Temple, Taipei 101, & Chiang Kai Shek

Yesterday I went up to Taipei for the day which is the largest City in Taiwan. Bree and I went up there with our English Branch to go to the Temple. It was a great little bus ride up with everyone. It took about 2 1/2 hours to get up there and we enjoyed every moment of it watching some Johnny Lingo and having a good laugh  :) Why is it that everyone has seen Johnny Lingo? classic. Well once we got there we got to do Baptisms which was of course awesome. It was my second time  at the temple now and It is just unbelievable. It feels nice to connect with people through the power of the spirit when you don't speak their language. It's a common language to everyone. The poor man doing conformations couldn't pronounce my last name. It mostly came out Tolken. All in all it was a great experience.

We were busy getting in and out to watch children this time so these pictures are actually from my first time. But it still looks the same :) This last one i didn't take, but i wanted to show you what it looks like. Its hard to get the whole thing unless you are up in the sky. It's a pretty small area. 

Then I went to meet up with Bree and her friend Brad at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. If you want to know more about who Chiang Kai Shek was then i suggest you google it. I honestly didn't care for a history lesson but the place was pretty cool! 

From the Bottom looking up:

 

From the Top looking down:

They have two live guards at the top of the monument guarding the statue of Chiang Kai Shek and they are INTENSE. I have never seen guards before that could have been statues. It was scary. All I could think about was how they had to stare at each other from across the way without any sort of expression. How long can you stare at someone before one or both laugh or look away. 

 The man himself. It's hard to see but this thing was HUGE.

There was also a beautiful garden surrounding both sides.

 

After we left the memorial we headed to the second largest building in the world, Taipei 101. It reminds me of the space needle times a million. It has has 101 stories and reaches 1,667 feet. It has the fastest elevator in the world, I don't think my ears have ever popped so many times.

The few was breath taking. especially at night. They had an outdoor observation booth that we were able to go on. Its closed often for high winds. A good portion of it was closed off but we still saw a lot. 

On our way up to the observation deck we had to climb some stairs. As I was looking down I noticed that the staircase literally went to the bottom of the building. That's what the video is over. Its a little freaky to think of 101 flights of stairs to the bottom.

All in all it was a successful day! I was very pleased and enjoyed every moment of it. 

Love From Taiwan,

Jessica