Written by Isaac Frank (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Student Correspondent for CET Taiwan, Spring 2025
I didn’t realize how essential it was to spend a weekend outside of Taipei. While I love the city and there are countless daytrips you can take, this semester midpoint weekend trip opened my eyes to how much there is outside of the city I live, go to school, and intern in. Below is a quick recap of some of my favorite bonding moments on the trip.
Roasted Meat (x2) (烤肉 kao3 rou4)
When I say Taiwanese roasted meat, I only wish that you could imagine what I imagine. The first night in YiLan, everyone got together for an all-you-can-eat self-roasted meat (C, etc. for vegetarian and non-vegetarians alike!) dinner. Taiwanese barbeque sauce, enoki mushrooms, tempura, lamb, shrimp, anything you could want, all paid for by CET. What a night.
For Saturday’s (CET-paid for) lunch, I joined a table with a mixture of Taiwanese local roommates and CET students, and thus very little English was spoken. The waiters kept bringing food until we literally couldn’t fit any more dishes on the table, altogether making for the best quality meal I’ve had in Taiwan. If possible, the roasted chicken at that lunch was even juicier than the one we’d had the night before.
Plum Flower Lake (梅花湖)
Next up, we hopped in a private tour bus that took us to Plum Flower Lake, where groups of us hopped in 4-person electric carts. We drove around and enjoyed the scenery. We took turns driving, stepped out and walked along the lake, and taste-tested different types of fruit vinegar from a local vendor.
(Side Quest!)
After spotting a hiking trail off to the side while riding the electric cart, we quickly pulled over and went hiking up the side of the mountain. It was beautiful and serene. The trail took us to SanQing Temple（三清宮）, one of the most famous Daoist temples in Taiwan.
LuoDong Night Market (羅東夜市) Surprise！
At night we went to LuoDong Night Market and feasted on YiLan’s famous scallion pancakes. As we were walking around, to our surprise, we found that the night market surrounds a massive park. This is where we happened to see a street performer doing a fire dance！
By the end of the trip, our entire cohort’s dynamics had changed. I had become close with a lot of other people’s Taiwanese roommates and their friends, and people walked away inspired by each other to further commit to joining clubs and activities on campus together.