Big Buddha and Chinese Take-Out

The first tour of the day was at the Gu-yue Folk Museum. It is a museum that talks about the history of Taiwan. Unfortunately, our guide did not speak English and was long winded. The Rotarians did their best to translate but the guide did not give them much time.

The next stop was at what they call the V-shaped Garage of Train. A better description would be a turntable for trains. The showed us lots of trains and how the turntable worked.

Lunch was at a Japanese restaurant. There was still tons of food. Today's menu included scallops, squid, huge fried shrimp, fish, fish and fish fried rice. There seems to be a theme - FISH.

This afternoon was a lot of fun. I saw BIG BUDDHA (Baguashan Great Buddha). It is the biggest Buddha in Taiwan and is over 4 stories high (I know this because this is how many floors had exhibits). The Buddha inside of Big Buddha had a swastika on its chest. We were told that this is the symbol for Buddhism. As we were leaving Johnson (one of the younger Rotarians who has accompanied us on the tours) invited us to his family's mountain to see his family temple. I was thinking it would be a small temple. Nope it was huge - I think it was 5 stories. It was very ornate on the inside. His father wanted to give us all parting gifts. I am not sure what it is because it is all in Chinese but I have 2 calendar type books with lots of Chinese writing and a CD.

Tonight we attended the Changhau/Lukang combined Rotary meetings (10 clubs) and gave a presentation. I learned what real takeout Chinese Food is like. I must admit I do like PF Chang's much better but it was good. And at least there were not tons of courses. At the end the presentation us all with their Rotary banners which was a production in and of itself. Each President needs a photo of each presentation to each team member. They also gave us gifts for giving a presentation - yellow Rotary Shares scarves (I'm assuming the men got ties).

I think if you count up all of the photos that I have have taken since I came to Taiwan it would be more than all the other photos I have ever had taken. Each Rotarian who accompanies us wants at least one photo of the group at every tour. After the Rotary meeting tonight Becca and I were quite the novelty. All of the men wanted their photos taken with the tall American girls. Including the photographer who has followed us around for the last two days. I am getting a kick out of this.

It is interesting that there is an all Female Rotary club here. I am told that some of the other clubs will not allow women and this is why it was created.

We were told tonight that Kim is on her way here. Just when everyone got over the fact that she is not here. So we are going to have to listen to more talk about this for at least another week. Until she gets here and how great it is that she could join us. This whole fiasco has really been annoying. First we have to spend hours trying to figure out how to get her back in the USA, then listen to all the "pity pity" that she is not here, redo our presentation and now we have to redo our presentation again. AHHHH! I can already see that this might (her now coming) cause some friction between some team members.