New Friends, New Places

I had been chatting with two other girls who had also come in to Taipei to teach English. We decided that it would be cool to hang out and go to a very northern town called Tamsui. In order to do that you have to get onto the red line on the MRT and go to the very last station going north. It is a port town, so it reminded me of the piers in Seattle. There was a lot of people there with stands similar to the Shilin night market. We walked around for quite a while doing some light shopping but mostly enjoying the town.

Afterwards we went to see Guandu Temple, which I believed to be pretty huge. But, to be honest, I have only seen relatively small ones. This one seemed to go on forever! There were plenty of places to wander around and lots of places that were blocked off. Such mystery! I was so amazed by how vibrant and colorful everything was. I kept thinking about what kind of upkeep they have to do to maintain the look. With the amount of rain and storms the island gets it is truly amazing it looks so good. It was built in the 1600's and just looks fabulous. Also the amount of detail put into every piece is so intentional and beautiful. For instance (I didnt get a picture) at the end of every roof shingle piece (not sure what it's proper name is) there is a sculpted face. On every. single. one. It's insane. We stayed in silence staring at everything we could.