Lukang Last Day and Digs

We were fortunate to have Sammi and Alan stay over in Lukang so we could play with them the next day. When they brought us to the home where we were staying, they were even offered a room, but it was one without an AC and since it had been SO hot that day, they opted to get a hotel room. They left after making sure we were okay with where we were.

And we were okay. This particular location I booked on Airbnb because it was with a family who had 4 children - a big rarity in Taiwan. The kids' ages aligned somewhat with ours and I thought it might be fun to get to know a family. And it might have been. But since we had played so long and hard, and arrived so late, we weren't up for anything but sleep once we got to this family's home. I don't even know that we said family prayer that night. I think, one by one, we laid down and crashed. The next morning, we were off before the older kids were awake, and mostly the younger kids were too shy to interface much, not to mention the language barrier.

The parents ran a breakfast and lunch cafe. It was a cute shot. Many places in Taiwan have no sense of ambiance, and theirs was a notable exception. It had a very European flair and served a menu of western foods including homemade bagels! For breakfast, WE were served and were happy to eat their more traditional items. It was delicious and I think it should have been included with our stay, but since I felt so badly about not getting to visit between our schedule and the utter madness of being the boss of a breakfast shop and bakery, I offered to pay, and my offer was accepted. (Also the food was so good we just kept ordering more and more.)

Me and our host, mother of 4, and cafe owner

What little chatting I did do with our host made me sad we didn't have more time to get to know one another. She wanted to know all about homeschooling. In Taiwan, kids are sent away to full day kindergarten starting at age 2, but this mom kept her younger two home, feeling there was little educational value in so much school for kids so little. She wanted to know if Rachel was our live-in tutor. She wanted to know WHY we homeschooled. Our conversation was so busy and so crazy with her other duties, we weren't able to share a lot of back-and-forth. But she noted and loved the western sense of self-reliance. She said eastern cultures tended to produce people more content to be told what to do, and us westerners were more apt to speak up, to move, to ask for and get what they wanted. Then she pointed to the chalk board they had put in their restaurant. She said it had been there for a month. On the top they had sketched out the places in the world they wished to see - like a vision board. They left the bottom clear for others to write or kids to play, and put the chalk on a near-by book shelf. 

The cafe. The kids are towards the back working at the chalk board.

She said in that entire month, no one had touched or played with the chalk-board. She said mothers would tell their children not to touch it, get it dirty or get dirty from it. Even when she would invite them to use it. When I came downstairs MY kids were already happily drawing. Our host said she was almost touched seeing them use it. She said they didn't ask where the chalk was, or if they could use it or not. They saw what it was, found the chalk, and went to town. She hoped her own children might be taught in such a way to give them that sense of self-actualized power. So naturally, I LOVED this woman! I told her I would keep my eye out for an American girl to come stay with her family and teach her kids. Don't know where I might find one, but it would be fun to connect her to her wish!

So we were short changed on the visit, but staying the house was worth it. It was a very traditional modern home. The ground floor was her cafe, behind which was the family and cafe's kitchen and family room area. The next floor up was where the mother-in-law lived. The third floor was the family's living room and presumably the kids' room, as well as the couple's room. Finally the forth floor was where we stayed.

Heading up the first time, Q turned right instead of left and the family's kids burst out laughing. "He's going to worship" they laughed. So though I didn't see it, I knew the front of the fourth floor had a whole room for an altar and shrine to ancestors and gods.

(Left: the view from 3 flights up. The floor extends on the second floor, cutting off a view of all 4 flights. Below: The center area in the home to let light in from a skylight. Laundry is hung on bamboo poles to dry. This is open all the way to the first floor. A yellow net is strung across the opening on the first floor to catch falling objects. My kids would have a hay-day with this!)

Our room was quite large. I don't know if it was the only room with AC, but the AC was a small window unit so the temperature never got below 27 degrees celsius. After our day in the heat and the climb 4 flights, I wished it had been more and we took turns standing directly in front of it. The room had it's own bathroom, also pretty standard with a sink, toilet, and drain in the floor near a shower head on the wall. There was no designated shower area. (A note about the Shower Hokey Pokey. In Taiwan, no one has hot water heaters. All the water is heated with gas on demand. Perhaps the tankless systems in the US are better, but here, the water is scalding or cold, though the cold in such a hot country isn't the same as our inter-mountain cold. Anyway, you learn to jump in and out of the shower as the temperature swings from one extreme to the other. OR you do what the Taiwanese do, and just fill and dump buckets. As no buckets were provided, we practiced our shower hokey pokey.)

The room had 2 queen size beds in it, and we blew up the queen air mattress we brought. This turned out to be SO fortuitous because the beds were ALSO traditional Chinese, which is to say they felt more like box springs. The didn't seem to bother the kids. In fact, I think Weese commented that she liked them, but I knew after such a long day of walking I needed something with more give for my aging bones. The air mattress was a god-send! We slept well.

(Right: Our room from the "hall." Skylight just above. Below: Our room/chapel from inside.)

