Lance and Randy didn't have any meetings on Saturday. (That's the problem with this kind of trip. When we found out we were going Lance hadn't yet solidified all of his work meetings and stuff. But we had to buy the tickets because they were going up in price or selling out. So we ended up staying longer than absolutely necessary, but I think we were all okay with that!) Since we had a free day we decided to hike Elephant Mountain, which had been recommended to all of us by several people.
Elephant Mountain is located to the east of Taipei. It's kinda crazy because it's just solid city for miles and miles and then all of a sudden - Nature! Nature with amazing views.
It was, of course, hot and sticky. But amazingly, not has hot and sticky as it had been. Although we all still sweated a ton.
The hike was more like ultra-stair master. It was just one staircase after another!
We asked Randy to take a picture of us with Taipei 101 in the background. I mean, I guess he did it, but I was thinking the entire building. :)
And Lance asked him to take one to make it look like he was touching the top. Um, no.
Um... maybe?
No. *sigh*
There were lots of great spots to stop and take pictures. And there were lots of friendly locals to "chat" with. (I use the term loosely. Their English wasn't always great and our Mandarin was pretty much non-existent. But, we could always smile and say hello!)
See? City... city... city.. and then lush mountain!
Part of the trail. No clue what was carved on the stone.
Once we were done we decided to go over to Taipei 101. Although Lance and I had visited it last time, Randy hadn't been to the top. And it was cool enough to do again!
The views from the top were great, it was a really clear day.
See those two skinny towers in the center? Our hotel was right next to them. That green area is Da'an park, which was right across the street from our hotel.
The obligatory selfie.
We visited the big damper again. It was still pretty impressive! This time they had videos playing that showed the damper moving during typhoons and earthquakes. In one there was a typhoon blowing and the damper was moving, but people were still in the building and taking pictures in front of the moving damper. NOPE. NOPE NOPE NOPE. I don't know why, but that kind of freaked me out. Who goes to the top of a skyscraper during a typhoon?!?!
They had some cool infinite mirrors in one of the corners this time.
And I thought that twisty building was pretty cool.
We went to the observation deck, but it was SUPER BRIGHT.
We had started the day pretty early, hiked a mountain, and spent quite a bit of time at the top of a skyscraper. By lunchtime we were starving! We decided to take Randy to the same place we had been to the night before. It was a great choice, because he loved it and it was still DELICIOUS. I ordered a different kind of shrimp dumpling this time. There were shrimp on the top and I *think* pork in the bottom part. Makes me want to break out my bamboo steamer just thinking about it...
We crashed after lunch - I think we had really worn ourselves out! But by evening Lance and I decided to venture out again. We did a little Googling and found the Guang-Hua Electronics Bazaar. Since this was Lance's 40th birthday, this seemed like the perfect evening! The Bazaar was this really big building stuffed full of little shops, and all those shops were stuffed full of all sorts of electronics and such. (I don't think Taiwan believes in one-stop shopping, like Wal-Mart or Target. It's all about small shops for different things.) It was just cool to walk around and look at everything. Some shops were so full of stuff there was only room for the owner standing in front. I have no idea how they found anything. Lance looked around but didn't find anything he wanted to buy, but I bought an earbuds converter for the plane ride home for only $2! (Most of the prices were pretty comparable to what you'd find in the states, but $2 was a pretty great deal!)
So then we Googled a bit more and found what we really needed nearby - the Guang-Hua Electronic Plaza, which was basically a night market just for electronics. So cool!
Lance found some key caps he wanted, so Happy Birthday, Lance! (During the day I had been giving him pictures of the kids holding different birthday presents waiting for him at home, because why bring them all the way out? I also gave him the pen I had bought a few days before. I think it was a good birthday!)
Since it was our last night in Taipei we decided to head back to our favorite night market, Raohe. Only, we forgot just how stinkin' crowded night markets are on the weekend. SO CROWDED. You could barely walk or move! So we'd dart into shops here and there to cool off and escape the herd. We found one with a bunch of odd shirts - like this one. That was a
child's shirt.
I loved this one. Energetic New York Jerns. I almost bought some for my upcoming trip to NYC.
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but night markets also have lots of games. Apparently the Taiwanese LOVE games! Think like carnival games and those claw games that grab stuff, balloon popping games, and things like this - you can catch goldfish. I don't know what happens with the fish, but those kids were so happy about getting to play! The lady on the side eating is the owner of the game. (Totally casual at the night market!)
It was stinkin' hot again and we'd had a big lunch, which meant we didn't have huge appetites. But it was still fun to look at all the cool food. Like these ginormous french fries. Cole (our resident french fry addict) was disappointed we didn't buy those.
There were lots of conch shells on the grill at most night markets, too.
We did get some tasty grilled Chinese sausages, and this amazing crepe thing stuffed with chocolate mousse, ice cream, mango, and brownie thingies. Delish.
I loved this sign; it tickled me for some reason. Run run, spoon!
It was so crowded it just wasn't as fun as it had been earlier in the week, but I'm still glad we went.
