On Saturday we were invited to go with Dan’s school’s faculty on an all-day field trip.  This started at 8:30 in the morning when we all piled on a classic ‘luxury’ tour bus, complete with fringed curtains.  And what would a tour in Taiwan be without karaoke?? That’s right, every minute we spent on the bus (which included 1 hr. and 30 minutes to reach our destination and the same on the return home) was dedicated to singing all sorts of Chinese, Taiwanese, and aboriginal songs…at a volume level that has probably limited my  hearing ability for life.

I know I can never give justice to this experience, but this video might give you a little glimpse of the awesomeness that is bus-karaoke: We should get paid for this

Our first stop was an incense factory where we saw incense sticks being made, along with a small museum dedicated to the art and history of incense. stick-making video.

This museum even has a working hotel in it with different scented rooms made from various incense materials.  If you were so inclined, you could stay a night in a lavender or tea-tree scented room and experience full incense-immersion.

Chandeliers made almost entirely out of incense sticks. I imagine they'd be quite a sight to see once lit.

After our tour, we were taken to the restaurant that is attached to the museum.  Now it should be noted, that unless I’m eating Western food here, I usually go the vegetarian root.  At least when the menu is pre-chosen, otherwise I’m sure to get mucho fish and unidentifiable meats.  Lunch and dinner were included in this tour package, so I opted to go veg.  For some odd reason they put the vegetarians at a completely seperate table, probably for ease of service.  Now this wouldn’t have been so bad/awkward if Vicky and I weren’t the only vegetarians.  So there were two round tables of about 10 people each, and then a huge table for me and Vicky.  It kind of felt like we were being punished for not eating meat.  I can kind of understand this for the lunch (pictured above) since we got hot-pot which in itself is rather big and everyone else was eating family-style.  Maybe they thought it would take up too much room at the table.  Ok.  Fine.  But this meat-eating bias came up again at dinner where we once again had to sit far away from everyone else and all of the cheersing and drinking and merriment.  And our meal definitely didn’t take up too much room then.  But oh well.  We entertained ourselves.

Now rewind a bit to after lunch.  We left the incense factory and headed to a traditional candy ‘factory’.  I put it in quotes because it was a small store that was located in the basement of the owner’s house.  But I guess they do make their own candy, thus warranting the title ‘factory’.  

We got to try a bunch of the traditional candies, cakes and seaweed cookies!  

After Willy Wonka’s side shop, we went to a large local temple.

Here we got to offer incense and candy (appropriate considering our previous detours) to the gods.  And then–highlight of the day– we got to meet our semi-god guardian (assigned to us by the year we were born, for us the year of the Tiger.)  We even got to drink some of his sacred water held in a little cup in front of him.

While at the temple, Dan’s co-teacher, Spencer, showed and explained the meaning behind many of the decorations.  The temple, like many other religious houses I’ve seen, contained most of its historical stories and teachings in the art forms filling and surrounding the building.  He specifically pointed out the tile-mosaic decoration on the roof, which turned out to be the focus of our next destination.  

We went to a ceramic museum where we got to see many different kinds of ceramic designs as well as the ceramic-making process.    This is typical of the designs found on the roofs of temples.  This specific dragon-fish (which happens to be the symbol of Kaohsiung) is unique in that it was created solely out of ceramic bowls.  

After the ceramic museum we found our way to a well-known Japanese restaurant in a town outside of Kaohsiung.  Once again, Vicky and I found ourselves banished from all carnivorous tables.  But we were called over when a birthday cake was brought out in celebration of four November birthdays, including our dear Spencer.  

And yes.  That is a Maltese (dog) cake.