I am Grateful For...

-Uncle Joe fixing my bike seat :)
-the window in my bedroom looking outside
-the internet to get directions
-mapmakers
-thinking time at the temple without distractions
-talking with and seeing Lara, Emma, Adam, and Ellie on Skype tonight
-Christmas decorations at school
-seeing Stanley comfort Scott after he didn't get super student
-Trans-Siberian Orchestra
-my rabbit blankie
-the NCUE (National Changhua University of Education) track and field events tonight
-laughing a lot today

These are some of the things I have written in my gratitude journal the past couple of weeks!

National Palace Museum and Taipei Flora Expo!

Yesterday I took the 7:30 AM bus to Taipei by myself.  (Karyn, Kailey and Liz went to Kenting this weekend and I decided not to go with them.  I went to Taipei instead.)  I loved it!  I first went to the National Palace Museum.  It was huge! 

I love this picture because the man is totally posing for it!  After I took the picture he smiled and laughed a little at me :)

The National Palace Museum was originally founded in 1925 in the Forbidden City in Beijing.  In 1931, they packed up the collection and moved it somewhere in the middle of China to avoid the items getting damaged in the impending Sino-Japanese War.  In 1949, China shipped the items to Taiwan to store them safely.   (I've heard that Chiang Kai Shek brought the items over when he moved to Taiwan.)

Just so you know, I got this information off the back of my brochure I got while I was there :)

Me in front of the National Palace Museum!

The museum is in a beautiful location!  The inside was beautiful too but we were not allowed to take pictures inside.  This place is huge! There were thousands and thousands of items. Some of the items were super duper old.  Some dated back to 2200 BC.  Most were not that old, but there were a few.

I was amazed at the good condition of some of the items for how old they were. Some were not so nice too, but some were.  But I guess since they've been preserved pretty well in palaces for a long time, it makes sense. 

 I loved the museum but I must admit it was a little overwhelming.  If I ever go back there (which I totally would) I would get a headset and go around with that.   Of course I didn't find out about the headsets until on my way out. 

After the National Palace Museum, I hopped on the MRT and went to the Taipei International Flora Expo!  Can I just say that I loved this place?!  Well I loved it!  I didn't quite know what to expect.  Of course I expected lots of flowers, but I had no idea how huge and how awesome it would be :)

Look at this awesome arch and the two people playing a game!

 

There were lots of lines at the Expo.  This is one of them.  The wait time for this one was an hour. I'm pretty sure there were some awesome things in there, but I decided to stick with things that I could do without waiting in line.  I only had a few hours there.

This sign is talking about the building that the people are waiting in line for in the picture above.

 

Here's a view of the building that the sign is talking about above.  It's pretty cool looking!

Look at all those beautiful, colorful flowers!  It's called the Melody of Flowers!

Some of the flowers from the Melody of Flowers upclose!

I love the name of this plant!  And it's pretty awesome looking too! 

I love the sun in this shot!

They had floral and plant exhibits from many different countries!  This one's from Taiwan!  A bamboo tunnel!

Inside a bamboo structure at the Taiwan exhibit!  Shown from the outside in the picture below! 

The awesome bamboo structure!

The Holland Exhibit!  

The Thailand Exhibit! 

Isn't that elephant awesome?! 

  

With the elephant! That thing was intense!

 

The Thailand exhibit again!

  

Of course I have a picture of a cool tree!

 

 A cool walkway where the lights changed colors every few seconds! I stood and watched it for a few minutes :) 

  

I loved this walkway too.  It's called the Floral Tunnel! This might have been one of my favorite parts!  I'm not quite sure why, but I really liked it!  It was pretty awesome!

  

 Some nice young man, who spoke English well, was nice enough to offer to take this picture for me!

 This was my last stop on my tour of the Expo! When I walked into this huge courtyard, I was in awe!   

 Upclose of some of the flowers!  This was also one of my favorite parts!  (OK so maybe all of the expo was my favorite part.  I can't really choose a favorite part :) 

  I like this picture mainly because of the man to the left of my head looking at the camera!

 The Expo Dome! Look at the awesome design on the building!

 These last arrangements were inside the Expo Dome!  I was kind of in a hurry at this point so I didn't spend as much time in here as I would have liked.

 But I loved it, nonetheless!

 Flower balls!

 Flowers inside of a piano!  I think all of the displays in this part of the dome were telling a story of some fairies!  If I would have had time, I could tell you, but I think that the fairies turned into musical instruments :) 

 This had nothing to do with the fairies, but I liked the dress made of flowers!

 At the Expo, I probably didn't even see 1/5 of it, because it was so huge!  I loved it and it was totally worth it, though!

The end of a tiring day!  I loved it! The museum, the flora expo, the bus rides to and from Taipei, the walking, the MRT, everything!  

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!