Taipei - Taiwan

Taipei was a much larger and more exciting city to visit than Tainan or Kaohsiung. We got a bit more of a chance to do sightseeing and exploring. While we were there I was fairly exhausted and stressed out over some things at home but we still did a fair amount of sightseeing.

We stayed at a hotel called Dolamanco. It seemed to be a bit confused by western culture as I'm sure westerners are about Asian cultures. Either that or it was having an identity crisis because it had decorations with both Flamenco dancers and the Virgin Mary. They don't quite go together in my mind. It was a nice hotel though. I have two things to point out about hotels we stayed in so far. They have this thing where you have to put your hotel key in a little slot to turn on electricity in the room. Danny likes it a lot because he thinks it more convenient to turn lights on and off all at once. Also some of the rooms just don't have sheets. I found it sort of yucky because it seems unlikely they wash the whole comforter that often.



Both Tapei and Tainan have this weird sort of style of architecture where most of the stores look like they are inside a garage. The nicer ones look like this. The less nice ones look like a run down garage with a few signs to tell you the price of things. Most of them have apartments above them.











We walked through a giant flower market. They had really pretty fountains and I wanted to buy one but had no way to transport them.

We also walked through a Jade market. I really liked this tea pot but Danny wasn't a fan.














We visited the National Palace Museum. We couldn't take pictures inside but it has a pretty amazing collection of pottery and other artifacts. It wasn't very well curated though and the lighting was sort of bad.











After we wandered around the palace gardens and Danny bought pellets to feed the Koi.























This girl had like a dozen people photographing her. We weren't sure why but we took a picture. I thought it was either a photography class or she was really famous.











We saw Danny's former elementary school. He attended it for one year before moving to the states for good.











We went to the Sun Yat Sen Memorial.

































There was a nice view of Taipei 101 from there. Guess how many floors it has.














We met Danny's aunt, uncle and cousins from his mom's side of the family at a really fun restaurant. His cousin's husband's uncle owned the place so I think it was a regular favorite of theirs. I like the decor a lot but I had a hard time with the food. Danny enjoyed it though.












We went to a park where Danny had gone as a kid. He was really fascinated by the fact that we saw a class full of kids and they each had a digital camera better than ours so he took their picture.












Danny got some food he liked. I was sort of frightened of it.











We got shaved ice which was completely amazing! It was sort of like sorbet but a slightly different consistency and made with fresh fruit.














We went to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. It was very large and elaborate and included everything from his photo to old uniforms. We saw the changing of the guard, I don't think it was as elaborate as in London or anything but it was cool.



































They also had a mummy exhibit and an Astro Boy exhibit there but we skipped them.

We ate at Taipei 101 which as you may have guessed has 101 floors. We didn't go all the way to the top but I really enjoyed the food court because we found pasta and Coldstone.

I got a nice feel for the city but there was still a lot I missed. Next time we go I want to go to Ying Ge where they make pottery and the hot springs at Tai Dong.