OCAC-5: half day activities

For Taiwan’s first and second grades, 4 out of 5 days are half days, kids leave school around noon, I did some research ahead of time to plan afternoon activities for them. Below are a few things we’ve done, and the main OCAC page has other places I originally planned to visit but didn’t get to this time.

Beitou: Before our trip, we read a book that mentioned the Beitou Hot Spring Museum and a mineral stone named after Beitou. Little Bun was very interested in seeing this Beitou Stone (北投石), so we found an afternoon to visit. The museum was spacious, clean, and free. It is a renovated traditional Japanese building. We spent about 1-2 hours there. After that, we walked down the hill to a free public Hot Foot Spa, where we soaked our feet. The kids tried it briefly but soon went off to play in the park. On our way to the foot hot spring, we passed by the Beitou Public Library. It looked amazing from the outside, but since the entrance was in another direction, we didn’t go in. At the end of our trip, we hopped on the MRT and headed to Shilin Night Market.

Beitou Hot Spring Museum ->Taipei Public Library Beitou Branch ->
Fuxing Hot Foot Spa -> Shilin Night Market

Traditional Chinese family photo: I showed the kids a video of an American YouTuber, 莫彩曦Hailey, having a family photo shoot while wearing Chinese traditional formal wear, and little bun became obsessed. She mentioned that she really wanted to do a similar photo shoot, so I went ahead and booked a session before the trip. There were several packages to choose from, but since we only wanted a few photos and were mainly interested in the experience, I opted for a quick photo shoot package with two additional sessions for hair and makeup for both me and little bun. Booking through LINE was quite smooth—I paid a small deposit to secure the photo shoot and settled the remaining payment before the scheduled day. On the day of the shoot, we selected the outfits we wanted and proceeded with hair and makeup. The photographer was friendly and skillful in guiding us through different poses. Overall, we were pleased with the final images and the entire experience.

伊頓婚紗 Eton Wedding

Screening printing class: Thanks to Sunny’s great list, I found this screen printing class in the old Taipei district of Dadaocheng. I reserved the class ahead of time on their website. The class was held in a bright, spacious, and airy room. The first step was to pick the shape of the bag we wanted to screen print. Little Bao chose a crossbody bag that can carry a water bottle. Little Bun was indecisive about the size of the bag, but she eventually picked a crossbody as well, though she worked on the tote bag I had chosen. The teacher demonstrated the process first, and then we tried it ourselves. It was pretty easy and fun to do the whole process.

After the class, we toured around Dadaocheng. There were many Chinese pantry shops and some stores selling popsicles. We visited a famous independent bookstore, Kuo’s Astral Bookshop, with a section where kids could read freely. After that, we wanted to try some street food for dinner, but most vendors were closed that day because it was a Monday. Instead, we went to the traditional Tainan chain 度小月 for dinner. Both the kids and we enjoyed this little tour of the neighborhood.

Screen printing class -> Summer Tree Sweet > Kuo’s Astral Bookshop
-> Wheel Cake -> Du Hsiao Yueh