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Muddy Hot Spring

Last Wednesday I met my very good friends Yuki and Kevin (Sang Ju) to say goodbye. They're in Japan right now, getting married! They are such a nice couple, I'll miss them so much when I get back home. But luckily they'll spend part of there honeymoon in Germany.

First, we tested Yuki's brand new oven to make pizza and several cakes. Kevin's classmate Babu assisted us while Kevin was at work and we had a lot of fun.




Yuki, Babu and me:


Yuki, Kevin and me:


After eating dinner we drove to a special hot spring where you can bath in mud hot water and cover your whole body in mud. That was soooo cool, I had a lot of fun and we also made some great mud monster pictures:




During our drive back home Kevin's car had a flat tire. Funny thing that nobody but me knew how to change the tire. Glad that my Dad always made me change the tires myself... it's already the second flat tire I had to change on the highway. But in the end all went fine and we got home safely. Here's our last group picture at my home:

Dumpling Farewell Party at Michael's

Wow, the time here went past so fast and now it's already time for me to go back home. My plane leaves on Thursday 11.02. and I will arrive in Frankfurt on Friday 12.02. On the one hand I can't wait to get back home to see my parents and Dominik and my friends again, but on the other hand I met some good friends here in Taiwan and I know there will be several other things I'll miss as well. Anyway, I enjoyed my time here very much and it was a great experience for me! Thanks already to all my friends here, I'll miss you and hope you can come to Heidelberg for a visit!

Last Tuesday my boss Michael had a farewell party at his house for me. We made dumplings, because everybody noticed that I love to eat dumplings (sometimes several times a week!)

All my labmates were there and my friend Tery.



This is Michael and me. I enjoyed the time in his lab very much; I found he was a great boss and a cool guy to have around as well. ;)


All the lab people:


This is Alex and me: I had a least one or two questions ever day and he never got tired or annoyed to answer them... thanks again! He's a really cool guy! ;)



Hm, how to spell his name right: Maybe Xiau Guei? He'y a very funny guy and I always enjoyed talking to him!


These are all the girls from the lab: Jill, Lina, Me, Annie and In.


And all the boys: Xiau Guei, Justin, Gary, Martin, Jim, Amin and Alex.


These are Michaels wife Michelle and his two children Samual and Jessica. They all speak very good English, especially the kids, but sometimes they were a bit shy. Anyway, I want to thank them again for giving me such a great time here!

18th Symposium on recent advances in cellular and molecular biology

Last week we went to Kenting to a Symposium for students. We stayed in a really nice hotel at the beach and had some great weather.
I also co-presented a poster which featured some of my experiment results and I got this nice name tag to go around my neck, I felt very important and cool.
Here I am in front of the poster with my boss Michael and my colleague Alex.



I spent lots of time at the beach walking around on the stones and watching for little sea animals.



I saw lots of sea cucumbers, they look funny and feel very soft. Although I remember they are not quite as soft when you eat them...


There were also lots of small sea stars, they were hiding in little holes and only three arms would stay outsite, maybe to catch some small fish.



The whole hotel area and beach had this kind of paradise feeling, there where even hammocks hanging between palm trees where you could relax and watch the ocean.










We also played some volleyball and I realized again: I suck at ball sports... *smile* But still I had fun!

Lab Dinner

Shortly after Christmas Holiday we had a big dinner with all lab people at a mongolian barbeque restaurant, really delicious!!! The kind of restaurant where you mix whatever you like to eat and then the cook prepares it for you on a big hot stone.
Here you can see all my lab mates:

Christmas Holiday

My parents came to visit Taiwan during the Christmas holidays. We spent Christmas in Kaoshiung and I had absolutely no Christmas feeling but lots of fun anyway. Just to warm here to feel like Christmas!
We also went on a little trip to the east coast. Unfortunately we didn't have much time to linger and spent lots of time in the car, but still the scenery was very beautiful and I enjoyed this trip very much. It was like a foretaste for a longer holiday that is certainly to come in the future.

We drove all the way from Kaohsiung to Hualien und stopped at Sansiantai, there is a chinese bridge on the coast to a little island.



In the evening we made our way through Taroko Gorge to our hotel in the dark and had to wait till the next morning to see the beauty of this canyon. I would have loved to go on a long nice hike there... hopefully next time!








This is the temple of eternal spring, looks really nice, doesn't it? We couldn't go to visit it inside because the way to the temple was closed.



After Taroko Gorge we made our way back and spent the next night at a hotel in the mountain. They also had a hot spring, where bathtub hot water came directly out of the mountain and we took a long and gorgeous bath there.



There was also a rope bridge at the hotel, and I walked over it half way for a picture. (No need to take the risk if you don't continue at the other side...)