Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village

For the first bit of driving on our own, and especially getting out of Lukang, I was a bit of a nervous wreck. We did just fine, aside from running 2 red lights. Q kept incredibly calm managing tight spaces and NOT hitting hunched old men who appear out of nowhere right in front of our large, moving vehicle. Q thought it seemed a bit like a video game. Anyway, Q suggested I dial back the stress level. I was handling him driving and myself navigating okay, but taking my stress out on the wound-up kids in the back by demanding total silence. He suggested they get out their sticker books, and that seemed to do the trick. Also, about when they calmed down, we reached the freeway, and that meant no crazy scooters or crazy pedestrians. 

Notice the car PARKED behind us, and in the middle of the street!

As a side note, though traffic in Taiwan is insane, and it seems everyone makes up their own rules (like parking right in the lane of traffic, leaving just enough room for one car to squeeze through on a two way street, and despite this tight fit, seeing scooters trying to squeeze past the cars squeezing past), everyone seems to go with it. They do honk, but not as often as you might think, and honking usually just means, "hey, I'm here, in case you didn't notice." No one flips anybody off. No one even shouts. I don't think road rage is a thing. Maybe because the rules are SO loose, you just go with it. "You are going to park in the middle of the street? Okay, I'll drive on the sidewalk to get around you. No problem." Driving is certainly an exercise in creative solutions.

Anyway, google maps helped some, but our preference has been our van's navigation system. It slaughters the already slaughtered romanizations of cities and streets, but the beach ball rolling down the street display is helpful, and it speaks up every time we need to do something. It also posts notices/warnings, but those are in Chinese, so we just stick to following the beach ball, and so far, things have turned out okay.

The Fam at Sun Moon Lake

It felt refreshing, even in the car to get up out of the city and into the mountains. We were warned Sun Moon Lake is a tourist trap, but we planned to hit it on an off-day - Sunday evening as everyone was leaving through Tuesday - and our plan has payed out nicely! Not only our surroundings as quiet as you might expect from a mountainous jungle, but this resort area seems WAY under capacity. And I am LOVING that is IS a resort area, made for tourists.Things are kept up, designed fairly well, and translated.

Where we are staying: The Youth Activity Center

We found our digs Sunday night after arriving. I knew on Monday that I wanted to take the gondola to the Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Center so we planned to stay near the gondola. We wound up staying at the Youth Activity Center hostel right across the street from it, and it has been perfect! I had to haggle a bit to get a room for all 7 of us in our modest price range of around $100/night, but the bargaining eased up when they realized so many of our number were small kids. In fact, they didn't realize our full number at all. I told them we were 6 thinking rooms for 6 are pretty common and certainly big enough. They suggested a room for 7, which was almost $300. When I told them it was too expensive the next room suggested for 5 was $150. I was liking it, but at that point they were seeming really hesitant we'd fit. Finally, we got a room for 4 (which I probably should have just asked for in the first place and not bothered with a disclosure of how many were staying, or suggested the number didn't matter since so many were small children).

I LOVED this simple but spacious, comfortable room! 

The room has 4 twins and Q and I have scooter ours together, pushed Kai's and Rachel's to the walls, and put our air mattress between their beds for the little 3. (Stew, however slept with me last night. I let him snuggle with me and the next thing I knew, it was 5 am.) The space is simple, but lovely and adequate for all 7 of us. The bathroom even has 2 toilets, so truly, it's perfect!

Breakfast is INCLUDED!

This is our breakfast buffet. No pancakes or waffles. It was pretty traditional. All the food here was only about as good as cheap buffet food in the states - good, filling, but not divine.....

Our guts are ensuring NO ONE gets on before US!

Anyway, Monday worked out perfectly! We simply walked down the road from our place, crossed the street, and got our tickets for the gondola and park. I had read that the ride was nice but you could wait in line all day. Again, perhaps because it was Monday, or perhaps because the forecast said rain, and perhaps because we got there 20 minutes early to ensure I was THE FIRST to purchase, we didn't have any problems with lines at all.

And the ride WAS amazing. Unlike other gondolas I've been on, at one point our ride spanned a large gully without middle support of the wires. It made it more exciting and everyone handled it smoothly.

