Jan. 1: Last Day in Taiwan

Tomorrow we are heading back State-side. Today we returned to Mao Kong for lunch and tea again and later had dinner with Dandrich's uncle. Here are some pictures from today.

Drinking tea in the mountains near Taipei. 

Tea house in Mao Kong

Taipei City, it's a little cloudy but you can still see the Taipei 101.

Picking up some dinner! 

Happy New Year!! 

Welcome to 2011!! 

Today is also the 100th birthday of the Republic of China so . . . 

Happy Birthday R.O.C.!

Dec. 28: Return to the Flora Expo

Tuesday we returned to the Taipei International Flora Expo to see the exhibits we hadn't seen yet. This time we left ridiculously early and arrived at the expo nearly an hour before it opened. There were already people lining up, waiting to be the first ones into the expo, so we got in line as well.

For the indoor exhibits they only allow a certain number of people in at a time so they pass out separate tickets for entrance into these parts after you get into the expo. Dandrich and I were going to try to go see one or two of these indoor exhibits but gave up after the gates opened and I was overrun by some 70-year-old lady and her cane. As soon as the gates opened everybody ran in to get the tickets. It was crazy.

Instead we just looked at the flowers, which after all is supposed to be the purpose of the expo. Of course the flowers were really beautiful. The Taipei Fine Arts Museum is situated in the grounds of the expo so we also visited a special exhibit held there on Paul Gauguin.  It was a nice exhibit although they only had a few of his later works.

While at the expo, we got some rose-flavored ice cream that they even made look like a rose in the cone. It was pretty delicious but unfortunately it's only a limited time flavor available at the expo. The place we got the ice cream from also had a flavor called 'Obama Chocolate Brownie.'

By the time we got out of the Fine Arts Museum the Flora Expo was inundated with visitors so we didn't stay very long after that. It is still unbelievable to me that so many people would visit the expo everyday. However,  Taiwan is considerably smaller than the United States so it is easy for people all over Taiwan to visit the expo. And since it is smaller and there are fewer things to do here I guess anything new is also pretty exciting.

Dec. 26: Kaohsuing

On the final day of our trip we saw a few sights in Kaohsuing before taking the high speed rail back to Taipei. We toured through one of the larger department stores called Dream Mall. It had a ferris wheel on top of the mall but we didn't end up riding it.

Inside of the empty stadium

We also visited one of the larger stadiums in Taiwan that happens to be located in Kaohsuing.  It holds about 40,000 people so it was pretty underwhelming compared to the Horseshoe or even the Big House. It is pretty new and was built for some kind of Asian collegiate track tournament or something like that last year. Now, it isn't really used that much, it justs there empty except for the field sprinklers. However, because of the name the stadium was given in Chinese a lot of the people in the area thought it was built for the Olympics and were happy to have it built.

Outside the stadium. It was a little windy and chilly.

Because we had to catch the high speed rail train, we ate a quick lunch at a Japanese fast food place called Mos Burger. Looking at the pictures as we ordered, I was skeptical to say the least. Then I tried one of their sandwiches and it was delicious. The one I got had teriyaki beef, onions, and lettuce. But the coolest part was instead of a normal bun the meat is placed between a bun made of rice.

After experiencing the ease of traveling on Taiwan's high speed rail, I really wish we had something like this at home. The drive from Taipei to Kaohsuing usually takes three hours in optimal traffic conditions but usually a lot longer because of the congestion on Taiwanese highways. On the high speed rail the trip is only an hour and a half and you don't have to worry about traffic or directions or anything. You can just enjoy the scenery.

High speed rail trains