NICKS NOTES NUMBER liù
Hello everyone!
Sorry for the delay with my last blog. Our last day in Taiwan was quite busy and since we’ve been back it’s been all unpacking and trying to get rid of jetlag, etc. So here goes.
As many of you have probably assumed based on my lack of writing, we lost to UBC in the final. They played quite well, we did not, and they beat us. Enough about the basketball, let’s talk about everything else.
After the game, there was a closing ceremony and all the teams came onto the court for a big picture with the President of Kainan University, where they received their respective trophies. Following the completion of the ceremonies, the crowd swarmed the court for some final autographs and photos with the players. After signing and posing for almost an hour, we had to change quickly and catch our bus to head back to the hotel. There, we showered and got ready for our last night in Taiwan.
We headed in to Taipei, where we were treated to some delicious dumplings at the Dumpling House. Man, those were by far the best dumplings I’ve ever tasted. I’ve attached a photo of the chefs in the kitchen preparing a whole lot of dumplings. The restaurant was pretty huge – it was 5 stories tall.
After the Dumpling House we headed to Taipei 101, which is the world’s tallest building. Apparently the CN Tower doesn’t count, because it’s classified as a “free-standing structure”, not a building. Taipei 101 is amazing. The first 5 floors are a high-end shopping mall, and the majority of the building is full of offices. At the top, you get to the observatory.
A very cool fact about Taipei 101 is that is has inside it what’s called a damper, which is a HUGE ball hanging inside the building, so that if the building is to sway from the wind or an earthquake or something, the hanging ball brings it back. It acts as a damper so that the building doesn’t sway as much. I thought it was pretty cool.
After 101, some of the guys headed straight to the club, and some of us went to Snake Alley, another Night Market. Snake Alley earns its name by having a couple restaurants where you can drink real snake’s blood fresh from the snake. Needless to say, none of us had the guts to try it. We saw more cool stuff and people at Snake Alley and then headed to meet up with the guys at the club. After the club, we headed back to the hotel, caught a few winks and at 7am we were ready to head to the airport.
We took a flight from Taiwan to Hong Kong and had a brief stopover in Hong Kong, where guys got some food and recharged a bit, before the long flight home. We then took the 14.5 hour flight from Hong Kong back to Toronto, where everybody was happy to be home safe and sound to see their friends and family once again.
One note: we’re glad coach Andrew Summerville had a safe trip back home to Australia, where he will visit family and friends before, we all hope, he returns to help us once again in the fall.
I’d like to make it very clear just how thankful our whole team is to everyone who made it possible to go to Taiwan. A very special thanks goes out to all the people who made us feel so welcome in Taiwan and at Kainan University. Without all of you, our stay in Taiwan would not have been so amazing. Thank you so much, from the whole team.
Thanks to the President of Kainan University for putting the funds towards our trip, to all the students who helped us with the language, the directions, and who made it so fun. Thanks to our coaching staff for bringing us and allowing us to have such an amazing experience.
This was the trip of a lifetime, and if I conveyed only a portion of how much fun we had and just how grateful our whole team is to have been a part of it, then I have done my job here.
Also, thanks for Mary Beth and Jill for asking me to do the blog and for putting it online, I had a lot of fun doing this.
So for now, thank you and goodbye, hopefully we’ll see many of you around this summer or at our games in the fall, and I wish everyone a happy and healthy summer!
Nick
