Sun Moon Lake

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, expressing in a moment more than mere words can convey. Sometimes pictures fall short of presenting the full beauty or glory of a place or moment. And sometimes pictures are both - they tell it best, but in the telling, still don't come close to the experience. This post will be some of our pictures of Sun Moon Lake, and I will let them speak for themselves.

Hop on, hop off boats take you to 3 stops around the lake.

The crew on the boat.

The view pulling away from Itashao pier near where we stayed

Near Shuishe Pier and village, we enjoyed the Hanabi hike, named after Nick Wilson's Shoshone grandmother, we're sure... ;)

"Romantical gesture" - view from Shuishe area

Seeing a piece of history is always cool.

At another stop, we hiked to this Buddhist Temple. Again, so lovely.

Feeling hard core after the hike. Stew is wearing the golden pine cone which Big Bro caught at the Aboriginal Village show the day before. Just after this shot and back at the pier waiting for the boat, he threw it in the water. A kind worker fished it out and handed it back to him, whereupon Stew threw it BACK in. So we parted ways with the Golden Pinecone.

Outside the Buddhist Temple grounds

More temple grounds

This is the first floor of the temple. Weese and Stew follow the nun's example in worshiping. We were able to go to all 3 floors and see the remains of the skull of the monk who traveled to India to bring Buddhism to Asia.

View from the Buddhist temple

Stew is rich with personality anytime anyone wants to take his picture. At the very least, he cracks himself up.

A tiny taste of the climb to the temple.

On the return, Kai counted the stairs of this hike and there were about 349, NOT including the steep inclines pictured above. No wonder why the trail was pretty much free of all the tourists closer to the pier!

Even the Itashao/gondola area where we stayed had no shortness of beautiful strolls and lovely hikes.

One of many little hikes near our stay at the Youth Activity Center. On this walk, the kids helped an old man carry bags of harvested bamboo.

The trail to the large, but mostly non-functional butterfly observatory.

We found this lovely fairy by the many butterflies just across from the entrance to the gondola.

I LOVED this statue near the gondola entrance. After visiting the villages, it made more sense. It is an aboriginal woman doing the hair slapping dance. Of course, Stew didn't know that. He saw it and said, "Mommom." I think he was coached to hug her knees. Still, I'm flattered he saw such a beautiful sculpture and thought of me!

My little aborigines hefting the rock holding the rock-hefting aborigines.

The beauty of the lake just brings out the ballet in you, and YOU! (not to mention bringing out the belly in ME!)