Another Great Day in Taipei

We had another eventful day. Thankfully everyone slept until 8:30am this morning. I think that is the latest we have slept since we have been here. Aiden has been getting up at 5:00am most mornings and since he has a tendency to be very loud…the rest of us end up getting up too.

This morning we enjoyed the Dunkin’ Doughnuts right outside our hotel. It was a nice change of pace. After breakfast we hung out in the room until lunch time. Hadley enjoyed playing with her brothers…unfortunately they didn’t enjoy it as much because she kept messing up their Lego fort.

After lunch visited several sites in Taipei. It has been raining here today, but not enough to keep us from enjoying the city.

First we went to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. This memorial is dedicated to the memory of Chiang Kai-shek, the former president of the Taiwan, who fought China for sovereignty. It was huge and absolutely beautiful as you can tell from the photos. We also got to witness the changing of the guards – very cool.

After that we went to a Buddhist and Taoist temple. There was some sort of religious ceremony going on and people were chanting and playing instruments. Outside the temple they had a huge furnace where people burned their offerings to Buddha.

Then we headed to the Martyr’s Shrine. A memorial built for those who died fighting mainland China and overthrowing the Ching Dynasty. We arrived just in time for the changing of the guard there as well.

Finally we headed to the National Palace Museum featuring many articles from China’s Forbidden City that were moved to Taiwan during the Civil War. Lots of really really old stuff. We only spent about an hour there. I am sure you could spend a whole day and not see it all.

After all the sightseeing, we headed back to the hotel to freshen up and then we met up with 2 other adoptive families for dinner. It was nice to have some American company and we enjoyed our visit.

Tomorrow we have our immigration interview at the American Institute. If all goes well we will get Hadley’s visa on Tuesday and leave on Tuesday evening.

The latest Typhoon news is that is appears Typhoon Parma is going to sit over top of the Phillipines for the next 2-3 days. Taiwan ins't going to be hit while we are here. We will probably get some of the peripheral rains from the Typhoon, but nothing serious. It is good news for us, but unfortunately it is devestating to those in the Phillipines that were already hit so hard last week by Typhoon Kitsana.