National Taiwan University

Leaving Longshan Temple, I headed back to the subway, transferred a couple lines, and arrived about 20 minutes later at National Taiwan University (NTU).  As in the States, I like visiting colleges and their towns/areas.

NTU is Taiwan's pre-eminent institution of higher education and is located on the the south side of Taipei (Longshan Temple – from where I came – is on the east side).  Like many other universities throughout the world, NTU has satellite campuses elsewhere as well.  NTU was founded in 1928 by the Japanese during the Japanese colonial era and was then known as the Taihoku (Taipei) Imperial University.  After World War II and Taiwan's retrocession to Chinese sovereignty, the Republic of China government resumed the administration of Taihoku University and reorganized and renamed it National Taiwan University in 1945.  NTU offers the bachelor's degree, master's degree, and doctorate degree in many disciplines.  Traditionally, medicine, electrical engineering, and law are the three most selective majors.  Taiwan’s current President attended NTU - as well as many predecessors.  The campus grounds are surrounded by several blocks of shops, bookstores, eateries, cafes, and tea houses.  You can shop for clothing, accessories, books or trinkets.  Next to several bookstores are many American fast food restaurants.

As the pics below hopefully attest, this campus was nicer than I thought it would be for a “city” university.  Very clean, green, and manicured.  The inside campus roads were beautifully lined with palm trees.  Some buildings were covered with ‘winter’ ivy which was nice.  The campus arena looked fairly large and new.  There were some pleasant ponds and lakes where you could read & relax.  I saw an agricultural field.  I found a tiny shop on campus and bought a nice maroon NTU tee which I was happy to find – though I have not worn it on the mainland yet – probably due to their ‘touchy’ relationship, though the tee is in English and not sure if the mainlanders would know what it is anyway.

It was around 2pm when I decided to get some lunch.  Directly across the street from the main entrance (the entrance are the first and second pic all the way at the top of this post) of the university are shops and eateries.  But I had read beforehand to skip that and go to the street/alley hidden behind and parallel to that one for better and cheaper eats so that’s what I did.  The first pic below is kind of what the area looks like surrounding the campus and the last two pics are of a tiny vegetarian (Taiwan-style buffet – you are charged by weight) eatery I found on that ‘back/hidden’ alley.  It was cheap and great.  I got some soup, rice, broccoli, cauliflower, fungus, tofu, sesame wheat-gluten, and a few other things.

I was now full, hot, and my feet hurt from walking all over campus, but I hopped back on the subway as I still had much to see and time was running out…