Yesterday the new faculty took a bus up into the mountains and visited Taiwan's Indigenous Peoples Culture Park where the 14 pre-Chinese aboriginal tribes are celebrated. We each made a glass bead, with help of course, and lunch was a fabulous variety of local dishes. I should have taken a picture but I'm not used to photographing my food. I'll work on that.

We also attended a performance of tribal dances which was amazing. The men in particular were incredibly athletic. It was a bit of a striptease show in that they had less and less of their outfits on until the last dance where they wore just loin clothes. It was a little like going to an opera where you don't know the language but I really enjoyed the music and all of the dances were entertaining.

Lee made a beautiful polka dotted bead.

The mountains of Taiwan run along the spine of the island and reach as high as 13,000 feet. We were just at the edge of the mountain range, about an our north of Kaohsiung by bus.

Hanging out at the culture park. The things hanging behind Lee are giant replicas of the beads we made.

One of the suspension bridges over the river.