This morning I had to leave the home of my host family, the last few nights I will spend in hotels with other participants. The time here passed so quickly, I cannot believe that I fly home to Germany in a few days! So this morning we took a plane to Kinmen, this is an island belonging to Taiwan that is very close to mainland China. Here I share a room in a small hotel with Vivian. She will accompany me during the official program of my last days in Taiwan.

At our arrival in Kinmen we were split onto several busses to tour the island. At the beginning it was really hot, but luckily the sun was hidden by clouds soon and i felt more comfortable. Kinmen was actually not always open to the public. In the past the whole island was a military base. Taiwan was on war with mainland China and Kinmen was a battlefront since 1949. In 1992 martial law was abolished and Kinmen turned to tourism. So many spots we visited today reminded of the military time of Kinmen: We saw for example a tunnel that was used to hide from the Chinese bombs. We also visited Maestro Wu, a famous manufacturer of knifes. Those knifes were actually created with steel from bomb shells due to the lack of other material.

Additionally we saw beautiful old buildings and Juguang Tower. In the sweets factory “Chen Chin-fu Store” we got to taste the different sweets and many of us bought the yummy sweets to take them home. My suitcase is already full, so I couldn’t buy anything 😉 After a nice dinner we were dropped of at New King Ring Hotel for the night. Tomorrow morning we have to get up really early, so i will try to get some sleep now. Good night!