Sunday morning I had planned to go to church. But it was farther away than I hoped, and with Sammi and Alan waiting to vacation with us, we opted to hold our own meeting, which we did first thing in the morning before anyone even was out of bed. Veeve chose and led the opening song, "Come Follow Me." Rachel said the opening prayer. I conducted. Kai led the family in the recitation of the Articles of Faith and Q gave the spiritual thought, which he based on the 13th Article of Faith, "If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." He instructed the kids to note and try to incorporate into their lives all the good they saw in the Chinese people and culture. I shared an impromptu testimony. I told the kids about Alan's comment when he payed for dinner last night. I told them I knew God hears the hopes and wishes of our hearts and desire to bless us. I also counseled them to watch what they wish for, because God WILL listen and bless you according to your real desires. Eloise pouted for most of the meeting. Finally, she told me she wanted to bear her testimony instead of lead the closing song or prayer, so she bore a nice one. Stew led the closing son, "Popcorn Popping On the Apricot Tree," and said the closing prayer in which he blessed "her, and her, and her, and her" referring to all of us, and ended, "And that's the closing prayer!" before being prompted by "in the name." It was a nice meeting. I don't know that we otherwise succeeded in keeping the Sabbath Day holy.

I thought that I would try to NOT purchase anything that was unnecessary. BUT, we had an amazing juice from tangerines at our first stop, so I got the nectar to make that. And walking through another alley market, we all sampled and loved a cranberry juice made from cranberry pulp and sugar, so I bought that too. Maybe I justified both because the tangerine was supposed to be good for colds, and the cranberry for bladder issues.

Anyway, we were still feeling the effects of our adventures the day before, so we had a much slower pace. Our first stop was to buildings built during the Japanese occupation. I don't know what they HAD been. Currently, they house various traditional art forms. So in one, the kids made pictures from stamps, in another Kai made a leather key chain, we could have painted umbrellas, a Chinese lion mask, quilted, or done other things. Partly, we didn't have the attention spans, and partly, these activities, which were referred to as DIY all cost money. This shocked the kids (and me a bit too) because we are so used to museums offering these sorts of things to engage children for free. But there was no admission charge to the buildings, so it probably makes sense, and the fees were certainly reasonable.

Kai and Arthur in front of a large lion mask 

The kids prepare their stamp paintings

A lovely sampling of the finished product.

Though no one crafted in the umbrella shop, the kids discovered umbrella water guns and amused themselves and many passers-by with a water fight. This was another example of Western assertiveness. The Chinese kids were told by their moms not to touch. Even if they had moms encouraging them to try, they wanted/needed parent's help. (I guess the kids we saw WERE quite small.) I didn't even know the shop had so many of these umbrellas until all my kids marched out onto the courtyard with one. For all our enthusiastic demoing, I don't know that the shop sold one umbrella. (We ALSO didn't buy an umbrella with a fan in the top, underside of it, but watch for those to hit the wider market because they were cool. Literally.)

The gun umbrellas are on the right. 

The tree.

The kids IN the tree.

As we were exhausting possibilities at this destination, the kids found a good climbing tree and amused themselves here for a bit. From there we walked back into the neighborhood of the Matzu Temple for lunch. Alan directed us according to my request for fried rice. Lunch was another feast with yummy rice, but also fried noodles which Veeve devoured, cabbage blander than what I cook, mixed seafood scones, an oyster dish with fried egg on top, and MY favorite, kong xin cai: empty heart vegetable (like spinach but more calciferous). It was all good, but not quite so good as our meal the night before.

I marvel at the Chinese dining experience. These places are PACKED!!! With customers, but also with employees. I can't tell by uniform or noting faces if there is a clear division of labor. The jobs are those we are familiar with, including taking the order, or cleaning off the table, but also more unusual ones like shouting at the passers-by that there is room inside if they'd like to come in and sit down. In fact, it seems everyone is shouting and hurrying around. As soon as one dish is ready, it is brought to the table, regardless of the status of the other dishes. So all through the meal more and more food is brought, but rarely is anything taken away so the table fills with dishes, chopstick wrappers, and used napkins. When you aren't eating, you might noticed this chaos. I certainly do, and marvel that it seems too many cooks in the kitchen don't seem to spoil the broth in Taiwan. (Do they hire for exceptional team work skills? Or is working together for the common purpose just a gene in Asia? HERE is where I seem to see Chinese assertiveness.)

ANYWAY, after lunch there was some talk about driving to either a noodle making house (where the noodles stretch for MORE than 20 feet by the looks of the pictures) OR a temple made of glass. But as we wound our way back through the ancient market alley ways, the press of the heat, the sounds, the smells, the crowds, the humidity, all the noise and my own kids neediness (minor to be sure, but still a press) became too much for me and I felt I might get sick. I gave Q and Alan a heads-up that we might need an emergency stop, at which point they both seemed quite concerned and offered many resting points. But I felt it best to keep us moving at a slow and very deliberate pace back to the car where I could sit in the air conditioned quiet. 

So back we trudged. By the time we got there and loaded ourselves, it was nearly 3pm, which was about when we'd talked of moving on to our next stop and having Sammi and Alan head back to Taipei. So we gave them a ride to their car, had their help programming our GPS for Sun Moon Lake, and said good-bye. I was right that I felt much better in the cool and quiet of the car, and so we began our first unguided journey to the resort area of Sun Moon Lake I tell you, a resort town is JUST what the doctor ordered. I like the historical flair of Lukang, but the streets are CROWDED, loud, and dirty. At first, I couldn't believe anyone would come here on a day off. It was exhausting. Then I remembered Americans vacationing in New York or Vegas and it made more sense. Sometimes vacations are just to see stuff, and don't equate to rest at all. Certainly Lukang was worth seeing.