‹‹入選團隊列表
After a simple but deeply appreciate breakfast offered by our host (Aiii : aunt), James proposed us to go to the foundation again and ask for wearing the traditional Yami clothes. We first went to the foundation and visit their museum. Lots of things are exposed there, unfortunately the information provided are all in Chinese. It was however interesting to see the figurines, and diverse object used by the locals… our game was to try to figure out why they were used for and get some information later on asking to local people. Once the visit of the museum accomplished we went for the Cloth challenge. The rent for the clothes is really cheap and you can go outside and take picture all around the foundation. They also keep in good condition a traditional house. Therefore, each of the two couples suit up and hang around the foundation, making brief pause into the conserved traditional house for a picture session. It was a good sensation to feel how local people appreciate the fact that foreigner tried their traditional clothes. The latter are still wear conservative Yami who are still leaving in the traditional house and by all people during celebration such as the flying fish festival.
After filling up our batteries with some simple but tasty meal, the smoking dog took again their bike for a ride down south of the Island were a pool of sea water was waiting for them to snorkel inside. The place, located a bit before the Dragon Head Rock was filled with plenty of colorful fishes and even see snake. However our investigation of the snorkeling site was limited to a restricted area due to waves smashing the shore and leaving lots of bubble downstream of the pool. Gael had a quick look there and observed between two waves lots of colorful corals. His deeper investigation and the premise he had from it left room for a deeper exploration of Orchid Island shore.
A friend of Gael, met during lunch time, was working on the Island as a snorkeling guide for summer vacation. He met us in the pool and advised us to go on the eastern part of the island were the sea condition was more quiet. James also mentioned a cold water pool on that side. Of course the smoking dog had to find that place. Pretty easy task, but what an amazing system for the marine biologists that composed the team. In deed, in such place the salty water from the sea mix with cold water from the land. It was amazing to see with their own eyes the mixing between two water masses. To talk simply it resulted into a cloudy water layer from the surface to a certain depth (still shallow) where only the denser salty water lays. Another interesting thing was that plenty of young fishes from diverse species lived there.
The afternoon ended with the visit of the traditional village of Yeyin. We met there a local lady who showed us her parent’s house and provided us lots of informations concerning the Yami culture. We have to be thankful to our dear friend Cecilia for translating almost every sentences of our guide (Thanks Tiny, not only for that but also for all the other things you helped us for, your kindness and energy). We both of them, we discovered how women are important and considered in the Yami culture (Not only French are “romantic” ah ah !) and that flying fish are considered as Gods and therefore deserve preculiar treatment such as a specific plate . Gael was amazed by the physical conditions of the Yami and we learned that family between each other train by sparring between members of families wearing warrior clothes. A last but not least point is that one Yami start to build his house, all members of the village ill come give him a hand. And this is just an example how these people are altruist.
We finished our day by a traditional diner. This one was even more appreciated considering the hard condition the smoking dogs had to face to come back to the guesthouse. A strong wind was blowing and it was hard to move forward. The diner was composed by i) Octopus with green pepper, ii)Dry flying fish with papaya salad, sweet potatoes and taro, iii) mushroom that can only be found in the Taro field after raining, iv) a soup of local vegetables with ginseng and eggs, v)a pork and tofu dish and some white rice. It was really tasty especially the flying fish with the rice covered with the mushroom. Both sweet potatoes and Taro were delicious and so different from those one can find in Taiwan.
A night, while enjoying the moon light, we encountered a local and around some beers exchanged a bit with him. It was an interesting meeting which inter alia leaded to the discovery of a close pool to be investigated the following morning.
