Taipei Day 3

Day 3 took us to Dansui, a place that I had heard of but had no idea what was there. Now connected to Taipei by the MRT it is an easy 30min. ride to this nice little port city. I didn't realize that the Portugese had a fort there, they being the first country to colonize the country. This fort, Fort San Domingo, later became the location and residence of the British consulate in Taiwan. The above building was the residence. One of the nicest preserved pieces of architecture that I have seen in Taiwan. Maybe because it was still in British hands until 1972. We were lucky that it was opened, I guess because it was New Years Day the kept it open on its usually closed Monday.

By the time we decided to head back to the city it seemed like all of Taipei had converged on to the city as masses of people walked along the river and the old shopping street. We thought that we would stop at the Grand Hotel but when we got to the train stop we realized that it was probably going to be at least a half mile walk so instead we headed back to the hotel and in search of a quick lunch.

After a short rest we headed out to Shida Night Market for dinner and then since we still had time on our hands we caught a bus towards the Wanwha district home of the famous Snake Alley, and the Longshan Temple. We went into the temple only because I knew there was probably a toilet inside I was a bout ready to explode. They have changed the area quite a bit. The area in across the street from the temple has been turned into a park that leads to the subway exit, and there is an underground shopping area, which I am assuming is where you can buy all the paraphernalia that you need for your temple visit. This temple like all temples in Taiwan are very active with people offering food sacrifices and praying for good fortune by throwing moon sticks. Compared to temples in Japan which seem just to be a nice part of the historical culture of Japan the temples in Taiwan are active places of worship and I am always reminded of descriptions of pagan temples in the bible and am amazed at the similarities. Given that I post this picture just to give you an idea of the eeriness of the place.



Our trip ended with another body massage and a quick nap before we were wisked off to the aiirport at 1:30am to catch our 4:35 charter flight back to Tokyo. The airport was open just for us and we were the first flight into Narita on the 2nd. although the flight to Moscow beat us to customs because we had to wait for a Malsian airline flight to leave. But probably it was only ten minutes from we left the plane that we were out of the airport buying my train ticket back to Yokohama.

It was a great trip and if you want to see all the pics go to my other site, Taipei.