Wulai Dancers

After we went to see a performance of the Wulai Dancers, Bob tried to keep in rhythm with one of the dancers holding a heavy stick.  As the beat got faster and faster Bob could not keep up with the fast rhythm and finally had to give up.

The performance was very entertaining; and the dancers were very interactive with us, probably because there were only 10 people in attendance in a theater that would hold 150 people.  The dancer's costumes looked a little Polynesian and Indian.  At the end of the show they performed the wedding celebration dance,  and brought us on stage to dance the wedding dance with them.  It was fun but exhausting, and a reminder that I am getting older.

Other senior missionaries came by bus and train to join with us in Wulai; but they did not stay for the tram ride to the top of the mountain, nor the dancers.

To our left: Temple President and Sister Horner, 

To our right: Elder and Sister Hill, Mission President and Sister Day, Elder and Sister Pulley, Elder and Sister Kitchen

Wulai - Home of the Atayal Aborigine Tribe

Wulai is about one hour drive by car from Taipei.  The local museum presented a brief history of the aborigine people who lived in Wulai. Their customs and culture reminded us of the American Indians.

The tram took us to the top of mountain.

At the top of the mountain the vegetation and rainy weather reminded us of the Seattle area.

 Sherry Lin, our friend and fellow Temple worker, was our driver and guide to see beautiful Wulai.   Sherry told us when we left Taipei at 9am that we would like Wulai even in the rain, and she was right.  Wulai is beaitiful!

Through the clouds and rain we could still see the beauty.

Kite Museum

The Kite Museum was one man's collection over a period of 40 years. He built the Museum to show his collection and love of kites.  Some of the kites were over a 100 years old, and all of them had been flown at some time.  

All the kites were very unusual, and hand made.  Bob was allowed by the son of the owner of the collection to take only 5 pictures.  This kite was a hawk carrying its prey, which looked like a cat.

This kite was a group of 5 warriors on their horses.  You can see the strings connecting the warriors to fly in the sky together.  These are hand made and hand painted with great detail.  To the right is a noise maker that could be attached to your kite to make noise and send signals.

We have since learned that the Chinese
invented kites some 2400 years ago.

China Doll

As we walked down the streets of Jiufen, Taiwan we saw this little girl watching her mother washing the dishes in front of a restaurant.  She looked like she was about 2 1/2 to 3 years old.  Bob took the picture not because of the child, but because he wanted to show how the dishes get washed at some of the restaurants. This is just cold water in buckets. No health inspectors here, and that is why we brown bag it.  We didn't think much about it, but our friends that we were with wanted to eat in this restaurant.   

We sat down at a big empty table for 8 (there were only 5 of us). After we were there for a few minutes; the mother who had been washing the dishes outside in the buckets, brought the clean dishes inside, and then sat her little girl across the table from us.  The mother then brought her child some food; which looked like sticky rice on a popsicle stick., and said something in Chinese.  The words must have been "hot"; because the cute little "China Doll" started trying to blow on her popsicle stick, and all her blowing was going straight up and not on the rice ball.  I said to Bob, quick get the camera out this is too cute.  When the little girl saw the camera she stopped blowing.   

But she was still TOO CUTE!

Her mother walked out of the room to do something and she started crying "Ma, Ma".  I took 10 NT (30 cents US) out of my purse and put it in front of her.  She looked at the money, then picked it up, then got off the chair and went over to a plastic box where the money was kept.  The "China Doll" then stood on her tippy toes and reached up as far as she could to place the coin in the money box.  She looked back at us so very proud that she knew where the money went.  We all laughed, then her mother wanted to know what had happened.

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.