We had a large company trip (400 engineers with families) to the centre of the Island in Taichung… this was possibly the most tiring thing I have ever done, since we were not allowed one split second of peace and quiet and every moment was filled with some form of mindless ‘entertainment’ … if the tour host was not telling us poor jokes, Richard Clayderman would be on the radio numbing our minds … softening them, ready for the evening entertainment of a bunch of talentless talent show performers shouting at us through microphones as loud as they could. Lorenzo likened it to North Korean Club Med, and I have to agree. Never the less, I did learn a huge amount about the culture, and sure, it makes me treasure my weekends more than before now! Here is the rolling torture chamber:

If only… we calculated that if we wanted to replicate this photo the bus would need to be balancing on its tail… look how much fun the girl is having!

One interesting thing is the Taiwanese fear of the number 4. Our bus was number 1 (obviously) but bus number 4 was called by 3+1 … you will also find that in hospitals there is no fourth floor, if you are in a restaurant the owner will get a table for 3+1 people… and this repeats itself all over the place. The reason is that the word for four is the same as for death, which is a bit of an oversight if you ask me.

The first ride of the day… the G5 … actually bloody amazing, but scary as hell. One BIG drop and then a 5G turn 50 metres in the air. Argh!

This kid dreams of being tall enough to ride the G5:

The locals enjoy the good food available at the park:

… all delivered by the island’s celebrity chef hag:

Lars has a nice reaction to one of the rides (where they strap you into a cockroach and spin you round for ten minutes head first)…. or was it the food? Either way, very funny (sorry Lars, but I had to take the photo!)

The rain brings the crowds to Janfusan Fancy World:

Nice view of some local cleaning ladies… what amazing colours:

View from the splendid Janfusan Fancy Wheel…

… the evening’s activities were too loud and painful to talk about, but let me just say they invloved blowing up condoms in speed competitions and all laughing at the hilarious results of embarassed Taiwanese up on the stage. In this case, Lars won the prize (with Anke biting the end :-I )