Taipei 101! YAY!

 Yesterday, Katy and I went to Taipei!  (Katy is from the other ILP school.)  We went to the temple first and it was lovely!  I love the temple!

 After the temple, we walked towards Chiang Kai Shek Memorial to get on the MRT (metro).  This picture was taken near Chiang Kai Shek Memorial!  They have Christmas decorations up! YAY!

If you notice the 100 on top of the tree, it is significant. To the Taiwanese, it is the year 99.  On New Years Day of 2011, it will be the year 100.  That's a big year.  100 years since Taiwan became a Republic of China.

After our little detour with the Christmas tree, we rode the MRT to Taipei 101! 

Taipei 101!  I think it's a beautiful building! 

Almost there!

Yay!  We made it to Taipei 101!  The second tallest building in the world!  We had already been here (which you can read about here) but we did not make it to the top before!

Inside was this lovely Christmas tree!  And they had Christmas music playing overhead! 

We got our tickets and waited in line to go to the top!  When we bought our tickets, the man informed us that there was a 90-minute wait to get to the top.  But it was worth it to us, because we had waited four months to get to the top of Taipei 101.

Part of the line to get to the top!  We ended up only having to wait about an hour in line.  It really wasn't that bad.  And it was so worth it!

We made it to the top!  You have no idea how happy I was about that!  We finally made it to the top after four months!  

The lights were beautiful! I really liked seeing it at night time! 

These two pictures are similar, but I liked them both! 

I liked the picture of this lady taking a picture of her son with the reindeer on top of Taipei 101. (with a picture of the building in the background:)

Read this!  I laughed when I saw it :)  I wish we would have seen some window washers!

Christmas and the city below (you can kind of see the lights outside the window!)

So they had this thing called a damper inside the building which we could get close to.  Dampers help keep tall buildings and other things from moving when it is windy!

The poster in this picture is of a mini-damper with a name (Smart Silver). I'm not quite sure about them, but in the gift shop they had stuffed dampers and key chains and glass figures like the one on the poster.  They had different ones, all with different names and personality traits.  It was special. They were kind of cute, but special ;)

 

The damper of the Taipei 101 from above! Doesn't it look like a spaceship from an alien movie or something?! :)

 

Here are some facts about the damper! 

 

Just in case I hadn't said this already I was really excited to be at the top of Taipei 101!  This picture is from the observation deck!

The lights are beautiful!   The observation deck!

YAY! 

Look at the city!  It's Taipei!

On the same level with the damper and the mini-damper!

The bottom of the damper! That thing is intense!

So Taipei 101 also has the fastest elevator in the world! (At least I think it is the fastest still).  This is a screen inside of the elevator showing us how fast we were going and how long we had been in there.  This picture was on the way down. 

The elevator took us from the fifth floor to the 89th floor in 37 seconds!  I could hardly tell we were moving. It was so smooth and fast!  It took us down from the 89th floor to the fifth floor in about 45 seconds or so.

The view from below after we were done at the top! I loved Taipei 101! 

We took the MRT back to the bus station after we got done with Taipei 101 and headed home!

I am Thankful for... (5A Responses)!

I asked my 5As what they were thankful for yesterday in class and these are the responses I got.  Mostly they are as they were written, but I did change them a little bit, so that some of the sentences at least made a little bit of sense. Enjoy and remember these are Taiwanese children writing in their second language:)

Monica wrote:
I am thankful for chocolates, chocolate bars, candies, lollipopes, cakes, strawberry cake, vanilla ice-cream, milk ice-cream, chocolate ice-cream, cookies, chips, potato chips, soda, cola, juice, apple juice, orange juice, milk, cc lemon teas' maker, because they made these food, so I can eat, and they are all delicious. they make me happy too.  So I am thankful for these food's maker and these foods.  I love these foods.

Sheena wrote:
I am thankful for my book bag, because I use it every day, and I don't need to bring many books and thing every day.  That would be very heavy.  I can just put it in my book bag and it will be good.  I am thankful for my classmate at school because I have people that I can talk with and it was fun that we go to school.  And I want to thank lot of things too.

