A Real Estate Story

The Temple and the Church Service Building are on one-half acre located in an important business district of Taipei; just a few blocks from the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial, the National Museum  and Concert Hall. Now; for the real estate story, how did the Church obtain such valuable property? 
Elder Gordon B. Hinckley visited Taiwan in April, 1961.  Among other reasons for the visit, he was looking for property near the center of Taipei for future church building.  Under his direction, land was finally acquired in Taipei in 1962.  The land for the first Chapel and subsequently the Taipei Temple at 183 Chin Hua Street was acquired very miraculously.  One day in 1961, a Chinese cook working for the missionaries came home with some fish wrapped in that day's newspaper.  The fish cost 10 NT(33 cents US) and has resulted in over $100,000,000 US in unrealized land appreciation.  After taking the fish out of the newspaper, he saw a government advertisement for the sale of a former prison close to the center of Taipei City.  The government was dissatisfied with the location of the prison and had decided to move the prison to a remote suburb and sell the property.  The cook knew the church was looking for church property in that area and informed the missionaries of the advertisement.  Hearing the news, the missionaries reported this information to the Mission Home in Hong Kong.  President Taylor, the current Mission President came to Taipei and he bid twice for the property, and in 1962 the church purchased the property.  

         

View and Church Service Center

View of the Temple from the four story Church Service Center next to the Temple.  As we come out of the Temple we turn right onto the road you see in the picture and walk for eight minutes to go home. 

This is the four story Church Service Center next to the Temple which was built in 2005 to replace an older smaller church building that was damaged in a Typhoon. This building has a Chapel on the first floor, a full size basketball court, a kitchen, classrooms, and Bishops Offices; it is Stake Center size.  The second floor has classrooms, a kitchen, a multi-purpose room, seminary room, and Stake Presidency offices for three Stakes.  On the third floor is another Chapel, classrooms, etc. The fourth floor serves the church offices for Welfare, Translation, Communications, Area Authority, Church Services.  There are three levels below:  B-1 has a Distribution Store, parking, another entrance to the Temple.  The other 2 levels are for parking that are rarely used, because not many have cars.  The building was build with the latest technology to with stand earth quakes and typhoons; and the foundation was built and approved for the ability to add an additional six stories on top of the existing four stories for future growth.      

   

Scooters Everywhere

We have enjoyed our first two months in Taipei.  One of the things that we have found interesting is taking our short eight minute walk to serve in the Temple.  As you can see the scooters park and drive on the sidewalks, and the roads. Pedestrians do not seem to have the right of way. I am sure there are more scooters than cars or taxi's.  The scooter drivers squeeze in between buses, cars, and trucks.  We are amazed at their reckless driving habits.  When we are in the cross walk at a light we watch very carefully for scooters that are turning left.  The scooters have come closer than we like, one day Bob was almost clipped.  The fast driver came as close as he could and would have ran over Bob's shoe, if Bob had not come to abrupt stop.

Our Apartment

The furniture and TV are included in our rent.
The TV is not very useful with everything in Chinese including the  2012 Olympics

View towards our bedroom.

We have a cozy den with two desks.

Kitchen is small -- NO dishwasher , NO oven!

Cooking is very creative with only 2 burners and a microwave. We eat all our meals at home except for our packed lunches that we take with us 5 days a week.

Security and Umbrellas

We found a new home on the top floor of this building. Again we are in the penthouse suite (ha, ha), only because the people of Taipei do not like to live on the top floor; because of the heat and rain, so our rent is less. We still have air conditioning.  We could not live in the Taiwan heat without air conditioning.  It is very hot here, even when it is cloudy or rainy.

This is the 1st locked gate to enter our apartment  

Picture of the elevator door and the 1st door of 2 locked doors to our apartment and 2 umbrellas. The umbrellas are placed there to remind us to take them with us even when it is sunny.  Today when we went to church it was sunny so we didn't take the umbrellas and when we came out from church it was raining so hard that you would have thought a fire hose was turned on.  We waited 1/2 hr to see if the rain would let up, but it didn't so we took a taxi home, and we were still so wet we had to change all of our clothes including our underclothing.

This is the 2nd locked gate to get to the elevator.  We have 4 different keys to get into our home.  This is not unique in Taipei.  All the apartments have 3 or more keys.  We feel totally safe when we are home.  It is the walk to and from the Temple that is sometimes a little scary because of the bicycle and scooter drivers who drive on the sidewalks.   

Getting Settled In

View from our first apartment in Taipei.  We really like our place where we will be staying for next 18 months.  We have air conditioning--We live on the 7th floor of a 7 story building and have a view--the apt is 2 bedrooms, very clean--and less money than we had been told--Happy Days!  Only one problem; we were told 2 days after we moved in that we would need to move out ASAP, the Landlord needed to sell the apartment because he needed the money for his sick mother-in-law. The Landlord sold the apartment that week and so the search started for a new place to live.  I am sure it sold fast because it was so nice.

The first time we met the Real Estate Agent she came riding up on her bicycle wearing a dress with high heels.  She was so professional looking and carried an umbrella to provide shade for us in the hot sunshine (105 degrees) as we walked down the narrow streets to look at a few apartments that President and Sister Horner had selected.

Moving Day!!  The movers are short and small in stature, but they carry extremely large and heavy items on their backs.  They were able to put most things into large plastic baskets as shown in this pictures

Which button is the start button?  I need to do our laundry. Bob finally took pictures of all the appliance and we went to the mission home to find an interpreter.

Grand Hotel in Taipei

A few pictures at the Grand Hotel to show the old Chinese style detail in the ceilings, and the gold leaf on the dragon fountain. The dragon wraps around the rock and goes into the rock. 

It is hard to imagine all the time it took
 to create this huge mural.

Most all of Taiwan is modern architecture, so this building is very famous and very much a tourist attraction.

The Grand Hotel

The first week we were here in Taiwan President and Sister Horner took us to see the Grand Hotel in Taipei; built for Madame Chiang, the wife of Chiang Kai-Shek, for visiting dignitaries.  She wanted something to impress the visitors, and impressive it is with its traditional Chinese Architecture.  In the center of the front lobby is an enormous beautiful live orchid plant that blooms year around.

This is a real live Orchid Plant at least 6 feet tall and 5 feet wide.