This posting covers two days in Taipei as both were fairly quiet days. We needed to tone down the pace a notch or two as we were getting flogged with all the walking and sight-seeing. My pedometer tells us we’ve been averaging 6 kms each day just walking around.
Anyway, if you read yesterdays post you’ll know I said we’d return to Longshan Temple to get some daytime pics. Well we did return and as soon as we exited the MRT station we were hit by a cacophony of noise and colour and a crowd of thousands all squeezed up along the side of the road. We’d walked right into some Chinese religious parade and it was a tremendous sight to see.
As you can see from the 1st picture below the crowd stretched right up the street. As it came nearer to us we saw all sorts of religious symbols and characters marching through the crowd. There were drummers and music makers and firecrackers everywhere. Some of the characters marched on in through the gates of Longshan Temple to the front of the middle hall where they turned around and marched back out to join the procession. I can’t tell you what the procession was about just enjoy the pictures as we did the event.
The last 7 pictures in this batch are daytime shots of Longshan and a picture of us with Bastian, Holly and baby Anna at a German Restaurant where we met for yet another pigout. (Note to self: Don’t guts yourself on German sausage and expect to be mobile the next day. Heavy going especially when washed down with several steins of German lager.)
The next day (Monday, I think ????) it was raining when we got out of bed. Feeling sluggish (Thanks Bastian!) we decided to stay underground for the day so off we went to Taipei Main MRT Station where there are several underground malls that join up and sell anything you might want (including Aussie pies! Yea!!). The malls also are a controlled temperature and humidity so are quite comfortable whereas outside was proving warm and humid after the rain.
The first 5 pictures below were all taken on/in the MRT stations. The second pic shows not just the 5 MRT lines (designated by colour and letters) but the fares as well from the particular station where you are reading it. In this pic the highest fare was From Zhongshan (Green line intersection) to the end of the ‘Red’ line at 50 sen. That’s about 2.1 cents AUD! (Gee I’m using lots of exclamation marks today!) That’s right two Aussie cents! The next few pics are random showing a vending ‘store’, the organised station and a girl with an animal backpack that actually had her cat in it.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking with the 6th picture. “He’s pigging out again.” Well I HAD to! We had travelled to a tourist market only to get there and find we were two hours early for it (the advertising never said it was a night market). Shane and I sat to rest and wait at a pavement table only to notice a local couple glaring menacingly at us. That’s when we realised the table was part of their alfresco dining experience and we were taking the place of paying customers. Hence we were forced to buy something and this huge, heaped bowl (about 9″/25cm in diameter) of shaved strawberry ice cream was thrust upon us. What could we do? So we ate it! Yum yum.
The only thing different and worth photographing at this market was the fried grasshoppers. You know, once the wings and most legs are removed they’re not that crunchy at all, so I’m told.
From these markets we walked on to Taipei Main Bus Station where we’d noticed as we’d gone past previously in buses a ‘light show’ of sorts. Wow!!!!!! (more exclamation marks!) The way I’ve ordered these last photos are not in the order we saw them but I’ve tried to group them into similar sights. I’ve started with a number of buildings that were spectacularly set up to display ever changing colours. EVERY city in the world should do this as it gives a ‘living atmosphere’ to otherwise drab concrete jungles.
The next set are at the Bus Terminal. After negotiating an avenue of trees wrapped in fairy lights we came around the corner to the city’s Xmas decorations. From the colour changing stairs to the lit up Xmas tree the whole show was fantastic. I hope that you can get to see the full panorama shot in the picture just before the shot of Shane and I in the ‘picture frame’. All around us there was laughter and people taking photos and music and colours and one giant party. Well done Taipei.
Well that should do you till I finish our Taipei trip in the next post or two. Hopefully I’ll get them done soon as rain here in Penang is keeping us indoors a bit so the laptop is getting a hiding.
Cheers
Garry and Shane