Some more Taipei

And here's the rest of the weekend!

On Saturday we decided to go on a little trip to Yilan County, which is a region of Taiwan located east of Taipei, on the coast. Our original plan was to do some paragliding and go to the beach. When we arrived in Toucheng after a two-hour train ride, we had to give up on this plan because it was raining heavily. Welcome to Taiwan, Jannes....

the day stilled turned out well, because fortunately next to the beach, several surfing sheds and paragliding instructors, Toucheng also offers a modern natural history museum to visitors.

Below: Stranded at Toucheng train station:

In the end, the rain changed our paragliding-adventure day to an educational-museum day. Especially the architecture of the Lanyang Museum was spectacular:

On Sunday, we relaxed most of the day. In the evening, we went to Taipei 101 and enjoyed the view from the observatory on the 91st floor.

Below: looking up the Taipei 101 building.

 The 101 mall: luxury as far as the eye can see... Feels almost like Hong Kong ;)

 View of Taipei by night: nice, but not as impressive as the view by day...

View of Taipei by day (picture from September 2011): amazing!

And then the weekend was already over... Nevertheless, I still have something cool to share with you: on Tuesday there was some sort of parade going on in our neighborhood. I believe it was to celebrate the birthday of a god or a temple... Honestly, I'm not sure. There were lots and lots of noises from fireworks, drums and flutes, and some of the parades' passerbys looked really impressive.

Below: Looks more like Baghdad than Taipei... there were so many fireworks, and sometimes people accidentally stepped into them... I went temporarily deaf from the noise.

 Some interesting costumes of the gods:

 There were some nicely decorated flower carriages:

Well, that's it for now. Tomorrow I'm off to the Philippines! And today I'm celebrating my birthday.

By the way, thank you for all the birthday wishes! I was so happy to see that many of you thought of my birthday, although I'm so far away :). Here's a picture of me enjoying my birthday cake:

Taipei revisted: Sightseeing with Jannes

Hey everyone!

Jannes finally arrived in Taiwan, one week ago! This weekend we went on a sightseeing tour through Taipei and visited some famous spots (again). Even for me some of the places were new. It was so much fun to discover Taipei through the eyes of a tourist!

First stop: the Longshan temple. I've already been here last summer, in August, so I was familiar with the temple. Nevertheless, this time I knew much more about Chinese temples and religious customs, so I could recognize some praying rituals. Only two weeks ago, I went on a class trip with my Chinese Culture course to visit the Sanxia temple, which is also very famous in Taiwan. Unfortunately there are no pictures of that visit... But, the temple is very similar to the one in Longshan (Longshan is even bigger).

Picture below: The temple from the inside. Notice the bronze pillars with dragon ornaments.

The courtyard in front of the temple: an artificial waterfall gives the temple a feeling of tranquility, despite the crowds of religious believers and tourists.

Inside the temple: though this is one of Taipei's most famous tourist spots, most people come to the Longshan temple for praying, not for sightseeing. On the table you can see offerings of flowers and food. behind, people are praying with incense sticks to one of their many gods. What makes Taiwanese temples so special is the variety of gods that one single temple hosts: next to Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian gods, it also offers aboriginal gods and saints to pray to.

After this, we made a quick stop at Ximen. This is one of Taipei's shopping districts aimed at the younger generation. Fans of Japanese pop culture love it there. The picture was taken a month ago (I already went there a couple of times).

Next stop: Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Maybe you remember one of my first blog entries, in which I already described the Memorial Hall a bit. That's why I won't go into detail now and let the pictures speak for themselves.

 Pictures below: relaxing in front of the National Concert Hall

Find the difference: The National Concert Hall (picture 1) and the National Theater (picture 2) look almost identical.

The Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall: big, bold and kind of ugly...

Final stop: Shilin night market. Though this is known as Taipei's biggest night market, I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't been there before! But since I have been to many other night markets in Taiwan and Taipei, I already know most of the local snacks.

It's a big market, but I must say, I wasn't too fond of it... The actual market is located inside a building, which makes the usual 'night market feeling' disappear a little. Fortunately, there is also a variety of food stands and clothes shops right next to the building, outside. We tried several snacks: fish balls, papaya milk, filled waffles, pita, Taiwanese lemonade, squid balls and sweet potato balls. Most of it was good, but a little bit more expensive than other night markets (I think that's because it is the most touristic night market in Taipei).

Trying food: fish balls

Trying food: pita

Trying food: sweet potato balls (from the looks of Jannes' face, it was his favorite!)

For now I'll stop here. But the weekend isn't over yet! To be continued...