TAIWAN - Day Two: LDS Temple & Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial

Day two started early - like 4am early.  Dang jet lag. (This happened to both Lance and I the rest of the trip. Why in the world was it 4am?  That's 4pm Indiana time, which is when I generally want to take a nap!)

After another interesting/unknown breakfast, we parted ways.  Lance off to Computex and me off to my day of temples and memorials.

Before I headed out of the room I decided to take this quick shot of our electric tea kettle.  Fun fact: you can't drink the water in Taiwan.  (Apparently the water system is a bit dated, so the water is silty and full of stuff you just don't want in you.)  In fact, no one does, not even residents, unless it's been boiled first.  So we always had a fresh pot of water cooling in our room so we could brush our teeth and stuff, and the hotel gave us new bottles of water each day.  This made showering so fun, because I was still suffering from my cold and couldn't breath through my nose, but I couldn't really open my mouth because I was afraid of accidentally drinking the water!

At this point I also remembered that I hadn't taken any of my traditional feet shots. (Problem solved.  And then quickly forgotten.  Guess it just wasn't my thing this trip.)

My first stop of the day was a visit to the LDS Taiwan temple, which was only a few stops away on the MRT. (I *heart* the MRT.) ((This is not weird at all.))  As I left the station I ran into a couple of sister missionaries.  They were surprised to see me and you could tell they were excited to speak with someone in English!  They were very friendly and very chatty, but they were on their way to a district meeting and had to get going.

This temple is interesting because it's on this little plot of land in the middle of, well, pretty typical Taipei.  (Most LDS temples in the States are on big plots of land in nice areas, surrounded by pretty gardens and such.)  It's also interesting because it looks a whole heckuva lot like the Chicago temple we usually go to.

A borrowed picture of the Taiwan temple.

A borrowed picture of the Chicago temple.

I went inside fully expecting to have to do a session in Mandarin (with an English translation headset), but found out that they were randomly having an English session because some group from Singapore was there.  Do a lot of people in Singapore only speak English?  I didn't ask, because most of the temple workers did not speak English.  So getting my clothes the right size was pretty fun.

As I sat in the temple it dawned on me that although I was 7,000 miles away from Indiana, I felt totally peaceful and at home in the temple.  Everyone was so nice and helpful and it didn't matter at all that we didn't speak the same language. It was a lovely session.

I tried to get a few good shots when I was back outside, but by this point it was stormy and the grounds really are so small that it's hard to take good pictures.

The visitor's center is right next to it.  I didn't feel the need to go in. (Hey, I was on a schedule, and I've been inside of LOTS of temple visitor's centers!)

A pretty tree in the back.

Not a speck of English on the building.

Here's the view from the corner across the street.  I'm diggin' the blue roof.  There was some guy in what looked like a guard shack on that same corner, but I could never figure out what he was guarding.  He gave me a funny look.

I was in a nice skirt and shirt, but I didn't bother going back to the hotel to change because I had noticed lots of women in Taipei wearing really nice dresses and clothes just around town or at tourist spots.  In fact, I even changed out of my sandals and put on my comfy Skechers - also something I had seen a lot of.  When in Rome, right?

My next stop was the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial.  So from what I gather, Chiang Kai-shek was a leader of the Republic of China for a long time.  (Like the 1920's to the 1970's.  I dunno.  Go look it up.) He was part of the KMT or nationalist party, which was not the communists, which is probably why they like him so much in Taiwan.  Oh, and I'm pretty sure he ruled as president in Taiwan for a good chunk of time.  I don't think he liked Americans very much.  It's hard to know all of this for sure, because hardly anything at this place was translated into English, so I'm just trying to recall what I read in books before the trip.  Just know that he was a big deal in Taiwan, so much so that they built him this big ol' memorial!

I came out of the MRT station, rounded the corner, and saw this.  Wow!  I know, I'm a broken record, but everything in this plaza was GINORMOUS.  Just look at the size of the people around the buildings for reference.  The building in this picture is the National Theater, which is mirrored on the other side by the National Conference Hall.

The details of the buildings were beautiful.

And grand.

