Dragon Boat Festival
This weekend has been a glorious, four day long extravaganza of doing absolutely nothing. Granted, Friday was one of those fake holidays that the Taiwanese government tantalizes us with (I have to go in next Saturday to make it up), but while it lasted, it was great.
While I have been generally lazy, the majority of the other Fulbrighters decided to be ambitious and put together a Dragon Boat team to race in the annual Dragon Boat Festival at the Love River. After a mad scramble to assemble the requisite number of foreigners, a concerted recruitment effort of half a dozen Taiwanese people (not all known to us at the beginning of this process), and several intense practices on the Love River, our team, Hamburger Breakfast, was ready to make their big debut.
Tuesday night marked the first night of the time trials, and Team Hamburger Breakfast was up against three other groups: a team of burly Germans from 中山大學, a group of Europeans from Wenzao, and a motley crew from some kind of drinking club. On Wednesday night came the second round of time trials, and unfortunately, they did not make it to the semi-finals, but a good time was had by all:
Lining up to start (Our team is the furthest from the camera):
And they’re off!
Chris talking strategy after night 1:
Rowing on night 2 (the further boat):
And to give you an idea of just how strenuous the rowing was:
man, that is one attractive and rhythmically-gifted drummer!