Morning
Afternoon
Night life
After a weekend always comes a Monday, luckily the first activity planned by the committee was in the afternoon, so we were all free to spend our morning as we saw fit. Some of us had seen so much of the Taipei area during the weekend, that they felt that sleeping in was the best way to spend their morning, others decided that sleep is a suggestion and woke up at 7 to go on a hike. In Taipei there are the animal mountains where the elephant trail is very popular. start of this hike was already quite intense, quite some elevation and many many stairs. The color of the t-shirts at the end of the ‘short’ walk was not the same as before. Along and at the peak of the elephant trail you could get a beautiful photo of the Taipei 101 in full glory through the trees. For some this was not enough and so they went on and climbed all the rocky animals. There was also quite some biodiversity during the hike, as one could see many lizards, butterflies, and on top of that spiders larger than one’s hand. Luckily the spiders were harmless to humans which would have been great to know during the hike and not after.
At 12:50 we met at the entrance of the chemical engineering department, some able to find it immediately, others needing help from local students. This was unsurprising as the campus felt huge compared to Eindhoven, especially with all the tall buildings, making the area almost feel like you are in downtown Taipei. When we arrived we were greeted by the chair of the chemical engineering department, who told us a bit about the university’s history and some of the unique things they experience due to their location. We were shown around 3 labs, one where we had to enter without shoes, which puzzled a lot of us students as in the Netherlands we would get kicked out of our lab with a scolding if we were to try that.
After a walk in the scorching sun, we went to the chemistry department where they showed demos with measuring equipment, usually when you have seen one XPS (X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometer) you have seen them all. However, we were able to see the internals of 3 different XPSs, which were the top of the line at different points in time, showing the great advancements in the field. Another nice change of pace was that the Department of Chemistry’s safety standard was closer to what we expect in the Netherlands as all students showing the experiments were wearing lab coats and closed shoes. The visit ended with a chat with the labs professor with whom we discussed the challenges of talent going on into industries like TSMC and ASML and not staying to do a PhD.
In the afternoon we all got dinner at an Indian restaurant for a last meal with our professor. Erik kindly told the staff that it was understandable if the food was a bit late due to us being a large group, some of us ended up less than pleased with that comment due to having to wait 90 minutes until we got some food. During the long wait, Martin gave a speech about how he enjoyed the activities and hijinks that the participants were up to. For a final farewell drink, a majority of the group, together with Martin went to a karaoke bar.
Written by: Maurits Mulder & Luc de Clercq
