Christmas in Taiwan

So it appears that Christmas trees are really at thing in Taiwan. I guess my first visit was in mid January so most of the trees had come down but this time we visited right in the middle of Christmas season and I was surprised to see so many festive trees.

That said, they don't seem to be overly biased to the evergreen looking Christmas Tree. I only saw a few trees that look like a real evergreen tree

Christmas tree at Sun Moon lake

The vast majority of trees I saw were all extremely unique. Several appear to be re-purposed from plastic bottles or the like.

See below for a summary of the Christmas trees of Taiwan! 

Christmas Tree in a train station

Santa's pink sleigh in Taipei 101

Big gold tree (think like Ferrero Roche) outside Taipei 101

Christmas tree in Tainan

Tainan Christmas tree

2-D Christmas tree

Lots of flashing lights!

Like a Christmas postcard

There are several interesting takes on the Christmas tree

Even 7-11 is feeling festive!

This Christmas tree is made from reused bottles

This Christmas tree is outside a historical prison 

Each Christmas tree is different, and all of them are pretty

Taiwan2013 Travels: Train from Taipei to Tainan

After our long debacle on flights from Toronto to Shanghai to Taipei, the last thing we want to do is travel some more right?

Right?

Well the first thing we did in Taipei was prepare to take the train down south to Tainan as part of our Taiwan Travel Tour! From Dec 25 - Dec 31 we're going to sweep through 4 different cities of Taiwan before rejoining the family for the wedding!

Melody's Dad showed us to the train station, which conveniently gives us more views of Taipei 101!

Taipei 101: I never tire of seeing this architectural marvel

Trying out my new 10-20mm Sigma lens and loving the effect it has on an urban scene!

Tickets are bought and we're ready to see Tainan

Intrepid traveler right here!

I don't know if you've ever been on a high speed train before, but these things are FAST. Like really fast! Take this magical bullet train of Engineering madness to Tainan, and make our way to our hotel. For our trip across Taiwan, we've opted to use a hotel in the first city, and to use hostels for the rest of the trip. We generally enjoyed the younger, chill hostel atmosphere throughout our trip! Hotels can be a bit of a downer when you're a young travelling couple - a Hostel culture has people who are young, curious about the city, and want to share their adventures.

We got into Tainan in the evening and this gave us time to settle in and find our Christmas dinner! I think this was one of the only sit-down, indoor meals that we ate together on our trip. We ate a lot of indoor meals with Melody's family in Taipei but most of our meals were fast little meals from stands so that we could keep on the go!

Remember we've been on the road since Dec 23 so it hasn't really hit us that it's Christmas day. The biggest reminder ertr  the sheer numbers of Christmas trees which I really was not expecting, and we found them everywhere! There will be a separate post for all the Taiwan Christmas trees!

Love in Tainan :)

There were a lot of Christmas trees throughout Taiwan :)

Now wouldn't this be a lovely post card?