Touring Taiwan Together

   From mountains and monuments, to night markets and massages, Taiwan was mysteriously exciting to explore this Memorial Day Weekend!
   Nick and I are about to celebrate our second year of marriage.......and our second year of know each other! We are still learning things about ourselves and each other every day, and while we are here in Okinawa, and it's just us two, we have decided to take advantage of our long weekends and learn more about the world as well.
   This past weekend our lovely destination was Taiwan. As our flight was nearing the mountainous coast blanketed in a swirling fog, I felt as though we were on a different planet. Mystifying......that was my thought.

 

Ximen in Taipei, tons of shopping with some good little bars and restaurants.

 

Taiwanese woman selling bracelets outside Lung Shan temple

 

Waterfall by the Lung Shan temple

 

Inside Lung Shan temple. I was blown away with the exquisite carving details that made up this temple and all others in Taiwan. Gold writing and statues, brilliantly painted dragons on the rooftops, incense burning, and people praying. Very cool experience.

 

Liberty Square, this is the National Concert Hall.

 
Statue of Chang Kai-Shek, former president of the Republic of China (Taiwan). This was taken during the changing of the guards.

 Liberty Square is 250,000 square meters total. This is the National Concert Hall.

 

The entrance to Liberty Square where Chang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall is located.

 

Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall

 
Our last thing to trek to on our first day was Taipei 101. It was once the worlds tallest building from 2004-2010 and houses the worlds fastest elevator! We rode the elevator to the 89th floor twice as fast as our apartment elevator goes to the 9th floor. Its design is very unique as well making it one of the worlds most stable buildings and so far has withstood a 6.8 earthquake without any structural damage. Cool right? Ok that's my history  lesson for the day:)

 

View of the city from the 89th floor of Taipei 101. Now..on to the food!

Our dinner after a full day of exploring Taipei was delicious dumplings! Some were stuffed with pork, some shrimp, and some spinach. You could watch the chefs mold the dumpling while you were waiting to be seated. My favorite was the pork and shrimp mixed. I also had soup with shrimp dumplings in it, very good:) I know we ordered about 4 tables worth of food but we ate just about everything! Exploring makes you hungry

 

 Our second day in Taiwan we rented a taxi for the day with Mackenzie and Jake. It cost us about $130 between the four of us and that was one of our great decisions (except the driver got lost a couple of times in his own area...right?). Anyway, the first stop of the day was outside of Taipei and up into the mountains to a mining village called Juifen (oh yeah, they mined gold here until 1971). The village was so quaint with lots of vendors and souvenirs. If you like to find that perfect souvenir for your travels in Taiwan this is the place to go. It reminded me of being in Venice, Italy except you are in the mountains instead of by water.
 

 
Temple in Juifen. The painted carvings were so gorgeous in person. I feel like this picture doesn't do it justice.

 

View of the coast from Juifen.

Second stop of the day was Shifen. It is the broadest waterfall in Taiwan. The water was so clear with all the humidity I wanted to swim in it.

 

 
 Swinging bridge up from the waterfall.
 

 

 

Our last stop of the day was to  Yehliu Geopark. I'm not going to go into detail but it is basically a park with a lot of natural rock formations that have been named based on their shapes.

 

The park was a gorgeous place to photograph in general. The sun came out right as we were about to leave.

 

This is "Cute Princess"......hmmm take it how you want, kind of looks like a ballerina head to me.

 

This was my favorite, fossilized sand dollars! they were all over the park fossilized to the ground. It was so crazy to touch them because they were cold and hard as a rock even though they maintained some of their original white color. Very cool..

 The last day in Taiwan Nick and I wondered around Ximen together going into shops trying to find a shot glass which is "our thing" to do every new place we visit. Let me tell you.....no shot glasses to be found!! I can't tell you how many shops and malls we went into, it was a lot, and no shot glasses, only paper lanterns. Luckily, we went to a cool bar that night called Brass Monkey and they let us keep one of there shot glasses....WIN!!  This picture is of the hot pot meal we had that night with Jake and Mackenzie. It has hot broth with seasonings thrown in and you order plates of meat and vegetables to cook in the broth then eat. It was a unique experience! The dumplings were still my favorite though.

 
So that's about it! Taiwan was a great long weekend trip. I feel like we were able to see just about everything we wanted to, ate good food, and make lasting memories:) That's another to check off  our travel list! Until next time:)

 

 

 

 
 
 

 

 

Snorkels and Spears!

   This past weekend was the first lovely, sun shiny day for about two weeks. And what do you do on a sunny day when you live on a tropical island?......Go to the beach of course! There is a small strip of beach right down the road here on Camp Courtney where we live. It isn't a large beach but it sure is nice a relaxing, and it's right down the road from our apartment which is perfect for afternoon naps after the beach! Anyways, I loveeee seafood! Always have and always will. Sadly Nick isn't such a fan of fish, eating them that is. Now catching them, that's a different story! We haven't had a chance to go deep sea fishing yet, but Nick and his good friend suited up in their snorkel gear and went spear fishing at the beach! For Easter we got a new Pentax Adventure proof camera! It has a semi crush proof case and is cold proof and waterproof down to 45ft. It has more megapixels than a GoPro and lights around the lens for macro shots under water. Needless to say I was so excited to try it out! 

 

 Nick and Rick heading to catch some fish!!

 

 

Now I tried to keep up and take some pics, but I didn't strap my fins on for some silly reason so I could only snap one quick pic with our new camera before I had to head back.

 Underwater pics are surprisingly clear! I hate this word but.....Selfie!

 One of my favorites, I love the contrast of the water and the sky.

 

 Sea weed!

 Beautiful beach day with cool underwater pics! Next time I'll wear my fins and be prepared for a little more cardio. I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

IE Jima: Lily festival

The wonderful thing about Okinawa is all the surrounding islands are close by and they each have something interesting to offer. This past lovely Saturday morning, Nick reluctantly woke up and we hopped in the car with Jake and Mackenzie (http://www.bellblissblog.com/) and rode up to Nago to the ferry port. The ferry ride was about thirty minutes from Nago to IE Island and the weather was clear and the water so blue!

On the way to the lilies we stopped at a hibiscus garden!

 The flowers were literally as big as my face! The largest blooms I've ever see, with the most interesting colors!

 This is the gorgeous plant Mackenzie bought!

 This was my favorite, the shape of the petals were so round and different!

 The lovely lilies! The air smelled so clean and fresh, smelling like heaven!

 

 

 

My man on our biking adventure:)



 

 This reminds me so much of the mountain in King Kong, maybe next time we will hike it!

 We rented the bikes for just $10 a person for the day. I found this mode of travel was much more nostalgic than riding around in a bus or a rented car.

 JCrew Jake and Mackenzie!

 A nice little beach with a cabana and a swimming area located in a park right down from the ferry port:)

 Perfect view...and the oceans not bad too;)

The lookout we found on the other end of the island, a view truly right off of a postcard. IE island is a wonderful place to visit and I highly encourage renting the bikes:) What a great adventure! Can't wait for the next one! Will be trying out our new snorkels soon.