The day started with a wander around the streets with Chris and Sarma as Rob and Steve slept in and was not ready on time. We looked around some shops, found a temple in the middle of the street and then finally met up with Steve and Rob and made our way to breakfast. Sarma choose a small cafe for breakfast this morning. We ordered our meals and finally started our journey for the day.
We had kept today as an easier day as we knew that with NYE being tonight it would be a very late one. So we hustled along to get to our starting point of today which was Longshan temple. Longshan Temple is old temple in Taiwan. It is for worshiping Guanshiyin Budda h and other divine spirits. The temple is right in the middle of the city and is an amazing temple to look at. We entered the temple and we were greeted by the temple gate and a huge man made waterfall. The familiar smell of incense wafted and in the air and I was able to walk around in peace. There is something about temples that I find very peaceful.
At the entrance to Longshan Temple there was instructions for how to pray and how to do the fortune stone things. We spent some time in the temple watching people pray, taking pictures and enjoying the peace there. We then came across a shop in the temple that sold different trinkets and things. Chris and I lined up in the line to buy and watched in wonder as this one woman was running around madly serving everyone. Finally it was our turn so we ordered a few odds and ends. We met up with the others and exited and decided to walk down a street to take a look. We u turned after a little bit as this didn’t feel like the best part of town to be walking in and we headed back to the station.
Jumping back on the same train line we headed to the Lin Family Garden and Mansion. When we got out of the platform we found the best shop ever in the station. it was a place that sold nigiri however all the Nigeria was in divulge wrapped and each one only cost 10 twd which is about 40c aud. We picked up a few to snap k on as we continued our walk to the garden. We looked for a place for lunch before the garden so I picked a restaurant that had pictures of food and had bay max on the door. It looked good. The only problem. was that the menu was not in English and only in Chinese. However we are pretty clever and through matching picture to the order sheet and using google translate we were able to roughly work out what to get and we ordered.
The food arrived and it looked and tasted pretty good it was bibimbap and a little chili. We have found quite a large language barrier here, however we have learnt a few words like Nin hao for hello and Xie XIe for thank you. We ate our lunch payed and then continued to the gardens. When we arrived we were given a pamphlet in English explaining the gardens. Rob took charge and in his special tour guide voice proceeded to read the history of the park. The gardens were beautiful and something out of a studio ghibli film a child playing in these gardens could have so much fun with their imagination. There was lake surrounded by bridges and walkways and a rock formations like a maze. The house is currently under refurbishment but it was an amazing place to explore.
We headed back to the hotel to rest before new year and resting we were until Chris came barging in stating that he had found an awesome arcade with gundam games and he needed to go. Not ones to give up an adventure we followed him down the street and found the arcade. We looked at some shops and played some games and then Steve and I found Bishi Bashi which was awesome. I also won on the big crane game and won a stitch toy. It was getting close to leaving time so we headed to the hotel packed our backpacks and made our way to NYE. We had a quick dinner at a sushi place which was amazing.
We made our way to Rainbow Bridge park and on the train we met a guy from Israel who was living over here. We chatted with him for a while and he invited us to his block party which was very nice. We finally made our way to Rainbow Bridge park and camped out til NYE. A young group of Taiwanese teens approached us to practise their English and asked where we were from. When we said Australia they got very excited and yelled kang-a-oo and jumped up and down like one, then they said Koala. We had a conversation with them and then got a picture with them. Another group approached us later and the same conversation happened. I think we a known just fox kangaroo and koala.
The atmosphere at the river was amazing. We had a good view of Taipei 101 and the crowd had all bought firework so from about 10pm there were fireworks going off everywhere. It was interesting to say the least as it is illegal in Australia but everyone was safely setting off their fire works and crackers along the river. It was an amazing night.The fireworks at midnight off Taipei 101 were great as well.
Steve has a video of the atmosphere and the fireworks:
We made it back to the hotel easily it is amazing how convenient and organized their public transport was. Steve, Chris, Sarma and Rob all went to the night market for a snack. Happy New Year to everyone!!