First stop: Confucius Temple.
The Confucius Temple was incredible and enchanting. Harrison Lee, our tour guide, was Quite possibly the most upbeat person that I have ever encountered he was the definition of "a person who loves his job." He told us that there is a Chinese saying that "people who come and visit you while its raining are good friends of yours." and that because we visited while it was raining, we were meant to return in the future because we are now friends with the Confucius Temple. And it was raining. It seemed like mother nature was flipping the on and off the switch for the rain several times. It felt like it would rain for ten minutes, stop and start again. Mr. Lee was very knowledgeable and he explained so much in such great detail about Confucius, his sayings, his teachings and his life, it made it very easy for us students to better understand and apply his wisdom to our own lives. I think what made it even better was that, while he was telling us about the teachings, he would include some of his own personal experiences. There were so much interesting information about Confucius that it made me reflect about my own personal experiences. The building itself was just incredible. The strong detail in the design of the building and the stories that it told was just amazing. Confucius say, "Watch your step." My classmates know what I mean.
After the temple visit, we headed to the central subway to catch a train to Taipei and have lunch. Since we had a short time to eat and the central subway terminal was so large (New York City's Penn Station large) we didn't have much of chance to full investigate the (quite possibly) hundreds of restaurants and eateries in the building. So I figured I'd play it safe, Burger King. That's right. With all the culture and different tastes to explore, a BK Double stacker was my decision. But I did find out something interesting: on the BK menu, they had a Double bacon, mashed potato cheeseburger. I thought, "Nope. I'm even gonna try it." And it's a whole new experience for me to pay with New Taiwan Dollars. My small burger, fries and drink was about $155. It first, my head exploded but then I had to remember where I was at and with what currency I was paying: $155 NTD x $.035 USD = $5.43 USD. O.K., that's better. I felt like a high roller carrying around thousands of Taiwan dollars when in fact, its worth about $250 USD.
Yup, these are real burgers that they sell in Taiwan. Who buys them? I don't know.
After lunch, we visited the equivalency of the White House: the Presidential Office Building. And as thought, our bags were searched and we walked through a metal detector. It wasn't that bad. It was actually pretty quick and painless. Inside the building, we were told that we can take pictures but we cannot record and video for security purposes. Inside, we learned about the construction of the building and the design influences on the building. We were also shown many graphical timelines that were related to the atmosphere surrounding the country and its people both financially and politically. There was all of information to absorb during our tour and and most it was intriguing to me because showed the different occupations of Taiwan by Japan and China. Lots of politics. The one timeline that I found the most interesting was exports. We're all familiar with the phrase "Made in Taiwan" in this timeline proved it. In the 1950s and 1960s, Taiwan only had agriculture exports. The 1970s to present, it was mostly manufacturing electrical products. A dominating force in the fried of electronics. Now that I look back on this visit, I should have taken a picture with the cardboard cut-out of the current president. That would have been funny.
After the Presidential visit, we once again trekked through the rain to the National Taiwan Museum. This museum had practically everything Taiwan-related: history of clothing designs, historical artifacts, even the different kinds of bugs and fish that inhabited the the country. We journeyed across the street to another part of the museum where they had dinosaur artifacts on display. Instead of a guided tour, we were allowed to explore on our own. I really enjoyed this part of the day because as students, we were really able to bond with one another and become friends instead of having those awkward moments of trying to think of someones name because you only talked to that once or twice.
After the museum visit, we went to The Red House Marketplace. This was a large are with shopping, restaurants, bars, and an area where many different people sold their homemade goods. We spent about an hour and half here getting to know each other and having dinner and some drinks. It was nice that the rain let up for a little while but no matter what, we were going to have a good time.
Overall, after a grueling 15 hour trip and a 5 hour nap, my first full day was allot of fun and educational.
No comments:
Post a Comment