Taiwan Part 1, Taipei

So we had a 5 day weekend for the Lunar New Year (aka Chinese new Year) and I wanted to go somewhere warm and not Korea.  So I looked at a map and found the warmest cheapest place.  Taiwan!!  So I flew out a Wednesday morning and came home late Sunday night.  I arrived in Taipei, then went to Kaohsiung for a couple days and back to Taipei.  First I will share all my Taipei pictures and do another post with Kaohsiung pictures.  Taipei was not as big as I had imagined for being kind of a big city name but it had some interesting things!  

Cute big plant thing outside the train station!

My first hostel was in a huge building on the 22 floor.  This is the inside area which was open to the outside!

This is something I could have gotten for a meal, I didn't because I am not a squid fan but the plastic plate looked neat!

This is what I did get and it was delicious.  Some pork dumplings and this beef pancake thing that was amazing!

If you weren't sure what animal year it was for thew Chinese New Year, you could not miss the rabbits EVERYWHERE!!!  Luckily they are a very cute animal.

    

Here is the Taipei 101 building which was the tallest building in the world until last year.  Dubai now has the tallest but this building was amazing and huge!!

Cool lights in the streets.

My hostel in Taipei also cooked us a free dinner for the New Year and it was actually really good.

On New Years Day I went to the Lung-Shan Temple and is was crazy busy!

Beautiful waterfall place inside the temple wall.

Beautiful flowers all over.

People brought food to give to the temple.  I don't know where it all goes at the end of the day but there was a ton of food.

Cute dog!

So I decided to try some of the cracker like things here and the ones I got were sooooo good.  I don't really get crackers in Korea so I was excited to get some.

Back to Taipei 101 to go up to the 89th and 91st floor.  A cute dog was outside the building.

So they have these damper Baby characters.  The Damper Baby is the mechanism for the building so it won't fall if an earthquake hits or high wind.  There are 4 colors of characters and I bought a silver one.

So this is floor they had inside the building and when you walked the clouds cleared but when you stop, they come back!

From the 89th floor.

The outside observatory is on the 91st floor.  It was a cloudy day but I still got a pretty good view!

On top looking up at the rest of the building.

A view from outside.

Inside on the 89th floor they had this coral art exhibit and they had this "World's Tallest Gemstone Coral."

Found a mirror thing outside on the way back to the hostel so took a picture.  Notice no big coat so I reached my goal of a warm place.  The funny part is the people in Taipei had their big winter coats on and I had short sleeves.  It really was not cold at all.

When I got back to Taipei after Kaohsiung my Grandma has a friend who lives in Taipei so they invited me over for dinner.  Stella and George and Gerige cooked us dinner and it was excellent!

Stella and George.  They had such a nice apartment and were very nice people.

Taipei 101 at night.

Cool lantern at the Memorial Hall in Taipei.

So I tried those crackers before and they were so good.  So I went to buy more and the lady gave me $10 worth of crackers.  It was soo many crackers.  I was able to fit about 1/3 in my bag to take home, then ate some but hoped the maid would take the rest.  They were amazingly good!!

I did splurge and get a hotel for my last night in Taiwan.  Nice place!!

My last day in the sun and warmth.  Here I am soaking as much of it in as I can before I have to catch the bus back to the hotel!!