Here's the gate at the entrance.  Again, look at those tiny people in front of it for a size comparison.

The plaza was huge, too.  It was the site for lots of political demonstrations in the 70's and 80's, which paved the way for democracy in Taiwan.  (Even though Taiwan is a Republic of China, it's also a democracy.  Yeah, I don't get all of the political stuff, either. So it's part of China but not.  Depends on who you ask.)

This area is very common for wedding pictures.  Hopefully this bride got all of the pictures she wanted before it started raining!

So the gate is at the front and the theaters are on each side of the plaza and then there is the immense memorial.

I decided to try a few selfies before I hiked it up to the memorial.

 I'm squinty because even though it was overcast the plaza was made of light and bright stonework.

Just to prove I was actually there!  It was all a little surreal.  I mean, I've seen some pretty impressive and big places: Petra in Jordan, Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, St. Paul's Cathedral in London, Westminster Abby in England, Stonehenge in England, a rather large Mayan temple in Cozumel.  This place ranked up there in impressiveness.

From what I could gather from the poorly translated signs, this building is undergoing a good cleaning and renovation, so it's not as fancy as it normally is.  Still looked pretty great to me!

You had to hoof it up 89 steps to get to the top. (He died when he was 89.  The Taiwanese are all about numbers and symbolism and such.  I forgot to mention yesterday that Taipei 101 is 101 because 100 is a lucky number and 01 represents represents the binary system.  And something to do with the New Year and January 1st, or 1-01. Oh, and there are 101 floors in the building.  Cool, right?)

Here's the view from the top.  I still can't believe I was there!

Looking up at the memorial.  I have no idea what that says; there were no translations anywhere. I'm gonna go with something along the lines of "Welcome, Maren".

Inside was this huge statue of Mr. Kai-shek himself.  Kinda reminded me of the Lincoln Monument, but not really. (?)  I don't know... for a land that seems to value democracy so much, this seemed a little "grand leader"-ish to me.  I know, I know, I'm just an ugly American tourist.  But still.  It was impressive and cool and a little weird all at once.  I was also pretty much the only white person I saw the whole time I was there; I don't think this is a big tourist destination.  Which is a shame because it's so cool. And BIG.

Why doesn't America have more BIG things like this?  They kinda do in Washington.  Maybe because we have so much BIG land? Maybe ours are all more natural, like the Grand Canyon or Yosemite or the Mississippi River. I dunno. Now I'm rambling.  Blame the jet lag.

So, according to Wikipedia (because, of course, there were no translations while I was there) the wall has the Chinese characters for Ethics, Democracy, and Science.  On the side walls it says "The purpose of life is to improve the general life of humanity" and "The meaning of life is to create and sustain subsequent lives in the universe". I'm assuming these are attributed to Chiang.

There are two guards in the hall at all times.  They stand really still, and there is a changing of the guard every hour on the hour.

The ceiling of the memorial. I think the star in the middle was the symbol for the national party.

There was a museum in the bottom floors of the memorial, but not really many English translations for much of it, so I got bored pretty easily.  Sad.  Fortunately, I made it back outside in time for the changing of the guard, which was pretty cool.  Very ceremonial, very masculine, kinda noisy because they had taps on the backs of their boots.  Actually, it was also kinda long - a good 20 minutes!  But I didn't feel like I could leave until it was all done.

Just about everyone there took a ton of pictures, all on their phones.  (I was one of the very few with a camera in most of the places I went. I still think it's easier to use my camera and it takes better pictures.  Yes, I'm an old fuddy duddy.)

Okay, so there was this guy standing next to me and he filmed the ENTIRE thing.  I couldn't help but wonder when he was ever going to watch that again.  Or who else would want to watch it.

So of course I decided to do a little video and force you to watch it!  (Don't worry - it's only 19 seconds.)

The guy in the suit is there all day to make sure every piece of the suit is in proper order, and that the tourists don't bother the soldiers.  He was VERY particular about his job.

Finally, the ceremony ended.  It was, once again, super hot and super humid.  I was melting.  And hungry.  And tired.  It was time to find some lunch.