Wednesday we headed out to Gold Ecological Park. This used to be a gold mining site and we got to walk through the fifth gold mine tunnel in Taiwan, it is actually the last one left on the island. It was cool inside and I found out that smoking was aloud in the tunnels because it was not a coal mine. The buildings in the park were constructed in traditional Japanese style. One of the buildings had an archery ‘range’ and a mini golf course. Our tour guide pointed out a tree that looked like it was shedding. She said this tree was over 100 years old and in the summer its bark is white, but in the winter it is reddish-brown. She also pointed out that the roofs of the houses in the area are covered with tar; this is unusual in other parts of the island. The reason that they cover the roofs with tar is to water-proof them because it rains 200 days out of the year. We got to see a 200 kg slab of gold and they said that if you can pick it up with one hand, you can take it home with you. Impossible!! We also got to use our imagination and saw a mountain shaped like a pregnant woman and a rock formation that looks like a tea pot.

Archery

Mini Golf

Inisde tunnel

Tea pot

Pregnant woman

After the park we headed to Jiufen Village to hang out for a couple of hours, find lunch, and buy some souvenirs. I tried taro ball, almond milk, a cake filled with custard, and a peanut brittle, pineapple ice cream wrap. Delicious!!

View from where we had lunch

Peanut brittle, pineapple ice cream wrap

We then headed to Shifen where we settled into our homestay. We rented out the whole house, it was so cool! This town is famous for its sky lanterns and after dinner we were able to decorate our own and send them up into the sky. We wrote our hopes, wishes, and dreams on the lanterns; some were too heavy so it took a while for them to take off and one even hit the power line and burned up right in front of us. The man who was assisting us said that the girls who wrote on it were too greedy because they wrote so much that it weighed the lantern down! To finish out the night we had karaoke at the house I was staying in and it was hilarious. All of the songs were in Chinese so us Americans couldn’t sing, but it definitely got me pumped up for KTV when we get back to Taipei!