Palace Museum Gardens

Classic Chinese Gardens

Feeding the fish, and then...........

Watching the fish swimming to the food and opening their mouths as wide as possible.

Grandma making sure the fish food does not get spilled

It looks like a fish fight 

National Palace Museum

Grand entry to the National Palace Museum

We can only take pictures outside the Museum

   The Museum contains the world's largest and most valuable collection of Chinese art and artifacts, covering 5,000 years of history. The building was designed after the original in Beijing and contains almost 650,000 items.  We estimated that we may have seen maybe 10,000 items on our first visit.  This was an remarkable and enjoyable experience to see the ancient Chinese art; and so our plan is to visit the Museum many times in order to see a good portion of the Palace Treasures.     

As we left the Museum Bob took a picture of the grand entrance .  The Zhisan Gardens (Palace Museum Gardens) are to the left.

Taipei Zoo

This is the way to see the Zoo.

Want some carrots for lunch?

We were surprised to have a group of LDS single adult sisters run up to us at the Zoo and give us hugs.  The sister in the center of the picture works in the Temple on Saturdays.

It seemed like the Zebra was posing perfectly

 just for Bob to take this picture.

Taipei Zoo

While the Temple was closed we went to the Zoo, mainly to see the Panda Bears; unfortunately for us the Pandas were asleep.  We were also disappointed to find the zoo was not any fun without our grandchildren.  We discovered what probably most old people experience and that is; the Zoo is only fun when you see it through the eyes of a child.  We had a some smiles watching other parents and grandparents with their little ones; and Bob took a few pictures of the children.

This precious little child had on a fur "PANDA" hat in 100 degree temperature, but the heat did not curtail the happiness.

This picture reminded me of days gone bye.

This sign says it all.

Now you can see the bigger picture---this is the monkey area!

Tourist Shops at Yeliou

The shops next to the Yeliou Geopark sell colorful looking foods, but not very appealing to most Americans.  Most of the tourist are from mainland China, so maybe they will buy something.

Sister Horner wanted to show me the baby shrimp that she had eaten which made her very sick.  When her husband selected the baby shrimp for her at a Chinese Buffet he thought it was sprouts.

Pictured here are different types of little tiny fish for sale.  I think they are precooked, and you eat several whole fish at a time in a bowl.  Maybe like our grandchildren eat cereal. 

Hanging in the back of this shop are cooked chickens with feet.

I am so glad that the chickens are covered with plastic, but what about the refrigeration?  No wonder the Chinese are so slim!

After we left Yeliou we drove to Keelung to see the church and the port.  The 6th and 7th floor of this building is our church in Keelung located downtown near the port.  The blue and green sign with the arrow says, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

Northeast Coast of Taiwan

Yeliou Geopark is know for it's distinctive rock formations formed by the decades of sea erosion.  The famous sites include Queen's Head, the Fairy's Shoe, and the Candle Rock.

 This is one of my favorite pictures that Bob took at Yeliou .

This natural rock formation is the most famous and is called
"Queen's Head"

Most of the other visitors you can see in the 

background are from Mainland China.

You can see from afar that there are many 

unusual rock formations .

We felt like we were exploring Taiwan's Grand Canyon
because of the natural and unique beauty of the area.

Day Trip With President and Sister Horner

We are on our way to see the site where Elder Mark E Peterson dedicated Taiwan for missionary work. The location is close to the Grand Hotel, which you can see in the background, and is where

 Elder Peterson was staying at the time.

 The Priesthood brethren stand together in the location where the dedication took place.

 Elder Kitchen, President Horner, Elder Woodward

The Yangmingshan National Park. The unusual trellis looks like wood, but is actually concrete that is textured and painted to look like bark.

One of the many waterfalls in the park. 

As we walked along the trial in the park we came upon this make shift house where several families lived together.  The interesting part is they had four very expensive cars; two parked on each side of the house.

Juifen Gold Mine

Mac Hu took us to see an old gold mining town about an hour drive from Taipei, called Juifun.  Mac is in charge of the Translation Department for the Church in Taiwan and has a fun sense of humor, so he immediately became Bob's buddy.  

Bob and Mac in the gold mine 

 Here we are ready to go into the mine with our hard hats. 

This mine was original owned and built by the Japanese from the early 1900's until World War II ended.  Sadly, the Japanese also used British POW'S to work the mine during the war. The Japanese treated the POW'S so poorly that over 1200 died while working in this gold mine. Each POW had a daily quota they needed to achieve; if they failed to meet their daily quota they were severely beat with their own mining tools. Taiwan took ownership after the war and kept the mine operating until 1986.

This is suppose to be a 500 lb gold brick that Bob is trying to lift. Mac declared that it is real; but I still doubt it, because there were no guards, no electronic devises around it, and no bars that would come down to protected it at night.  But still, Mac said it was real! The glass case had openings at each end so that you could touch the gold. There was a sign that said "DO NOT SCRATCH THE GOLD".

Shilin Night Market

                               Yes, this little boy is buying a live pet fish to take home.

The night market offers clothing, shoes, jewelry, watches, food, fish, and more.  Most of the vendors set up tables in front of the stores.  Our favorite picture is the dog with the florescent dog collars. We laughed at how clever to sell the product with an adorable live model and at night. 

Taipei 101

We have looked from a far at this landmark building almost everyday since we arrived in Taipei.  The building is called "Taipei 101", because it has 101 floors.  It was the tallest building in the world when it was completed in 2004 at 509 m, until Dubai built one at 819 m in 2009. Finally, we were able to venture inside. We did not ride one of the fastest elevators in the world to the top, because there were a few clouds in the sky and we will go again on a clearer day. So we explored the very expensive shops that are on the first 5 floors.

Looks like a normal mall, but by very expensive....I mean the prices were over the top.  Tiffany's was probably the least expensive jewelry store we visited; for example in one jewelry store Bob asked the price of a watch which was 5,240,000 NT($178,000 US), and it did not have any diamonds. It looked nice, but not extraordinary.  Now, I am building you up for the big contrast in the next picture of a jewelry store.  

We went to the largest night market in the city and this jewelry store was open for business with 2 scooters parked at the front door.  The plastic bags probably belonged to the scooter drivers, who had not yet set up their items for sale at the night market. Most likely they would display their goods in front of the jewelry store, and the store would remain open.  This was about 7 pm, and not a poor area, nor was the jewelry store cheap.  This is just Taiwan where strange things are acceptable in the business world.  By the way, we are sure we were 3 or 4 times older than anyone else at the Shilin Night Market which opens a dusk.  We went home at 9 pm and we did not see one thing we wanted to buy.

Exploring Taiwan

While the Taipei Temple is closed for two weeks for fall maintenance, we are planning on exploring Taipei and the surrounding area.  First, we checked out the brand new MRT station (subway) by our apartment. The station is only a 1/2 block walk for us, and it opened Sept 30th.  It is easy, clean, and inexpensive to travel the metropolitan area. (30 to 80 cents US for Seniors half priced)  However; it is very crowded most of the time. The population of the greater metropolitan area is 7 million.

There are 3 levels underground at this MRT station; and some MRT stations are above the streets.



The MRT and Buses have priority seating; which means you give your seat to the disabled, pregnant women, women with small children, and the elderly. Our grey hair works for us every time.  I am sure some are older than us, but they insist we take their seats.

The fall weather has arrived and we are enjoying the mild temperatures in the 80's.  Notice the narrow tall building maximizing the use of the limited property.