I'll refer to our destination for the day as "the park." It seemed a little bit Disney-knock-off and a little bit wanna-be Polynesian Cultural Center. Anyway, we liked it a lot, but I wonder if we had to fight crowds to take it in how I might have felt. It rained on us practically all day. About lunch time we finally broke down and bought two cheapie rain ponchos and later an umbrella, after which Weese pouted in the rain for about an hour because she didn't get HER OWN umbrella. (For the record, we aren't too cheap to buy our daughter her own umbrella, but it seems a shame to spend more than we might on a lower quality product because we're buying it in a park. But it's been hard to convince any of the kids to lay off the crazy commercialism here at least long enough to get us to home base where we won't have to keep loading and unloading their treasures.)

The rain was pretty light, and as we worked our way downhill from the gondola stop, there were plenty of things to see inside. We stopped by two brief singing and dancing shows. The first was specific to one of the aboriginal tribes, the Paiwan, and the second show (a bit longer) highlighted them all. 

The Big Show

Eloise lost her tooth in the museum!

Before this second show we had stopped by the museum with artifacts and information about all the tribes. I asked the kids, based on traditional dress, which tribe they rather be born into. Later when we were looking at models of their traditional homes I asked the same question. (Big Bro liked the Bunun tribe. I don't remember the girls' answers.) It was another question to engage them to notice similarities and differences between the tribes, but it also happened to make the recreated houses and villages we went to after that a lot more interesting. The males in one of the tribes just wore a loin cloth, so as the show representing all the tribes began, I was a bit surprised (though perhaps I should not have been) to see 2 dancers in loin cloths. I was about to get an even bigger shock!

One of the final numbers was a dance performed by ALL the men wearing nothing but this loin cloth! As a dancer I always wonder about choreography, and in this one I was incredibly curious because the dance THEN contained many "gross-out" elements like crotch-shot kicks towards the audience and the men holding each other's hands between their legs. If THAT wasn't uncomfortable enough, they then ran backwards as, one by one, the men laid down and the rest of the line went over them. As a performer, I kept wanting to be a respectful audience and watch with an open mind, but it was almost more than I could bear. I think I've seen my fill of men's rear-ends for a long time! The kids reacted much the same way I did. I think they were shocked and entertained at first, but towards the end, just wanted the butt show to end. We all breathed a sigh of relief when it was done. Q got video of part of it. We'll have to post that so everyone can share in our discomfort! :) 

This Paiwan wall of heads honors fallen warrior and warns intruders of the tribe's ferocity.

Big Bro joins the warriors.

Weese and Veeve cook in a Paiwan kitchen

From the show, we continued to wind our way down through the recreated villages. At some point, the housed all seemed to blend together and our pace picked up significantly. At the bottom, or at the entrance, depending on how you get to the park, is the amusement area. Due to the rain and our limited time left (the gondola stopped operating at 4) we hit a covered pavilion with rides inside. The most thrilling was the pirate ship, "Tidal Wave" ride. They ran it slower and higher than the one at Lagoon and so the stomach turns were thrilling. I took Stew on it, despite him being too short. He freaked out about half-way to full height and I spent the rest of the time trying to keep him from losing it. I succeeded, got him off the ride, and went again with Big Bro because those belly leaps are MY thing. The girls also loved it and went again with me. I was impressed by their bravery because it was almost too much for my aging body to be sent into near panic on it. They all (outside of me, Q and Stew) also went on the ride "Space Mountain" (wonder where they got that name?) and loved it too. 

The park had a good number of really fun looking rides we had to skip. It was a shame because we really had it ALL practically to ourselves. But, as I explained to Big Bro, we didn't come to Taiwan to ride roller-coasters. We can do that at home. Most of our time at the park was in the aboriginal villages, and the girls are really excited to learn more about the various tribes to share with our Culture Club.

Everybody say "Aboriginal Carousel!"

We made the gondola home before it closed and had time to have everyone shower (steady temperature in this one! sweet!) before dinner. Food here and in the park has been pricey, which is to say it costs about $230/meal/person. In US dollars that is about $8. So between the food and tickets for things, this has felt like the pricey portion of the trip. Q asked if I was aware that it would be. I was. We are at a resort area. Granted, we are staying at a hostel, but it's a very NICE hostel. In fact, Q is convinced this is the perfect place for us, and we're contemplating adding another night. Because it isn't upscale, we don't have to worry about the kids being kids and offending other guests. The grounds are filled with little hikes, fun statues, a fish pond, and other delights to enjoy as we get excess energy out. The basement even has a piano in it, so Veeve has been able to practice. When we go, it won't be without a tinge of sadness to leave such a perfectly lovely place.

Veeve and Stew on a morning hike