Sunday, October 31, 2010

Just another Wednesday....

Currently I don't teach on Wednesday's, I usually go in for a few hours in the morning to make sure I am updated with all my marking and planning but in the afternoon Rich and I usually head out and about around Taipei. Most recently we went to have a look around the area near Taipei 101 which is a very high nice area of Taipei. It's full of really high end store I can't afford to shop at but it's a lot of fun to look around.






After having a look at a book shop and eating lunch we decided to have a look around Taipei 101 again but we didn't head up the top this time.
A bit later on, when it was dark we decided to head over and check out Sun Yat Sen Memorial. But Rich wanted to stop to take a Trees-zilla picture along the way.We finally made it to the memorial - but I didn't take many pictures because it was already pretty dark by then and I still haven't mastered taking photo's at night with my camera.

I just wanted to tell you all about one thing which seems to be really popular at Taipei tourist attractions and that is stamps. It seems that whenever you visit somewhere there are stamps to collect. I've recently bought a notebook to collect these stamps in to remeber all the places I visit. Here's just a few of the stamps at the Sun Yat Sen Memorial. I really like this idea - a free momento from everywhere you visit.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Restaurant Cuteness

Sometimes it seems like everything in Taiwan is cute, last week Rich and I went to eat lunch out at a restaurant. There were photo's of the food on the menu all over the walls of the restaurant - nothing too strange about that. But in the photo's in this restaurant were full of food with smiling happy faces - too cutie cutie.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Longshan Temple, Bo Pi Lia (old street) and Hello Kitty Heaven

Sunday is usually the day that Rich and I head out about around Taipei. A few weekends ago we decided to check out the Longshan temple. Which is a beautiful temple, near the Longshan temple station. I didn't take many photo's inside the temple as it was very busy inside with people praying and making offerings so it just didn't feel right to take photo's inside.

But as you can see from these photo's we took from the outside of the building it is a very incredible place - I especially love the artificial waterfall just inside the front gate.







After our visit to the temple, we decided to check out Bo Pi Lia or an "Old Street" these seem to be very popular in Taiwan. Some are still functioning streets and some are more like musuem's - Bo Pi Lia is the latter. It also seems to be a very popular place for wedding and weekend photographers. I really loved this place - despite all the photographers it actually felt relatively quiet and calm compared with many other places in Taipei.








After our visit to Bo Pi Lia Rich and I headed over to Zhongxiao Xinsheng to go to the Sogo Department store to have some lunch - unfortunatly the department store was so busy we had to go and eat elsewhere.

However, once we had finished eating Rich told me that he had a surprise for me, it turned out the surprise was Hello Kitty Sweets. A cake shop devoted to my favourite Kitty - a perfect end to a perfect day.







Sunday, October 24, 2010

Taipei Storyland

I'm one of those geeky types who can't get enough of museum's and history - in fact sometimes it seems that I find nearly everything interesting. A couple of weeks ago Rich and I visited "Taiwan Storyland" which is a museum in the basement of a building which has been set up to look like Taipei in the fifties and sixties. It's a really cool place and has everything from clothing stores to posters and of course scooters!

The pictures are all a little dark as it's in a basement - so it's Taipei in the fifties at night perhaps?

I had a great time here - I especially love the advertising from this era - no matter where in the world it is from.