i think it will take us awhile to recover. i'll just finish up blogging about our trip. we miss our little malakai buddha boy (and you too amanda!). amanda & malakai are staying an extra two & a half weeks to spend more time with her family.
our kids were wide-eyed and energetic bright and early this morning at 4 am. we had a very limited selection for breakfast, so we all had oatmeal. i really need to go grocery shopping.
(the store lady said our kids have really big heads--like we want to buy her hats after that comment. bray ended up really wanting his hat and got a lot of attention when he wore it around town)
on the third day our first tour guide, ni, gave up on us. i think we wore him out! they replaced him with keo. the first day his b.o. was kickin' (as dane would say). the second day we chose going to the ocean and dane was going to throw him in--but he came smelling decent. this guy could go & go. he would of had us going straight from pick-up till 9pm when our tours ended. we had to tell him that we wanted to return back to let the kids get some rest. he was great though and knew all the great spots.
keo, our second tour guide
this was our bus
amanda's parents were so generous enough to get us a tour guide and bus to take us anyplace we wanted. it was so convenient and made it so much easier for the kids. we loved our bus! we would just tell them what time to pick us up and where we wanted to go. we didn't have to worry about driving through the craziness or finding parking. it was great! thank you so much tina & william.
one of the days we went to Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall or newly changed to National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. It is a monument in memory of the former president of the republic of china. i guess he is considered the father of their country.
one of my favorite places was the martyr's shrine. we went when they were changing guards. the different colors of the uniforms differentiates between the air force, navy, and army. it was super hot and these guys were in full uniform marching...really slow.
white is air force
blue is navy. bray was kind of scared of him
we also went to the national palace museum. you can't take pictures inside, but we got to see a lot of interesting chinese artifacts. plus, it was air conditioned... a definite plus.
on one day we went to visit keelung city. it is the second largest harbor in taiwan. it was the first day that it was actually raining. some days were overcast but it never rained. this day it was pouring but still fun for us.
Buddha Statue
goddess of mercy
it was good luck to ring the bell
we really wanted to see the ocean. so after visiting keelung he drove us along the coast to yehliu park. it is known for having bizarre rock formations. my dad loved this part of the trip being a rock major and all. :) plus, he loves seeing the ocean every chance he gets. it's not the pacific ocean though. it is the east china sea. he had to put his foot in it and so did bray.
my dad collecting his sand
bray thought it smelled funny in here
known as queen's head
that night we went to the night market. i really wanted to try everything i possibly could, but i had to put my foot down on the snake soup. or even turtle soup. or anything with turtles or snakes it in. i just couldn't do it. they must get a lot of people wanting to take pictures of the snakes & turtles in cages because they have a sign above saying no pictures please.
we had a crazy time in taiwan. i think we got to see almost everything we could possibly see and eat everything we wanted to eat. thank you tina & william for everything!
