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.