Taipei: An Overview

Although we have moved on Hong Kong and will update you on the happenings here shortly, I wanted to upload some pictures and a video that we took back in Taipei but forgot to blog about.

Overall, Taipei is not really I city I would put in my top 5 or probably even 10 places I want to return. Two full days was plenty of time to stay and you could probably get in most of the sights in one, although there are two cool night markets so two nights is best.

You have seen pictures of our first day, when we went to Taipei 101, SYS Memorial Hall, Lungshan Temple, and Snake Alley. Those are all must sees in Taipei. On our second day we headed out to Taipei Zoo for the morning. It was really nothing special. Another must see however is Chiang Kai-shek (CKS) Memorial Hall. This massive complex, consisting of a huge entry gate, two annex buildings similar in size to SYS Memorial Hall, and the main hall with a statue of CKS inside.

There as a guard at either side of CKS and we just happened to be there during the changing of the guard. I took some good video but our connection at this hotel is too slow to upload it. I will try again when we move hotels.

After an afternoon break, we went out at night to the Grand Hotel, which is up on a hill on the north end of the city and has a great view of downtown and Taipei 101. The pictures are not very good because it was a little rainy and hazy but I will post them anyway.

From the Grand we headed over to the Shilin Night Market for dinner and entertainment. We bought some really good pork dumpling/dough ball things and a chicken teriyaki on a stick and then tried to sit at a small table to eat them. When we were told we couldn't sit where we were, a little man on a stool said in English (not very common in Taipei) "you can sit here if you want," and pulled out two more little stools for us to sit on. It turns out this man, who looked about 75, was a fortune teller who had lived in San Fransisco for a while and spoke perfect English. We ate on his stools and talked to him for a while before he showed us to a stand that had a sweet pea and soy tofu soup. I thought it was really good and Kendall hated it.

Now back to Kendall....