Taipei Day 2

Today we headed to the station near our hotel and went to several areas of Taipei to just look around. We began at Longshan Temple. Since it was a holiday 10-10-10 and they are celebrating the beginning of their 100th year there was a lot of praying, singing, and incense burning going on. It was very interesting to watch.

After Longshan Temple we went to Ximen, but everything was still closed so we took the train to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial. It is a beautiful square with the memorial at one end flanked by a concert hall and a theater and a wonderful gate at one end. It was beautiful open area made more interesting today by the huge inflatable balloons scheduled to be part of the parade later this afternoon. Here are the photos.

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial

National theater

The Gate

Happy 100th

We left this area and took a train ride up to the top of Taiwan to a stop called Danshui. It’s a seaside town and for some reason I didn’t get many photos there. We did eat some yummy pork dumplings.

From Danshui we hurried back to Taipei to watch the big parade. The spot we selected wasn’t very crowded and it was as much fun watching the people watch the parade as it was to watch the parade.