Taiwan Day #4

In the morning we watched some more films, and in the afternoon we attended a forum where we had a panel discussion about the production of our projects.

After the forum, the festival treated us to an evening at the hot springs. I was told that going to the hot springs is a very traditional Asian thing to do. Doing some research online, I learned that Taiwan is ranked among one of the world's top hot spring sites. Several people asked me if I had ever been to some hot springs before, and they were all surprised when I said yes, in Colorado. I couldn't take photos inside, but here are some as we walked down the steps and to the pools -




Upon arriving, I learned that the biggest difference between the hot springs in Colorado and the ones here was that it was mandatory to be completely nude. I'll admit that public nudity is not my thing, and I contemplated not going in. However, as soon as I saw a woman relaxing in a hot pool with the steam rising all around her, it looked so luxurious I couldn't resist. And I'm glad I decided to go in - the pools were extremely relaxing as well as spiritually uplifting.

After that, we had dinner. It's customary there for people to go to the hot sprigs and then eat afterwards - in fact, admission to the hot springs was free with the purchase of our meal.

We ate in our own little bungalow-type of dining room that was set up with a TV screen for karaoke if we wanted to use it.





After dinner, we were going to go someplace else for karaoke, but since everyone was super-relaxed from the pools and the meal, we decided to just go for a quiet drink out.

We went to a cute little bar that had an atmosphere like a coffee house. The owner of the place sat down with us for awhile and chatted.

One of the visiting filmmakers suggested we get some dessert, and one of the festival coordinators selected some items off of a menu for us. A few minutes later there arrived tiny plates of meat, noodles, tofu, etc.

"I thought we ordered dessert?" she asked.
"That's what this is. It's not like it's going to be cheesecake," she teased.

(I asked my guide about this the next day and she said that little dishes that you order with drinks are called desserts, and regular desserts like cakes and cookies are called desserts too. So it's kind of confusing.)

We were mostly still full from dinner, but we all sampled the various items. The owner/cook/bartender was from Lebanon, so many of the dishes were Lebanese and quite good.