Company Outing Day 2 - no beer chug contests today

On day 2 of the trip we were told that wake-up was at 7AM and breakfast was from 7-9:30. The tour guide advised that we get up early to take in the beauty of Sun Moon Lake. I had workout gear with me and checked the schedule of the hotel gym. It didn't open until 10AM. What gym isn't open in the morning? So I had my fingers crossed for slightly-terrible weather so I could enjoy a run around the lake. At 7AM the wake up call arrived, set up by the tour guide, not me, and I was not all that surprised to peek outside and see it was dumping rain. So I went back to bed and got up just in time to throw down some free breakfast and pile back onto the bus.

The destination was the Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village, which was basically on the other side of Sun Moon Lake from where we were. There is a gondola that runs from Sun Moon Lake up to the Aboriginal Village, across an amusement park and down to the parking lot. It's a bit of a strange combination of attractions. The amusement park is clearly left over from the early 80s, with a couple of upgrades. One of which is called the UFO. It is a ride where they lift you up a big pole and then release you so you "free fall" to the bottom, hence the name of perhaps, the original one at Six Flags in New Jersey. The line at the UFO was nil. They basically held up the ride until it filled and then let it go. You could ride it over and over. I rode it twice. My work colleagues were all terrified of it. I couldn't convince any of them to ride ANY of the ride that had a significant amount of motion. How do you ride a scooter through Taipei where your fate is put in random hands, yet you are too risk averse to go on a "thrill ride". Maybe I'm blindly foolish to believe that the engineers and the inspectors and the theme park have enough sense to create a safe environment, but come on, versus a scooter! They were even a bit nervous riding the gondola.

The aboriginal village was actually quite nice and fairly newly built, by a Japanese company. I think it's kind of funny that the Japanese occupied Taiwan, probably oppressed the aboriginals, then built them a theme park. Despite being built by the Japanese, the workers at the park seemed to be actual Taiwan aboriginal people and the displays were quite interesting. They some some artisans like this woman making colored glass beads. The best part, though, was the archery range. I have never shot a bow & arrow in my life, expect those suction cup tipped plastic toys. My coworkers were encouraging me now to try anything after I relented to the beer chug contest so I gladly grabbed hold the bow. They actually gave you some explanation of how to use it, someone nearby helped to translate it. I wonder if it is a "real" bow, I have no idea. I shot a pistol for the first time last year. I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Again, being American, my Taiwanese coworkers have high expectations from me when it comes to drinking and using weapons so all eyes were on me as I grabbed hold of the bow. You got 20 arrows for 3 bucks and if you hit somewhere close to the center of the target or pop a balloon or something, they give you another arrow. First shot, dead center! I swear I've never used one of these before. After just a few shots, my arm started getting sore and I was so-so from that point on. I think I just got lucky, no shooting apples off anyone's head.

Back in the amusement park there was a indoor section of cheezy rides and cheezy games. One of the rides was called "Space Mountain". It was an indoor roller coaster in the dark, much like the one at Walt Disney World but smaller. There was the cheezy game where you whack a mallet on a lever and launch a rubber frog into the air aiming for some rotating lilly pads which are on water so when the frog hits the lilly pad it tilts and the frog falls off and you lose, since the goal is to get it to stay on the lilly pad. There was a bunch of hoopla surrounding this game and it was funny to watch the overreactions of the guy on the very left in this video.


There was a aboriginal dance show which we were encouraged to attend by the tour guide so I made sure I went so as to not get yelled at on the ride home. I was just glad that I didn't end up being part of the show, unless it involved chugging a beer.


We packed it up at 3:00 and headed for the buses. It rained on and off all day with only a few periods of hard rain so it was manageable. On the ride home we stopped in Taichung for a bathroom break at a place that sells pineapple cake. Much like at the "winery", the tour guide encouraged us to spend some money here as this is a local specialty of Taichung. The sizes that they had available would last me months if I could find a way to prevent it from spoiling. I'm just to really into sweet things except for a snack here and there. At least the bathrooms in the pineapple cake showroom weren't too disgusting. I wonder how much of a cut of the pineapple cake sales the tour guide gets?