just in time to head to Club 7-11 for Sam's birthday... had two heinekins and headed home for some R&R... when did I turn into such an old lady! A good time was had by all.

Today we spent the entire day in Tainan at NCKU for a design workshop. We were divided into groups and given a topic to design for in the next 48 hours. My group is focusing on service design [any product that is extended to do something else, ie. product customization or giving profits to support charities.. etc]. A couple of brainstorming hours later, we decided on a subbranded, customizable cosmetic website where women can log on, and prepare their own personalized shades/tones of make-up [foundation, eye shadow, lip gloss...] The genius behind the subbranding, is that the online make-up will be the same quality as the parent brand [mac, bobbie brown, clinique] so consumers will already know and trust the make-up. The website will also contain tips and tricks for people that need help, a wish list section much like amazon, a customizable compact and a bunch of other fun features... I'm pretty happy with the work that we got done, the day went by so quickly!

Tomorrow, we've got to design the website interface, make-up kit + put it all together into a power point and poster + present everything by 6pm. It's going to be crazy, but fun no less!

Now its 11pm, and I need to do as many sketches, for Monday's studio, as I can before I fall asleep... long night!


Please pray for my Aunt Missy.

More Chinese Painting + Tai Chi

Today was round two of Chinese painting. Our agenda was to paint bamboo using the different strokes/shades/mixtures of only ink and water. You wouldn't think you could get so many different gradients and textures with just a simple brush, but by using varying wetness you can change the texture too. After a few hours of practice, this is the final bamboo I came up with.












Tin Man gave us rice dumplings for lunch. Don't be afraid, they may look slightly different, but inside is steamed rice with peanuts and slices of delicious pork loin formed into a pyramid shape, all wrapped up in a bamboo leaf. yummy.















After class was over, I went to a Tai Chi demonstration to learn a few moves. For those of you who aren't familiar with Tai Chi it is a mixture of spiritual movement and martial arts... To be in a state of relaxed strength, maintaining a high spirit of power within. After learning a few slow, meditative motions, they explained to us how each movement is applied to combat. I learned how to take somebody down in 3 different ways and hardly touch them or grab them. It was so cool. We're going to do it every Wednesday from now on!

Tonight we celebrated Sam's surprise birthday barbecue, there was enough food there to feed a small army. I grilled for one of the first times, and everyone said my barbecue chicken was great! Probably because its the first thing they've eaten besides rice and noodles in 3 weeks. haha! I guess I always considered grilling to be a man's world... but maybe I should try it more often!

On our way back to the dorm, we found this little guy... The biggest snail I've ever seen! He was probably a good 4 inches long. Crazy.

Tomorrow we are going into the city to see the real Dragon Boat Festival, with boats! It's a National holiday so we don't have class! I'm looking forward to the nice 4 day weekend.

Ancient Chinese Secret...

Today we had our first pottery class, again it brought back so many memories of high school ceramics. I made a small bowl and added a design to the inside. I think it turned out pretty neat! It will dry and be fired by next week, so maybe next Monday we'll be glazing [adding color]. I would add a picture, but I dont want to ruin any surprise gifts!

After lunch was studio, somewhat unproductive because it's pretty chaotic with 50+ people in such a small room. We had group discussion, trying to figure out our focus for the project [creating a stationary recreational product for outdoor activity]. We have decided to focus on making Tai Chi [a type of Chinese Martial Art form/meditation/physical excercise] for everyone young, old, disabled, experienced or unexperienced. From there its pretty hard to explain, but lets just say there will be stations within a park atmosphere where people can practice the art of Tai Chi based on their category mentioned above--- in a nut shell.

So the real highlight of today was trying the ancient Chinese art of "cupping." Don't worry, it looks a whole lot worse than it actually was. I decided to do this because I have gotten 3 migraines since I have been here, on account of sweating so much, heat and being dehydrated. My taiwanese professor Frank suggested that I go to a clinic and try it out because it improves circulation in your muscles and is known to help with migraines. It didn't hurt at all + lasted about 6 minutes. After the procedure, it leaves pretty hefty welts... like gigantic hickies! haha. I had my neck and shoulders massaged .. It feels great and only cost $6/US. I plan on going back for another slightly more intense treatment with a few more cups!









