Nothing like a few drinks to chase away the jet lag.
I slept for a full 8 hours. Hooray!!
In the morning we all woke up and I had to sadly say goodbye to our hotel. I never quite worked up the courage to push the buttons that controlled the space-age toilet (except the flush that is).
The city of Tainan organized a tour of two historical temples. We were met at the first by the deputy mayor and a city councillor who were both at the concert the night before. They presented us with a "medallion" (Cecelia said it was equivalent to getting the key to the city).
The first temple was a Confucius temple which has one of the oldest and largest banyan trees in all of Taiwan. It almost died a few months ago and specialists were flown in to save it. Judging by the new buds, it seems to have worked.
We also went to Koxinga's shrine.
We all were given incense and instructions to kneel, make a wish, and place the sticks in sand in front of the altar. After, I immediately went and bought a lottery ticket.
Some of the more senior members of the choir were reminiscing of "simpler times" back in Saskatchewan.
Our guide Anton was so polite, earnest, passionate and friendly! We were remarkably good actors, seeing as though none of us could understand a word of his English.
We sang a song for him and made a friend for life.
We then were taken to the Chi Mei museum. Chi Mei is one of the largest manufacturers of plastics in the world. 10% of thier profits goes toward arts and culture, like procuring things for thier museum (and bringing us to Tainan city). Sorry, no pictures were allowed. I can only describe it as priceless art, priceless antiquities, and a taxidermy zoo.
You had to get your temperature taken before they would let you in to make sure you were not sick.
Our leader is hot... but not too hot to enter the museum!
We then took the fastest train I have ever been on to Taipei.
Tainan-Taipei: 300 km in 1 hour 30 min.
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