4 Small Rivers

A nice - if hot - weekend day.

A walk in the YangMingShan mountain area, followed by a visit to XinBeitou. Part 1: a nice soak in a hot springs ... temperatures up to 47C, pH as low as 2!

And then: across the road from the hot springs spa, a Buddhist group had gathered: the Dharma Drum Mountain (group). http://www.dharmadrum.org/ Rhythmic chanting, quite reminiscent of Gregorian chant - except sans the precise tonality of Gregorian chant and plus some Asian bells. A nice lady there tried to show us where, in the Chinese-language "hymnal" we were ... o well.

Leaving that, we went toward the train station, and there was a small museum of Taiwanese aboriginal cultures, free ... and in we went, just in time to hear a demonstration of (allegedly) aboriginal, Miaoli music and dance. Insofar as this was an accurate representation of anything: the Miaoli music seemed more Polynesian and Indonesian than Chinese. Bamboo and hollowed-wood drums. Some of the chanting here could have been Navajo, seriously ... or an Hopi chant.