Taiwan (Part.2)

A year later, I finally finished processing all my China/Taiwan trip photos!

 We stopped by a Buddhist temple which was appropriately named, The Dragon Temple.

 

 

Offerings. The white flowers are from the Yu Lan tree. They smell amazing and are sold in bunches on the streets for people to wear. I managed to find a Chinese nursery that sold me one of these trees and so now I have one in my backyard. I can’t wait for it to bloom!

 We arrived in middle of a service.

The next day we took the new high speed rail (uber nice) down south to Kaohsiung to visit Marcus’ uncle.

He took us out to this beautiful park down there. The temple reminds me of Lei Feng Ta  from Legend of the White Snake. =D

 

We vegged out for a bit in another park in the middle of the city.

These dogs were having a field day romping through the creek.

I love the dog that’s out for a ride with the whole family… all on one scooter!

So they have these wedding studios all over where you go do get your wedding album done. They provide the outfits and backdrops. I hear it can be kinda fun. I wasn’t really sold on this dress they had in the window though… LOL

Then we took a ferry to an island off the coast.

 

The whole lower floor of the ferry is for mopeds and motorcycles.

 

The island was very quaint, very sea-side town.

 

 

 

They had black sands!

 

And Kaohsiung at night.

Ok I’ve never seen one of these so I was super excited! It’s one of those garages that had one entrance and they lift the cars away as they park.

The next day we were back in Taipei and off to lunch with a different set of aunties and uncles. This time they were on my side of the family. I loved this decor outside the restaurant.

Cool looking soup.

My youngest brother just happened to be in Taiwan at the same time so we had lunch together and then Marcus, Albert and I went to the Chang Kai Shek memorial.

 

 

This is the national theater.

 

 

We arrived in time to see the very involved changing of the guard.

Honestly? The whole thing was kinda silly. ^^; I’ve never actually watched a changing of the guard anywhere though so I have no comparison data.

Afterwards, we went to check out the small lake on the grounds.

Marcus’ grandparents used to being him and Aki here to feed the fish when they were kids.

Marcus got very excited to see that the fish food vending machines were still there.  They’re probably the exact same machines…

 

Marcus feeding the fishies.