The director of my school liked to take the kids out for a big end-of-the-year trip. So last June we took the kids on the train to Hualien to visit an animal farm/zoo of sorts and Farglory Ocean Park.
Farglory Ocean Park just appears to be a pleasant ocean-themed amusement park at first. Little did I know…
The view from the skyway of the ocean. It’s really beautiful, but I was preoccupied with my three charges from my school since this was one bit of our school trip to Hualien for the end of the year.
I totally lost my street cred by admitting my fear of heights and scary swift ups and downs to them… I escaped the swinging ship thanks to my lovely guy co-workers who graciously took one of my charges on with their guys. She proceeded to be very queasy afterwards and so we lost our chance to switch off kids for the water- coaster. In the looong line to get in, I was a big baby and whined to my kids that I hadn’t seen taking big scary rides in my contract when I signed on to teach them. I survived, but was left woobly kneed afterwards (yup, I’m a big dork.).
I discovered one of the outer rings of the inferno (missed by Dante) is wandering an amusement park with kids who have very different ideas of where they want to go and what they want to do in the beating summer heat. Thankfully Farglory Ocean Park also has aquarium and water shows were you can sit and watch dolphins doing tricks or manatees getting fed. The little aquarium theaters bring an educational component to the park though the shows are entirely in Chinese.
Becoming Taiwanese 
We went there last October, I believe, and everybody had a great time. My children especially enjoyed the dolphin show, which is probably their flagship show.
I’ve been very behind on writing to people lately, so I’ll try to write you soon. Sorry about that.
Scott M.
I’ve been terrible about being in touch with people lately too, Scott, so no apologies necessary. When we went there, the dolphin show had run out of seats so we were sitting on the steps– but it still looked like a lot of fun.
I hope you are all doing well. Send my fondest regards to the rest of the family!