The Second Day... BIG Temple

Ok here's the second installment of the Tea Tour posts... we got up in the morning, had breakfast with our farmy hosts (though the guy I like to talk to actually works at the Mayor's office... not sure what he does, we agreed he worked there for the government but I couldn't understand him exactly).

The previous night, I was lulled to sleep by the silly pop music of "Busted" (the CD burn a gift from one of my classmates). I was of course awakened by the cock's crow, as we are in a rural area. This was definitely an awesome morning... I have pics of it looking like California for niceness & sameness, very beautiful / clean overall. When we left the house I saw one too... but then it turned into a whole flock bearing down on me. Here they are, and also Kenta taking a picture of the Mountain Pig (I would assume that means boar), and also "Un bon matin a Shuili" (follow up to "une apres-midi a Danshui" for silly pictures of me & Alex):

Headed off to what our schedule touted as "The Largest Zen Buddhist Temple in Asia," and damn, was it ever big. I mean, I am pretty sure it cost over $110 million US and stands like 150 metres high... here's an article about it. This was without a doubt the sweetest monastery ever, and barely beats out Sagrada Familia for the best religious structure I have visited. I took a lot of pictures, but we couldn't take pics inside like the ones through the link. That pagoda/wooden tower thing was on the 16th floor and I think it was at least 25 metres high. We also got to talk to some monks... well, they were all girl monks (or nuns) that we met, but there were some guys elsewhere.

We were driving along in the bus, and while I was listening to Scott talk about his beloved role-playing world, we took a rest stop. Of course, where to stop but the scenic and famous Sun Moon Lake? Fortunately, and randomly, some people were shooting wedding/engagement photos there, so there were a bride & groom in white wedding wear. I randomly got a pic with a friend of the bride. You can also see me, Catherine (my favourite Canadienne, though Célia also rocks) & Greg, he being the only other Canadian guy I know of in Taiwan. Right about now, funk soul brother check it out now:

Later that day we went to a paper factory & made paper. Mine turned out sucky, but I made a Hello Kitty fan so it's all good. We had McDonalds for lunch, randomly enough. The three of us carrying the food to the bus were like, "Represent!" because we were totally perpetuating the local peoples views about Americans and gluttony & Western lifestyle.

In the evening, after dinner there was an impromptu event... PP Water told Claire & Scott (paraphrasing here) "In like 20 minutes you're putting on a show, right?" And they were like, "fuck," but not to her of course. They recruited me to play a Canadian folk song on guitar (the Nova Scotia song, which we totally stole from Scotland), Wil & Tyler to do American-style high school competition wrestling, a fake martial arts show from the other Canadian guy & some people, silly dancing by the Germans, a joke show by some Americans & of course the awful Gong Fu demonstration. Gotta love the Rotary official events for being organized & not involving performances.

Following that, we went to the karaoke grove... there weren't too many people there, and the few guys there kept making me do songs I didn't know. I'd be like, "well, I know these 5 or these here or this one..." and then the guy would be "Well how about this one?" So it was weird. Would have been difficult anyway to sightread words and pick up the ghost melody, but Alex & Ivan sing kind of off-key. After a while the people left, then I left the duo to their tomfoolery. Hung out with Kenta for a while too.

Somewhere in the evening we were pulling our strings to help out this Oregonian who lives mid-island... he's got a weird counselor that yells at him, can't go out & do stuff, & the likes. So we gave him our powerful Rotary contacts' phone numbers and told him if worst came to worst, we could swing train tickets to go down there and do some ass-kicking. Because "You're not allowed to have fun" is not something you say to someone I know and get away with. Even if you're rich and live far away.