Touring with the Tutors

Matthew has a set of five children he tutors on Wendesday nights. The two families just love Matthew and wanted to meet me, so they invited us out on a Sunday afternoon for a visit to a "paper church" and then cycling around Sun Moon Lake.

On the way to Sun Moon Lake we stopped at a "paper church". I'm not sure if that's what it's actually called or if it's the closest translation. "Church" is probably the wrong word. It really looked more like a greehouse but instead of glass windows there were paper-like walls (or so we were told they are made from some kind of paper material). The building was being used more like a community centre of sorts. There was some kind of educational program about the wildife in that area being held while we were there. I can't imagine it ever actually being used as a church, and considering that they charge admission to even go near the area to look at the building I'm not sure that "church" is the right word. I apparently didn't take a single picture of this building either, sorry guys.

After that, we continued on the drive to Sun Moon Lake. We stopped at the Visitor's Centre and rented some bicycles to cycle along the path that circles around the lake. I love going on bike rides and I had been missing the rides Matthew and I used to take through Erlin since our bicycle was stolen over the Moon Festival weekend. This was the bike I got; cute, girly and it even had a basket - bonus!I suppose the only thing I was missing was the small designer dog.

In Taiwan most people work six days a week and everyone has Sundays off. As you can imagine traffic on Sundays is insane.  Any activity that is remotely touristy is dreadful to do on a Sunday but since Matthew's employers only have Sundays off, that was the day we travelled to Sun Moon Lake. I will say that cycling around the lake is pretty fun, however, there were so many people that it was actually pretty difficult to always cycle along the pathway. At some points most people just got off and walked their bicycles because there wasn't enough room to actually cycle it; people travel in both directions and it gets crowded. 

We stopped at the side of the bicycle path to take a break on the grass by the lake shore (you can see a pagoda on the small mountain top in the distance).

The path is pretty long as it goes all the way around the lake but I don't think most people ride the whole distance. There were sections of the path that wasn't busy at all and no other cyclists were in sight. The path is very nice with brick sidewalks and wooden railings along the edge of the water.

Our group also did not complete the path all the way around the lake, we only cycled for a bit and then we turned around to go back; it's more difficult to do things when five children are participating. One of the children was also very terrible at riding a bicycle and had numerous accidents crashing into the railings, stationary objects (like picnic tables, light posts, etc) and even other cyclist. I was a little fascinated with how bad of a rider she was because she was the second oldest child of the five. I understand that maybe she wasn't taught to ride or hasn't practiced, but her sister who is only 1 or 2 years older was a very competent rider, as were both her parents. I did feel pretty bad for her though, because anytime she seemed to even remotely lose her balance her dad would yell at her and at one point he freaked out when she, very slowly, hit the wheel of an oncoming cyclist - no one was hurt. It was strange to see a public outburst like that - I had only met them for the first time earlier that day as well.

We were heading back to our starting point when the group decided to pull over to wait for the girl and her mother who had been left behind. While waiting, two men on Segways drove past us. Apparently, you can rent a Segway to take along the bicycle path around the lake. I was definitely jealous as I have never tried one before and I have always been curious what it's like. Perhaps next time I'll look for the place in which I can rent one of those instead.

Back at the visitor's center, there was a group of people who were dancing on the lawn. I think there was an instructor there teaching people how to dance. I'm not sure what kind of dancing they were doing but it looked fun and they were having a good time.

There were a couple of hot-air balloons there that day which were available for a quick "ride". You could pay a sum of money to stand in the basket and take-off but the balloon is never un-tied, so you don't really travel very high nor far.







There was a man-made pond at the visitor's center and Matthew and the kids decided to play in the water. They then realized that there were some things in the water, it turned out to be tadpoles so they tried to catch some. The children really love Matthew, and the youngest girl, Joy, always wants to sit next to him and hold his hand when walking or crossing the street.

 

After a day of cycling and tadpole hunting, the gang decided we should head out and grab some dinner. We eneded up going to a restaurant that is paper themed. It's called Carton King. It's a chain restaurant where everything is made from paper. The tables, chairs, dishes are all made from paper and cardboard. It was a little neat but it seemed to be very wasteful considering none of the dishes are re-useable. They serve hot-pot meals, so you cook your own selection of items in a bowl of broth. The bowl itself is also made of a paper-material and gets all black and burned at the bottom from the gas stove. Like I said, it was interesting but I felt rather guilty knowing that all the dishes from everything I ordered would be thrown out. Even the drinks are served in cardboard juiceboxes and cups.

We headed home after dinner and hit the usual Sunday night traffic the whole way. Despite that, it was a fun day at Sun Moon Lake and I would definitely recommend cycling the path, just try to go on a weekday when it isn't so busy.