Linda wrote:
I am thankful for one of my Chinese school's friend, because she be my friend, and sometimes she helps me a lot.
I am thankful for my pet Dodo, Mango, and Donut, they are good dogs.  I wish they be good dogs in Heaven.
I am thankful for my sister, she does many thing for me, she always plays with me.
At last I am thankful for my mom and dad, because of them I am alive.

Mia said:
I am thankful for my family.  When I am sad, they will help me become happy.  When I am happy, they will be happy, too.  They also give me clothes, food and everything that I want. They are very nice to me.  I am grateful for my home, because it give me the place that I can sleep. It lets me don't need to sleep outside.  I am grateful for my teachers.  They teach me the things that I don't know.  Sometimes, they scold me, but I know they just want me to be better. I am thankful for all.

Luke said:
I am thankful for cumputer, because I can use it to read the book that is on the internet and I can't buy it... I can read the book that are on internet, if I don't have it.  I can listen to music on the computer if I didn't have the music's CD or radio.

Willy said:
I'm thankful for everything, even bad thing.  You might think that is wierd, but, if there is no bad thing in the world, you won't be happy because you always have good luck! 
I'm thankful for everything.  I don't know why, maybe because I have good behavior, so I'm thankful. 


I love my 5As and their responses!  Each response shows a little bit into each of their personalities :)  They are a bunch of smart kids!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

He Knows the Details!

I went to the Baltimore aquarium today. A few months ago I went to the Natural History Museum. Every time I go to a place like this, I am awestruck by how many different kinds of animals there are on this earth and how different they all are! The little details in each animal and the little differences between the animals of the same name! How amazing that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ created these things with so much detail. They know each creature they have created. Including the human creature :)

Obviously this first part was written more than 6 months ago, but I thought the exact same thing today as I went to the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung!  Here are a few pictures from my adventure by myself today!  This was my third attempt to get to the museum since I've been here. I finally made it!   

This has nothing to do with the museum! But I just noticed these beautiful little flowers near our apartment complex today!

 There's a whole bush of them!  They're beautiful!

 The museum!  I finally made it to the museum! I walked from the train station in Taichung to the museum.  It was a lovely day! 

 In front of the museum!  Yay!

 Inside the museum, they had a butterfly exhibit. I believe Taiwan is home to over 300 species of butterflies! This picture is made from butterfly wings (or at least part of it is)!

 Here's an up close shot of part of the picture above!

 I really liked that blue butterfly on top!  It is beautiful!  There are thousands of kinds of butterflies!  How amazing is that?!  So many different colors and sizes and spots!

There was also a dinosaur exhibit,which I loved! These dinosaurs moved! Yes they moved and roared!  I watched them for quite a while!  T Rex and Baby T Rex.

 These dinosaurs also moved and roared! I believe these are Velociraptors! They were quite realistic :)

 With the moving dinosaurs!

I have no idea what kind of animal this is, but it is one of God's many creations!

 Another animal that I have no idea what it is, but I liked it!

 The grounds of the museum were amazing!  They were beautiful and peaceful and lovely! I found this awesome tree on the grounds!  Yet another one of God's beautiful creations!

 Chillin' outside of the museum!  The museum was lovely!  I loved it! I would have liked to stay longer, but alas the exhibits closed at 5 PM.
After the museum, I walked back to the train station with a few detours: a Buddhist temple, a four-story bookstore near the museum, a firework show, a 7-11, a Christian church, and an underground walkway with many directions to go.

Also, I would like to add Alma 26:36,37 "Yea blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people...we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth  his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving."

Sky Ladder (Jhushan Suspension Bridge)!

 Today was a beautiful day for a hike! Kailey, Liz, Karyn and I woke up bright and early (around 6:45) to prepare ourselves for the hike we would go on with Kitty, George and Grace.  (We also went to Sitou Forest with them, which you can read about if you click here.)  It took about 2 hours to get to our destination!

The first five photos were taken on our drive to our destination! I love that the fog is below us!

 Look at the fog and the tea fields!  There is a world below that fog! 

Grace told us that Taiwan tea grows well in the area that we were in because it needs colder air and humidity to grow and it had both of those things.  We saw tea fields all over the place!
 

