Taiwan: Day 4.1

This is Jack. He was my tour guide for the day.  Well, not really.  He's actually the owner of the factory I've been visiting.  This is one of his rare, non-smiling moments.  He's 72 years old and you have to run to keep up with him.

On Day 4 (Wed) I was busy working in the morning.  We all went to lunch at Stefan's favorite beef noodle (niuroumian) place; literally a "hole in the wall" and very good.  In the afternoon Jack and I left the others working at the factory and he took me in his 20-year old spotless Mercedes up into the foothills near the factory.  We are on the west side of the Taiwan island, near the middle in a town named Tianzhong (middle farm).  There are rice paddies all around. 

He told me we were going on a hike to look for wild monkeys.  OK.  We did see lots of monkeys along the steady incline through a semi-tropical mountain canyon.  Then we climbed some steep steps and came into the courtyard of a large Daoist temple.  We lucked out and there was some kind of celebration going on: firecrackers, music, people in costume, etc.  They were moving little statues around inside the temple and there was a lot going on.  I'll post some pictures in my next post.  The temple looked brand new and the painting was all very recent.  Jack told me the old temple had been destroyed in an earthquake 4 year ago and this was the new one.

Stay tuned for Part 2 or "the day I spent a week in Taiwan."