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...)