Taipei, Taiwan

We arrived in Taipei and headed to the metro to reach our hotel. As we were studying the map to be sure we were going in the correct direction, a gentleman stopped to ask if we needed help. Turns out he was Taiwanese but had lived in Fremont, CA for the last 20+ yrs. He had gone to the Bay Area for college and stayed after graduation. He worked for an IT company traveling the world setting up systems and was home visiting his mother. He was headed our direction so took us on the metro and even got off at our stop instead of transferring and walked us the two blocks to our hotel. He asked directions for us at the metro station and walked into the hotel lobby to the desk to make sure we were at the correct location. We have learned in our travels that angels are everywhere and 99% of the people we meet are very nice and helpful. It gives you hope for the world when you see our commonalities and basic human kindness as opposed to some of the political differences that keep separating us.

On our first day in Taiwan, we took the metro a little outside the city to take the Maokong Gondola. Taipei is actually rather hilly and the gondola takes you up into a hilly, wooded area. It starts at the zoo, which we didn't go to, passes the Zhinan temple, and goes to another residential area at the top with another temple and many tea houses/restaurants. Mostly, it gives you a wonderful overview of the Taipei area.

Our son and daughter-in-law arrived late our first full day so joined us (or we joined them) for the next two days. We had dinner with her mother's family at a favorite local restaurant and (sight-saw, sight-seed ?) did some sight-seeing with them and added a bunch of their friends the second day who had also flown out for the wedding banquet. It was a raucous group and our daughter-in-law acted as tour guide. Doug had a list of things to see and she led us around to catch as many as we could. We also got in some light shopping with their friends and it was a good combination of tourist and local sights. Lots of metro rides, lots of walking, and lots of eating.

We went to Liberty Square where the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial is located. It is a very large area with buildings on two sides which are the National Theater and the National Concert Hall. At one end is a large "gate" and at the other is the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall.

During our tour we came across a street exhibition promoting something to do with the indigenous people. They must have been doing a promo film because there were two guys taping the whole thing and they had a little mini-van open at the back loaded with sound equipment that was blasting out their music.


 Taking a break.









Our third day we went to the Taipei 101 Tower. It is the tallest building in Taiwan (101 is for the # of floors) with a TV transmitting tower on top. It has a unique architecture and was the tallest building in the world until the Burjkhalifa was built in Dubai. To stabilize it against winds and typhoons, it has a counter-weight inside. It is the tallest and largest "green" building in the world. It also has an elevator that goes 60.6 km/hr. My ears popped twice going up and coming down. There was a film describing it's construction and time-line which was very interesting. It was completed in 2004. It is mostly business offices but has several floors of shops plus the observation deck.

We also went to one of the many night markets. They start around 9:00 PM and are streets lined with vendors of just about anything and everything plus foods galore.

We visited the Longshan, Bao-an, and Taipei Confuscius Temples.  One thing that struck me with the temples were the elaborate flowers.  They were absolutely stunning.

We also ran into a parade/celebration. We didn't really understand the purpose or who it was celebrating but it had some elaborate costumes and displays.

These are the narrow streets of Taipei that we walked through. Notice all the scooters.  They are a very popular means of transportation. We saw one with the husband driving with an infant strapped to his chest and the wife holding on behind him. Our daughter-in-law said she has seen them with a child standing in front of the parent and two kids holding on behind.

Tokyo, Japan

The inception for this trip was an invite to a wedding banquet being given for our youngest son and his new bride in Taiwan.  Our new daughter-in-law has a large extended family in Taipei who couldn't make it to the USA for the wedding.  Since such a banquet is a tradition in Taiwanese culture, plans were made by her family to hold one and we were invited.  Given the time and expense to get there, the plan expanded to include a multi-country trip around the world that would take 2 months.  We would attend the banquet and just keep heading west.

Our first stop became Tokyo for a little additional Asian exposure.  We only spent 3 days there so didn't get out into the country-side, which was a shame, but we could only do so much and we tried to pack as much in as we could within certain financial and time limits.

Our time in Tokyo was maneuvered through the metro system.  We plan to use public transportation in most of the countries we plan to visit.  It is the most cost efficient and best way to get around congested large foreign cities.  Most systems are very good once you get the hang of them but they aren't always the most intuitive and you can spend a lot of time underground either on trains or walking to them.  They can feel a little like being in (what I imagine to be) a ground-hog colony where you run around the tunnels and pop your head up here and there.  That causes you to not always get a true sense of a city.  I fear that is what happened in Tokyo.  We spent a lot of time underground popping our head up here and there but I couldn't give you a sense of where we actually were in the city.

Our first trip out of the underground was to visit the Imperial Palace.  You can't actually get inside the old walls and most of the original buildings have burned down in the last hundreds of years.  There are new buildings now and much goes on there but you have to go through guarded gates.  We were there on a Sunday and we saw several black-suited men being admitted so it was not a day off for everyone.  The grounds are open and the East Imperial Garden is open to the public.  It was sunny and warm that day so it was a very pleasant area to be.  Lots of open space, park-like, in the middle of a very large city.

Outside Imperial Palace

Walls of Imperial Palace w/moat

Walls of Imperial Palace grounds

Within Imperial Garden

Tokyo Skytree

We also visited the Tokyo Skytree.  It is the tallest tower in Japan and was the tallest in the world at one point.  There are observation decks in it but we didn't go up since it was a cloudy day.

We walked from there to the Genshin-ji Temple.  It was very crowded with tourists and locals.  It is beautiful and we saw many in traditional Japanese clothing, come to worship and honor at the temple.  There were a couple blocks of stalls selling food and souvenirs to the tourists, but it was very interesting.  You could buy fortunes and, if you didn't like yours, you could leave it tied to special trees.  There was also a special fountain to drink from and a huge incense pit that would bring good luck by being in the smoke.

Genshin-ji Temple

Genshin-ji Temple