Austin's Pensieve: Day 5: Jinshan Beach

Today's schedule falls closer to routine, as we have classes in the morning followed by places to see and visit in the afternoon and evening. Mandarin class was at eight, while we had our second flute session at ten. Now that we can make a sound, we learned the technique behind playing different notes and also music notation (aka how to read music for the Chinese flute [the system with the numbers representing the pitch, with dashes and circles to indicate lengths of notes and rests], I've used the system before, though rarely). After two hours, we were able to play Do Re Me Fa So (CDEFG), five notes that allowed us to play basic melodies that we could read off music sheets!

After classes, we boarded bus to head to Jinshan, about an hour north of Taipei with a beach on the Pacific Ocean. My travel book, a gift from a friend, describes the beach amazingly well: "The beach is no tropical paradise however, with Mandopop blaring out of strategically-placed speakers, and crowds of students enjoying various activities in midsummer..." We were the students. Mandopop was played. Various activities included beach volleyball, frisbee, football, and simply swimming/sunbathing/wading in the water. It is a nice beach, but my favourite part is the view of the mountains when you're out in the water, looking back at Taiwan.

Mountains in the back. Low clouds, sunlight peaking through. "Ilha Formosa"

"...crowds of students enjoying various activities in midsummer..."

We spent the afternoon at the Jinshan Beach, stopping shortly after five o'clock to clean up and go to sheltered area beside the beach. Stools were set up for us to sit on, and we practiced singing Mandarin pop songs for a while as we waited for dinner (which was delayed.) Eventually, dinner was ready (at a restaurant at the beach), though the food wasn't too great (trumped by night market vendors =P). Nevertheless, I took a picture.