Gee Cha - Scooter in Chinese

Ok, I have decided that it is not a matter of if I will get into a scooter accident as much as it is a matter of when will I get into a scooter accident. I have come to terms with this. The nice thing is that I drive my scooter slow enough that it shouldn't be fatal, little old men with white hair pass me.

Taipei - part 6

While in Taipei, we went to a really pretty park outside of the National Palace Museum. Here are a couple of pictures that I took from it. I hope you enjoy them.

Here I am making a funny faceThis is a picture of me and my friend DaneThis is a Crane (I like how Dane and crane rhyme) Well, this is just some pretty water And Buddha

Taipei - part 5

Taipei 101 - The second tallest building in the world thanks to Dubai. Although the tower in Dubai isn't finished yet, so I guess Taipei 101 can still be considered the current tallest building in the world. The record that the building is officially number one with is for the faster elevator in the world. It was exciting to be at the top of the building in less the 30 seconds and feel my ears pop.

Here is a picture of the tall building from the bottom of the tall building. And a couple of blocks over. Here is a picture from the top of the building. This is me in Taipei 101 giving the generic Chinese peace symbol.
This a picture of the big ball in the center of the building that helps Taipei 101 stay standing tall. The theory behind it is that if there are earth quakes and such in the building, they have a really really heavy weight in the middle to pull the building back to the center so that it doesn't fall over.Ok, here is a picture of me at the bottom of Taipe 101. Just in case you are wondering, I am giving the peace symbol in this picture too. Just in case it looks questionable.

Taipei - part 4

I didn't realize how many pictures I took in Taipei! I have so many other things I want to blog about, but there are a few more things that I want to say about Taipei so look forward to more blogs showing up other then the regular Sunday blogs that I typically post :)

However, first thing first - Chinese New Year! We went to a hotel to see the Chinese New Year festivities. It was really fun to see the dragon and lion dance. They do these dances in front of stores to wish good luck for the store in the New Year. I'll let you know if it works. If it does, maybe America should start doing Lion Dances in front of the malls or something to help the economy.

This is a picture of the drummers outside of the hotel that we went to when we watched the celebration.These guys doing the dragon dance are awesome to watch because they made the dragon have a lot of character and they were amazing at doing cool gymnasticish moves. These firecrackers are quite possibly the loudest noise I have ever heard. The annoying thing is that because Chinese New Year is a week long we found ourselves being woken up by these blasted things at 6 AM on a few occasions.
This is a picture of the dragon dance. Make sure to watch the video below where I have recorded some of the dragon dance for you.Here is a picture of me with the cute little lion...Well, this guy was somehow a really important part of the festival but I have no clue why. He brought out a scroll and all of the crowd seemed interested in what he was showing them. Regardless of my lack of knowledge to what his purpose is, I thought he was cool to take a picture with.Here is the video that I promised you. This is the dragon dance.


To finish off, in other exciting news I rode the bus all the way from Taichung to Fongyuen today all by myself. Ok, so this isn't that exciting because it was just the bus ride home that we make from church each week, but it was the first time I did it on my own. I feel very accomplished for getting on the right bus and knowing the symbol for the city I live in :)

Taipei - part 3

In Taipei, we wanted to celebrate Chinese New Year like they do in Taiwan, so that meant going to the temple on New Years Eve. We went with a big group of people that stayed at our hostel and these are just a couple of the pictures that I took of the temple. The video at the end is sort of cool because it shows just how crowded it really was.

Taipei - part 2

While we were in Taipei, we went to the Chang Kai Chek Memorial. I was amazed at how much detail, time, and effort must have went in to build it. The memorial has 87 stairs going up to the main building to memorialize the 87 years of Chang Kai Check's life. It really was one of those places where it took your breath away.

Here is a little history for you. Chang Kai Chek became the leader of the Republic of China sometime in the late 1920's. He was anti-communist and during the Chinese civil war in 1945, he failed to lead the people to a free China forcing him to move his government to Taiwan. Taiwan is now a free country, but China still is ruled under Communism. While being in Taiwan, I have learned about many groups that are being killed in China because they are gathering together and this somehow scares Chinese officials. People gathering together in parks to meditate are killed for being in a group, people that are gathering together to dance are being killed because they are in a group and so on. It surprises me that this sort of thing happens but it is nice to know that the Chang Kai Chek Memorial is built in defense of somebody that had a vision for a better world.



















This is a video that I tried to take of the military guard. I think it is sort of funny:

Taipei - part 1

I took so many pictures while I was in Taipei, I decided to break them up into groups because it takes my blogger a long time to upload pictures. This first bunch is just outside of our smallish city of Feng Yuan. These are some rice fields that surround the area that we saw from the train:

To the upper left is a picture of me and my relief society president Arwyn. To the upper right is a picture of me, holly, and molly. We are probably the cutest girls in Taiwan, especially by looking at this picture. Arwyn, Holly, and Molly are all living in the same room as me. Its a lot of girls in one space, but we get along well so that is good.

The bottom right corner is a picture of me eating some spicy corn from the night market. The first bite was ok. The second bite was not as ok as the first. The third bite I started to really hate it. The fourth bite made me so that I want to puke whenver I think about spicy corn. It was not good - and people in Taiwan, they don't understand how to use spices.