Museum of World Religions and temples galore and bunnies!

Recently Rich and I spend a Sunday exploring some of Taipei with our friends Lisa and Aaris. We started with the Museum of World Reglions. This is a pretty amazing museum - the museum has a variety of displays which discuss the big religions of the world and every display contains items of religions important. I actually learnt a lot from this place - the displays were great and there was enough English in the displays to make for really interesting reading.








However, the best thing about the Museum was the minatures. They were incredible with such a high level of detail. But the best thing was each miniature had a camera installed inside which you could move around and see the inside of the minature on a tiny screen. Really impressive.






After the museum it was time for some lunch, our original plan had been to go to the Nougat Museum but that really wasn't going to work out so we decided to go to the Taipei Confucian Temple.

However on the way there we stopped off at this Buddhist temple where a flock of birds spent there time together - eating rice when it was thrown to them. These birds seriously acted as if they had a single conscienceness - they all seemed to fly in unison.


I've been to a lot of temples in my time in Asia but this was the first Confucian temple I had visited. They also had a market on which was kind of fun - I bought some bamboo juice - but it was pretty terrible and made my tongue feel kind of weird. At the entrance of the temple they had these four guys - I am assuming the are speak no evil, hear no evil, say no evil and do no evil. I just thought they were kind of cute.


Here's a few photo's from inside the temple - it was a little noisy this day as there was some kind of rotary youth event on as well as the markets. But it was still a great visit.








After the Confucian temple we decided to visit another temple - Bao Lin Temple. I think we all kind of knew it was in the area, but I didn't realise it was so close to the Confucian temple. A few weeks before this Rich and I visited the Longshan temple, it was great but it was so busy with worshippers. Bao Lin is just as beautiful as Longshan but much much quieter, but as every bit as interesting and beautiful as Longshan. It's one of the most amazing temples I have visited.



I rounded off this day out with a pretty awesome surprise, I have wanted a house rabbit for a number of years. But it has never really been practical for me to have one - we have lived in rented properties and I also never felt like I spent enough time at home to be a good pet owner.

When we were walking home back through the markets we saw a couple of women holding some bunnies - obviously these guys weren't used to living outside in a hutch. They we tame house bunnies. The women noticed me looking at the bunnies and asked if I would like to hold them! Which of course I wanted to do - so here's a few photo's of me with "Dumpling" and "Brown Bear".

Fast times in Miramar

Miramar is a suburb in Wellington - it's also a shopping area in Taipei. To be honest, I am not sure if the area is called Miramar or just the big mall we visited.

Either way, here's a couple of photo's I took when we first arrived as you can see there's lots of bright lights in Miramar.


We decided to start our evening out with a quick dinner so we headed to Mos Burger - which I think is a Japanese burger chain. I loved this cup that Rich's drink came in, the little bird is super cute.Here's a few photo's from inside the Miramar Mall - I'm not really one for mall shopping but I have to admit this is an impressive building.

We went to Miramar for two reasons, the first was to go on the Miramar ferris wheel. You catch the ferris wheel from the roof of the Miramar mall. Here's a few photographs from the roof of the mall - including the booth where you buy the tickets for the ferris wheel - it's super cute.

Here's a few photo's we took whilst we were on the ferris wheel - unfortunatly it rained so the views weren't as good as they could have been but it was still a lot of fun.








The rain also kind of ruined the second reason we decided to go to Miramar. We headed out to see some fireworks which the city had arranged that night. Unfortunatly the rain made the fireworks really smoky and difficult to see. So after a while we decided to head back to the mall for some dessert.

Rich had the mega super chocolate with sprinkles and M & M's and an oreo sundae. Mine was a little plainer but it was so good. I thought the little marshmallows were super cute. When we left the mall after dessert it seemed like we had walked onto the set of Blade Runner. All of the smoke from the fireworks had gone everywhere, it was a little surreal.