My Parents are in Taipei!

My parents have arrived in Taipei and it has made the past 5 days a truly wonderful experience. Their flight arrived at 9:30 and the bus ride took around 45 minutes from the airport to Taipei. Even though my family was excited to be in Taipei we spent the night just getting them to their hotel and getting them oriented with their surroundings but jet lag was taking its toll so we called it an early night.

Sunday: My parents and I got up early and we headed outside of Taipei city with intentions of taking a gondola up to Maokong for a tea ceremony. The line was just to long and none of us wanted to wait an hour to do something on their first day in Taipei so we ended up checking out the Taipei Zoo. It turned out to be a really nice place, the zoo was huge, we spent about 3 hours walking around taking in the animals, and the people and still didn't get to see everything that the zoo had to offer. After spending most of the afternoon in the zoo we headed back toward the heart of Taipei and had a great Korea Barbecue lunch. The food was full of plenty of foreign flavors, and their was so much of it that we all left the restaurant full as could be. On the way back to the MRT we took part, completely accidentally, in a DPP (1 of the two political parties running for president this coming weekend) political rally. Hundreds of people were walking the street shouting 加油第一個 jia you di yi ge (Go number one) One of the members of the march handed my Mom a flag and she started waving it. After she had a flag in her hand people were flocking over to us to give us high fives and we really got swept up in the moment. While it isn't the best thing to take part in foreign political rallies, it sure was a lot of fun. After supporting the DPP for a few minutes we shot over to Shida area, where I go to school, and hung out in the night market for a while and then found a nice place to have some refreshments and relax. 

Monday: I went out with my parents for breakfast but then had to run off to school because I had to study for a test I had that day. They went to the National Palace museum and saw some of china's oldest preserved pottery, paintings, sculptures etc. After class I took my parents to one of the many vegetarian buffets near school so they could get a feel for the types of food that I eat on a regular basis. I do recall my Dad if not everyone saying "who needs meat when the food is this good," my thoughts exactly.

Tuesday: After seeing some impressive items at the National Palace Museum my parents wanted to check out some other museums that Taipei had to offer, so we spent the morning in the Taipei Miniatures Museum which boasted in the Lonely Planet of having a 40 bulb chandelier the size of a grain of rice. Something got lost in the translation because the Miniatures Museum while impressive was a bunch of Doll House like items, and one of the chandelier's individual bulbs was maybe the size of a grain of rice, but it did not live up to the hype. After the museum I had to run to class again, and then had a meeting after class with some junior members of congress (United States Congress), and staffers who were visiting Shida. It seems that the United States is taking more and more of an interest in the Chinese language. I got to express my ideas about learning Chinese in a foreign county and watch government officials learn some basic Chinese phrases. After the meeting my family and I went to the Shilin night market, the biggest and the best market in Taipei. We had a great hibachi dinner and then spent a few hours checking out the hundreds of shops in the area. My sister was in heaven buying a few pairs of shoes and a shirt on the cheap.

Wednesday: After spending the night at a night market and having our fill of shopping and eating tasty treats we decided to do something a little more traditional in Taipei so we headed over to the Confucius temple to take in the more reserved side of Taiwan. We arrived only to find the temple under construction, however as the saying goes in Taipei, where there is one temple there is many, so we walked across the street to the Bao An temple to find tranquility. After checking out the temple we made our way back to the MRT station, along the way my sister and I became Taiwanese for a few moments and took some overly cute pictures by a statue; much to the amusement of the locals. By Wednesday night my families feet needed a break so we headed to the Taipei 101, had a heaping pile of noodles for dinner and then caught the movie Cassandra's Dream.

Thursday: I meet up with my parents again bright and early for another wonderful traditional breakfast this morning, but had to call it quits after eating. We are taking the train down south to Hualien tomorrow and I wanted to make sure to get as much homework done as possible before I left. We are staying there for the weekend and going to spend Saturday at Taroko Gorge, a 19 km long canyon, which is supposed to be one of the coolest places to go in Taipei. I will be sure to tell you more about our travels. And of course my parents will fill you all in when they arrive back home. Finally I leave you with my favorite shot that I have taken in Taipei a pillar in Bao-An temple that just gave me the creeps.