Taiwan GSE: Shoes and Schools

The city of Yilan offered us so many amazing things--wonderful hospitality, great vocational visits and unforgettable friends of all ages. As you read in an earlier post, our first couple of days in Yilan were filled with tea, chopsticks and karaoke, while the rest of our visit included a day of vocational visits, a traditional shoe making factory and a trip to Lotung Senior High School. At the high school we met a group of sophomores who were headed to the US for 2 weeks in April. Here are some photos from the second half of our stay in Yilan.

The ancient Taiwanese shoe master attempting to show Bryan how to carve the wood for the soles by hand.

The sole of each shoe is designed by hand with a unique pattern. Some designs are painted, while some (above) are burned into the wood.

Shoe factory entourage

In addition to the basic shoes, the factory made special therapeutic shoes, includes ones that had a higher toe then heel and were meant to stretch your legs. Bryan, Lauren and Fred tested them out.

Following the shoe making factory, we headed to lunch and then to the Lotung High School. As mentioned above, the class we met is headed to Texas to become high school students for one week in April. They will shadow a current high school student to learn what it is like to be 16 years old in the US. Once they started asking us questions, they couldn't hide their excitement!