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Published: January 19th 2007
Guarding CKS
The guards stood motionless, very spiffy looking.Tired in Taipei, I guess you could say. I did get a good night's sleep last night, although the bed was a bit hard. I'm not used to pounding so much pavement, I guess. Today I went to the Chiang Kai-shek memorial hall. I took a bus to get there from the hostel, and it took me pretty close. It was raining at that point, but not too hard, just steady. Walked up to the memorial and they were just doing a changing of the guard, so that was cool to watch. There was a giant CKS inside the memorial (see pic).
So I puttered around there for a little while, and went downstairs where they had some CKS historical items including a Couple of shiny Cadillacs.
After a while I got hungry so I went in search of some fruit. I managed to find a little produce shop and got some grapes, and banannas, and a nice ripe orange. Nothing experimental at that stop. Breakfast earlier was some kind of rice dumpling squished together with a bunch of stuff, and served with some warm soy drink. it was good, what ever it was. For lunch I had noodles with shrimp,
CKS Memorial Hall
A long walk through the rain to get there. clams, and I think some pork in there too. And dinner was soup with dumplings, and a plate of spicy meat and veggies. Luckily there was an English speaking woman in there to help, because I was clueless on that one. Usually I have been able to get by with the phrase book, or my few words I know, or the few english words they know. Had a mid-morning espresso, and an afternoon baked good of some type, so I'm sort of keeping a couple of my usuals in there, but mostly just eating at whatever place is nearby when I'm hungry. Kind of fun that way. there are a lot of american chains here, but I haven't gone in those.
Anyway, I left the CKS hall, and walked through Peace Park, and eventually got on the metro for the first time and headed to the famous Longshan temple. The metro lines are easy to use, well marked in English and Chinese, and cheap, about 60 or 70 cents to get several stops.
the Temple was crowded with worshipers making prayers for themselves or others, so after a quick tour through, I bought some incense and burned some for the
Me and the Generalissimo
Keeping dry with the big CKS guy family. So all of you should have good things happening to you now!! I figured Bon would want me to do the incense, so that was the notivation to do it. It was kind of fun, thinking of everyone, and tossing them in there with the hundreds of others.
Anyway, there was plenty of shopping nearby with vendors in the alleys, and in shops, so I walked around and eventually bought a bag with a shoulder strap so I wouldn't have to hold my cloth bag with short handles anymore. I haggled down the price a bit, that was fun.
then I hopped on the metro again and headed cross town to see the Sun Yat-sen memorial hall, and again caught the guards changing, see pic. Another large sitting statue in that hall.
Then I headed for the tallest building in the world. Yup, it sure was tall. I thought about going up to the top, but I was hungry, and decided I wouldn't. I was getting tired of the area, downtown, expensive shops, and wanted to head back to where the good food vendors were. Mom, I don't think you would have gone up either, it's taller than the
Longshan temple
Very crowded with incense wielding worshipers Sears tower, remember that one?
So I headed back toward the metro, got a little lost, but finally found it, and headed back towards the hostel. Had another 20 minute or more walk from the metro stop to the hostel, but stopped for dinner on the way.
the people I have talked to, or asked help from, have been friendly enough. But it is a big city, and people pretty much are doing there thing. I didn't get into any good conversations or anything, just little pieces here and there mostly to do with eating or directions.
So, it's not like I got to know much about what the people here think, but I see that it is a big city, and pretty well maintained. There is a lot of American influence here, and in some places it looks a lot like any city in the US, with a different language on the signs.
Anyway, it has been fun puttering around here, but now I'm looking forward to the next stop, which is a hostel on Lantau island in Hong Kong. Not in the city. I'll post more when I can.
Thanks for the comments everyone,
Zaijien!
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the fam
non-member comment
good morning
thanks for the update! More pics of daaddee, please!