Day 3 - Taiwan / Taipei

Our third day was probably the most hectic so far. We started out commuting across town with a group of 15 that meant we had to all cram onto the subway and even worse the bus to the Taipei campus of National Taipei University. We attended another lecture here on management sciences which I found interesting since we were able to ssee that Taiwanese companies are facing the same challenges that U.S. companies are back home. After our time at NTPU we headed over to the American Chamber of Commerce in Tapei. Here we were given a presentation on the role of the chamber of commerce and there goals for the upcoming year. After our visit to the chamber of commerce we stopped at a McDonalds to get a quick lunch and got to experiment with the slight variations that were unique to Taiwan. I think the Wasabi sauce for the mcnuggets probably caught most of by surprise. This was only the beginning - we then headed up to Tamkang University not knowing what fun we were in for. After we attended a brief introduction to the staff we were ushered up to a business class that was already in session. We were paraded in a introdued as a group of students from the University of Michigan. What we didn't know was that they were ready for us. We were assigned to groups of students and got to participate in a case study discussion that ended with four groups presenting their conclisions. It was really good to see that students everywhere are pretty much the same. After a few awkward minutes my groupmates became comfortable trying out their English and William, Ruby, Rita & Antsea we all very fun to work with. After the group session we went outside and were treated to a tour of the university campus by the best hosts ever. Josy, Fanny, Henry, Super and probably half of Tamkang universities student body took us around the school and then ushered us down to the riverfront for the highpoint of the evening. When we arrived at the plaza we were told that we would be participating in a littel scavanger hunt for our dinner. Our hosts had prepared about a dozen different postcards with photos of different vendor stands and we had to find the stand, buy the food, and then take a picture of us eating it. Everything (except possibly the iron eggs) was excellent especiallt the fried mushrooms and the fried chicken. After dinner we went ona real brief shopping trip to get some duffel bags to pack for our excursion to the eastern side of Taiwan.