Sha Tin - A Day of Culture, Heritage and Snoopy

This day, Feburary 26th, was a planned day. Jordan and I had discussed exploring around Sha Tin area for a while, and we invited a few friends that we knew that liked to explore. So on Sunday morning, Chris, Nigel, Jean, Jordan and I congregated at the Sundial at HKUST and left campus for a day of sightseeing. The weather was better than I expected - the whole week had been foggy, wet and misting. But today, it was relatively dry, and quite fogless. I was happy.

Taiwan Adventure Journal - Day 9!

Day 9 (Jan 25) was our last day in Taiwan :'(
We started our day off with a trip to see the Martyr's Shrine. It is reminiscent of Chiang Kai Shek square with its immaculate upkeep, large stone architecture, and brilliant red contrast decorations. While we were their we walked around the inside and entered rooms that are dedicated to martyrs who have died throughout history while serving Taiwan.

 The main gate. Note the stone-faced guards under the arch

Taiwan Adventure Journal - Day 8!

Day 8, aka Jan 24th, was another drizzly day in Taipei. Streets quiet, the few pedestrians scurry by with a flurry of umbrellas and Mandarin chatter. There are fewer cars in the streets.
On this day we went to the National Palace Museum, just a few kilometres out of Taipei's city centre. You can find in google maps here. To get there, we took a city bus from one of the main city intersections in Taipei. It was a 15 bus ride or so, which drops us off in a little landing area outside the museum. As you walk in, you see a garden off to the side as well as an open stone walking area that surrounds the museum itself.

Mountains in the distance, right in the backyard of the museum, a comfortable silence pervades the scene.

 The walkway up to the museum

Taiwan Adventure Journal - Day 7!

Day 7, aka Jan 23, was our first day of the Chinese New Year. Our first day in the year of the Dragon. As mentioned in other posts, Taipei practically becomes a ghost town when CNY rolls in. People travel and go on vacation, visit family, and generally take a break from their daily grind for about week or so. The city being nearly empty, is a good time to sight see any of the open venues for pictures, but isn't as good for shopping and markets, as many of them are closed.
On this day we went to Sun Yat Sen memorial hall and took a look around. 

It was a cool, overcast day. Taipei 101 loomed in the distance, spire occluded by the clouds overhead. The general lack of crowds and the low hanging mist created the feeling of a quiet morning that endured throughout much of the day. 

We walked around Sen's Memorial hall and then moved on to the notably bigger Chiang Kay Shek Memorial square. The large square is bordered by a gate on one side and three large, traditionally decorated buildings on remaining sides. One of which is the National Theatre, National Music Hall on another side, and finally the memorial hall, which lies to the South-East side.

Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall

Taiwan Adventure Journal - Day 3!

Day 3, Jan 19th, was probably one of our sunniest and warmest days. We chose this lovely sunny day to go to the Taiwan Exhibition buildings and see area that was setup to showcase Taiwan to the international community. It's a nice open area that has some gardens for walking around and has plenty of families with children and tourists. The whole setup is a park with these different green areas and some cafes and the exhibition buildings are grouped in one area. The admission into the expo buildings is quite reasonable (about 60-150 TWD depending on the show) and showcase some pretty nifty technology as well. Each of the buildings has some neat and different architecture and the combination of that and the green space makes for some lovely photography. The three expos we watched were the Taipei Pavilion, Future Pavilion, and the Pavilion of Dreams.