More beautiful fog pictures from above!

 See the treeless areas on the mountains?!  Well those patches are tea fields!

 On top of the world! 

Out of the car! It's funny, but in order to get to where we wanted to go, we had to travel downhill first.  Let's just say there were a lot of stairs! Did I mention there were a lot of stairs?! ;)

This was on our trail to where we wanted to go!  Don't you love this cluster of bamboo trees?! :)  It's pretty awesome isn't it?!

 Our destination!  The Jhushan Suspension Bridge (aka Tianti Sky Ladder)!  This bridge is huge!  It's not just any ordinary suspension bridge!  It's 136 meters long and has 208 steps on it!

"When you view it from afar, it resembles a ladder from the sky into the valley, connecting the sky and earth--a sight which inspires the imagination." I got this quote from a website.  Click here if you want to go to the website and read a little more about the bridge. 

 On the sky ladder! 

 George, Grace and Kitty!  The awesome and generous little family that brought us to the suspension bridge! 

 On the suspension bridge overlooking the river below!

 The view from one side of the bridge!

 The view from the other side of the bridge! It's gorgeous!

 Look at those tiny steps!  (It wasn't like that the whole way, but there were a lot of steps.)  We could definitely feel the sway of the bridge beneath us and I liked it!   

 My feet looking out below!

 Do you see the face in the mountain?!

 As I said earlier, the hike to the suspension bridge was down and we went even farther down to this much smaller suspension bridge!  This bridge swayed more than the huge one.  But that just added to the authenticity of the suspension bridge :)

 Our hike down some more stairs, after the second suspension bridge! Did I mention there were lots of stairs?!

This was even farther down than the second suspension bridge! It was beautiful with the water, waterfalls, huge boulders and half-circle green mountain in front of us!

 The same place as the picture above!  Looking up!

 See Karyn down there by the boulder?!  Those rocks were huge!  George and Grace told us some of those rocks had fallen recently, because they were able to go farther down and sit by the water not that long ago.  We definitely could not sit by the water. 

 Below the second suspension bridge!

 We stopped to eat lunch on these benches in the shade! 

The whole group minus me!
Left to right: Karyn, Kailey, Luke (one of Grace's students from the university she teaches at), Grace, Kitty, George, and Liz

 Look at this awesome little creature on the path!

 After we went past the second suspension bridge we hiked back up a little ways and went to this waterfall!  Those pipes helped direct the water down the other cliff not too far out of this picture!

 On our way back to the car!  The bridge was a lot more crowded on the way back and it swayed a lot more too!  We were really glad we came earlier rather than later because of the crowds! 

The hike back was lovely! I got my workout for the day!  That's for sure!

We stopped a lot and took breaks, because did I mention there were lots of stairs?! ;)  There definitely were flat parts too with just trail and no stairs, but a lot of it was stairs!

Poinsettias in the wild!  I had no idea they grew on trees like this!  They sure are beautiful!  Mom, I thought you'd like this picture!
I really enjoyed the hike! It was amazingly beautiful!

The sun was really bright and I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open ;)
 

 After we got done with our hike and started heading home, we decided to take a little detour to Jiji!  This is what we saw in Jiji.  It's a collapsed Buddhist Temple from the 921 (September 21) Earthquake in 1999. It measured a 7.3 on the Richter scale! The earthquake was the second largest recorded earthquake in Taiwanese history. It killed more than 2,000 people and seriously injured more than 10,000. Anyone who was here at the time remembers exactly what happened that day. 

This temple just collapsed like this.  A lot of the statues still stand on top.  It's actually quite amazing how it just collapsed like that!

 Through this hole, people were able to climb in and get the statues from inside, out!  It's also amazing how it still stands and they were able to go in and get stuff out after this happened. 

In front of the collapsed temple!

After Jiji, we went home! On the way home, I was tired but I stayed awake so that hopefully I will sleep well tonight!  It was a lovely day today!   I enjoyed every moment of our little hike! (Yes, even the stairs!)  I am so grateful for my legs so that I can hike! I am so grateful for the beauty of the earth! I am so grateful for George, Grace and Kitty being kind and generous to us!