Started the day with this beautiful view from our hotel in Qingjing! We had a full day at the Formosa Aboriginal Village coming and everyone thought it was going to be a museum in village type where we would learn about the different indigenous peoples of Taiwan but we couldn't have been more wrong. Read on to see why!
Formosa Aboriginal Village is actually a huge amusement park with all the wild rides you could possibly imagine! I forgot that in Taiwan they call their amusement parks with the word, "village" and the rides are always quite intense. In my student days, I got to visit a place called Liu Foo Village and that was an intense amusement park just in the outskirts of Taipei.
Formosa Aboriginal Village is much larger than Liu Foo, I think. They have this giant plaza park that's just a park!
Main gateway to the "Village"
As you can see, this place is gigantic. You can use cable cars to take the easy way up though! It's also pretty important to note that there's an area here that's just for cherry blossom trees, unfortunately they were all not in bloom is it looks like a wasteland huhu.
Even upon entering, the famous UFO ride can be seen already. Didn't try it though because I don't like rides that just go up and down.
Aladdin is a small funhouse filled with miniature versions of the amusement park's most famous attractions.
This area is perfect for families with small kids and parents who don't really like extreme rides.
There are cute parlor games where you can win prizes.
And a small Anchors Away!
UFO Miniature Version.
And a spinning ride. Haha!
We tried this VR Rollercoaster ride which is the most extreme in the area. It's a very funny experience because they charge you extra for the VR equipment. My dad took it but I didn't so our experiences were very different. I was completely in the dark getting a bit of a wild ride while my dad saw the VR. It's a fun ride nonetheless but it was so weird! Haha!
The Gold Mine Adventure is one of the most popular rides in the park but we didn't continue on because...
It's a ride where you'll get super wet in and I was so iffy about getting wet for a lot of reasons but mainly because it was cold and we had no change of clothes.
The end of the Gold Mine Adventure is a steep drop which sprays you with tons of water.
A little Barcelona was in construction! So cool!
This is another ride where you'll get wet, but I've forgotten the name. You can actually rent raincoats at the side, but it doesn't save your whole head from the water so I still passed.
One of the most extreme rides in the park! Probably second to the UFO?
The Maya Adventure is probably the wildest ride I've ever had to date. And that's counting the rides I took in Everland back in September. Here, you are dangling below a rail and you're thrown at crazy speeds and twirled and dropped. It was such a struggle just keep your head upright - which they tell you to do to avoid any possible injuries.
After the Maya Adventure, we returned to the giant park plaza and went to one of the mansions for lunch! Once you enter, it's a giant cafeteria filled with kids on a field trip. Haha! Very surprising juxtaposition to its super luxurious exteriors.
And it was back to the amusement park for us! Unfortunately though, we didn't ride the extreme rides because we had just eaten and no more cool rides were left that we wanted to ride especially after Maya Adventure. I would like to note that there were almost no lines in this amusement park despite it being peak season, probably because of the name. Haha! Foreigners probably never thought there'd be an amusement park at a place called an Aboriginal Village.
We headed for the cable cars to skip past the long walk up.
From the cable car, I saw the Barcelona area getting constructed. Looks like it'll be a water attraction!
At the lower left of the photo above is actually the cherry blossom park. It looks so sad. Huhu
There are also pavilions for shows!
The cable car ends at another cable car station but this one takes you out of the park and into the Sun Moon Lake area.
Since our departure time was still ways away, we looked around the area. This part was where the Aboriginal Village lived up to its name. Haha!
I got to try the Blowpipe Archery station which was so funny!
Here, you rent a blowpipe and 10 pieces of darts then try to hit the targets. Don't worry though, as the part where you put your mouth is disposed of and changed for every player! I unfortunately did very badly hahahahahuhu
There's a small area where you can check out old dwellings of the indigenous people.
I checked out the Paiwan Family House and it was such an interesting model of an old settlement!
Before heading to the final cable car ride, we watched a quick show.
There were a lot of songs and dances about different ceremonies in the life of someone in the tribe.
We went back to station and rode the cable car to Sun Moon Lake!
Stay tuned for more of the Sun Moon Lake! :)
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