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 :)