Lukang, Part 四

After finding all the students, they tried to walk us to the next attraction, the Lukang Folk Arts Museum. It was akin to herding cats. Half of us were there about 25 minutes before the other half, who were waiting at a souvenir shop for the half that was already there...In any case, we all made it to a European-style mansion that is the Folk Arts Museum. I have to say, I'm not sure about the name. There are many interesting things in the mansion, and I very much enjoyed it, but there was not a lot of folk art.

Is a boat folk art?

One of our tour guides giving us the scoop on the mansion

If you look carefully, you can see the maker of this old clock "Seikosha", now know as Seiko

Elaborate mirror used for religious ceremonies, with a handsome photographer pictured :)

Finally! Folk Art!

Cool old instruments. On the right is a two stringed....something. Even they didn't know what it was called.

As a child, I used to play with the over-sized checkerboard at the Madison Public Library. This Chinese Chess board is about 6' tall and has pieces that are about 6" in diameter.

More folk art!

Puppets!

Foreshadowing!

After the museum, we were bussed to, of all things, a puppet-making shop. Yes, you read correctly. We were invited in to sit in the air conditioning and paint and assemble our own traditional hand-puppets, with some guidance from a local craftsman. While that may never have been our activity of choice, everyone was really getting into their painting and gluing, and sitting in the cool room with a relaxing pastime was quite nice, especially after the hot, busy day we had been having.

Michelangelo eat your heart out

Our final stop on the Lukang Sightsee Till Ya Drop Tour was The Taiwan Mirror Glass Enterprise Company, Ltd. There was a nice showroom that we didn't see, as we had very little time to get in and experience the Glass Maze.

Notice the white gloves we had to wear to keep from getting fingerprints on the glass

The lights made it very confusing, and very cool.

The floors are also glass, and the lights change color and intensity. Very cool.

With that, we all piled into the bus, exhausted, and rode the two hours back to our dorms. Once back, I and others were starving, so we headed out to the Night Market for some grub. Our first choice closed at 9 (we got there at 9:10). Plan B was "whatever is open and nearby". We got lucky.

Pork, noodles and a spicy garlic broth!

Afterwards, we stopped at 7-11, a routine for many of us, grabbed our beverage of choice, and sat at the tables they have set up in the parking lot for just such an occasion. As there is no alcohol allowed in the dorms, here is the only place to drink beer, so here is also a JhongLi happenin' nightspot

20 oz of Coke, 30NT, 32 oz of Taiwan Beer, 50NT, relaxing after 13 hours of sightseeing, priceless

With that, we finally ended our very eventful day, getting back to the dorms right around our 11PM curfew (give or take a few minutes). It was perhaps a little too fast, a little too hot and not enough time to see everything, but all in all, a very enjoyable trip.