This is what they looked like immediately after the suction.












This is what they look like now. [The darker they get, the worse your problem.] But since it was my first time, they only let me have two and only kept them on for a small time. Imagine what full force would look like... probably black? lol


Ps. I made the Dean's list this past semester! woot!

Haircuts + Sandals...

We met up around 2:30 to head to Kaohsiung City for haircuts. It was so exciting to finally have a "girls day" and just take our good ol' time. We walked through a small market street with a few shops, guess what? They had sandals, it was a sandal paradise!!! I found the perfect pair of look-a-like Birkenstocks and they're awesome and like nothing I've really ever seen before, for only about 30 dollars US.

From there we headed to the Bezar Hong Kong Hair Beauty Salon, for what happens to be the best hair cut I've ever had! I brought a picture of a hairstyle I liked, so I was pretty confident the stylist would understand.

First things first, they washed my hair in the cutting chair with a bottle of water and a handful of shampoo [not over a sink]. It totally caught me offguard, but was completely awesome and unexpected! The girl continued to give me an incredible head/neck massage [popular with haircuts in asia] + it made my day! haha After rinsing in the sink, she continued putting more stuff in my hair and massaging... I wasn't about to complain! Then they blew my hair dry, before the cut... a little different than in the US, but I trust that they knew what they were doing...


So finally, after 45 minutes of hair washing and massage the cutting began. About an hour later, she was finished and the final product is spectacular. It sits off my neck, so the heat should be a little more bearable. Gosh I just love it so much-- oh and this all cost $350 NT, about $13 Dollars/US.













For dinner we had mcdonalds [which I don't normally do...] at this crazy designed building with three stories, spiral staircases, modern lamps/tables... really breathtaking for a mickey d's. Lets just say the aesthetics were far more appealing than the food. :) Oh, notice how they sort their trash and recycling.... I am so impressed.









































Random Comment: Today I learned that if you tap your foot on the ground [nervous tap] ,while sitting, it is a very bad thing. For a girl it means you are a bitch, for a guy it means you are poor. Thought that was an interesting meaning....

Another day in Tainan

This morning our group met with many of the Taiwanese students for our trip to Tainan to see a design firm + Taiwanese furniture museum. We loaded on the charter bus, which the school supplied for us, and in less than 3 minutes the karaoke was up + running in full force. I've always heard the cliche about how much Asian people enjoy karaoke and this was real live proof! I've never been a huge fan of singing, plus the words were mostly all in Chinese



About an hour of karaoke later, we arrived at the design firm in Tainan. Before entering the office everyone (all 30 of us) had to remove their shoes, which was really awesome to be in a workplace where everyone is comfortable and relaxed. The office was so clean + simplistic with thousands of magazines and books everywhere. We saw these great graphics of different stylized Chinese characters, amazing [some even looked like finger prints!]


Lunch took place on this old alleyway in a small sit down restaurant with the tiniest chairs I have ever sat on. This place was known for its shrimp rolls, which were probably the most delcious thing I've eaten in this country thus far [much different and better than American-Chinese egg rolls]. The same alleyway had the most authentic Taiwanese shops I've seen yet. I was so happy! I bought a few great souvenirs today, I wish I could have bought more but these small shops only took cash.


Later in the day we headed to the Yung Shing Furniture Museum and took a tour of the many different generations of chinese furniture from traditional to modern. The carvings and attention to detail were simply immaculate to see. The tour was a bit lengthy, oh and was given in Chinese... haha, kind of hard to understand.

Tomorrow, Tin Man is allowing just us to have a girls day [us + 5 taiwanese girls] + take the subway into Kaohsiung City to get a professional hair cut. This is a huge deal because the rule is: there must be atleast two Auburn guys with a group leaving campus. It's during the daytime and we're doing harmless shopping/haircuts, he trusts the girls taking us, so we're all really excited! I need a haircut and new sandals so badly!