Sunday, March 21, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Visited Crystal House High Technology Buildings-Mar.1st
We all were suprised and impressed at the visit to Crystal House. This is part of a new development in Taichung, a city that seems to be rapidly expanding. Our host club members brought us to this particular building and introduced us to the designer/contractor. It is one of the most sophisticated green and high-tech residence buildings in the world, as well as being quite beautiful in its design and art collection. Even the underground parking garage was peaceful and beautiful. The apartments go for about $3 million. We toured one of the apartments and saw how the design uses high -technology not only for comfort but to reduce energy use. There were also some futuristic elements: such as the bathroom mirrors and glass walls that doubled as touch screens and televisions! The climate and mood (including music!) in the home can be set from the owner's Iphone remotely, before they arrive. We checked out the indoor pool and gym, and had a lovely lunch with the club and Crystal House execs. Yay, lattes!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Ou-Dean Foods on 2/24
After lunch at a Japanese-style restaurant, we visited Rotarian "Mocca" -- he and his wife own Ou-Dean Foods, a large beverage company. We watched a video about their products and toured the bottling factory. They can produce 500,000 bottles a day of up to 10 different products, and run 24/7. Most of the labor for this and other Taiwan factories are migrant workers from Indonesia and Thailand and other countries. These products are distributed around the world, but difficult to find in the US. We got to taste test a few of these products including canned coffee (with or without milk and sugar!), flavored teas, tomato/veggie juice, and a few drinks made with pulpy-aloe and either lemon or mango juice!
Da Der Commercial and Technical Vocational High School on 2/24
Our first visit on Wednesday was to a beautiful and very large (8000 students!) high school in Tianjhong Township, where we were met by Mrs. Hsu Wei-Chun, the Principal and Horng Liang Chuang the Executive Secretary to the Board of Directors. We were all delighted and impressed by this school! On arrival, a student performance troupe presented us with a demonstration of a Chinese New Year dragon dance -- incredible! We were amazed at the acrobatics and energy. They also performed a two-dragon dance that is specifically traditional to Taiwan.
We then went in to the hospitality school area and three students performed a choreographed Bartending display just for us. We also visited the art area, where a teacher painted a traditional Coy Fish ink painting and another taught us some ancient Chinese characters and brush techniques. At the beauty school, we were treated to shoulder massages by the students! Colleen was thrilled also to get out on the exercise field where she met with the head coach and did jump rope with a group of students.
We were overwhelmed with the generosity of the school administrators to us and our Rotary companions. We all learned from this visit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)