Taiwan in My Eyes
Energy, sustainability, and five days of travelling together
January — March 2025
Through Taiwan in My Eyes 120h, I travelled around Taiwan with three teammates, each from a different country, exploring culture, energy, and sustainability. I joined to understand more about the place where I was studying and to build friendships along the way. The opportunity to travel for free was part of the attraction too.
The programme gave us access to places I had never expected to enter. We went inside a wind turbine and visited a waste incineration facility, where we watched large mechanical grabs handling rubbish and learned about recovering energy from waste.
Houlong, Miaoli
Wind turbines line the coast at Haibao Village.
Sunny Rich Group, Chiayi
Solar panels built over shrimp-farming ponds: about 132 MW of generation sharing the same ground as aquaculture.
The visit that stayed with me most was Sunny Rich Group’s solar and aquaculture facilities in Chiayi. Solar panels formed a roof over shrimp-farming ponds, allowing electricity generation and food production to share the same land.
I was fascinated by how the design addressed a practical constraint on solar power: the space it requires. The roof also served the farming activity beneath it. Making these activities work together required knowledge of both energy and aquaculture, and seeing that combination operating at scale made a strong impression on me. This was the kind of useful engineering I wanted to understand more deeply.
Our team travelled independently between scheduled gatherings with the other groups. Reaching those meetings on time meant considering alternative routes and balancing time, cost, and uncertainty.
On one journey from Hsinchu, I chose the train rather than taking a taxi directly. We arrived just on time and saved money, although the tight timing frustrated my teammates. I was pleased that the decision worked out, but we experienced the same journey differently.
Spending 120 hours together also meant learning how to share time and space. I was going through a difficult period personally, and I appreciated my teammates’ support. I often took walks alone in the evenings to give myself some space. Companionship and time to myself both mattered during those five days.
Jingzaijiao, Tainan
Taiwan’s oldest salt field, first worked in 1818. Its plots are paved with broken pottery so the salt crystals do not stick to the earth.
The trip made energy and sustainability more concrete for me. At Sunny Rich, I could see how technical knowledge, practical constraints, and a working business came together in one place.
Travelling with my teammates brought its own lessons in communication and adaptability. We had schedules to meet and decisions to make, while each bringing different expectations and circumstances to the journey.
The trip film. Plays with sound when you press play.