August 3-4

August 3 began much earlier than my days have been all summer. I decided that I was going to wake up and go to campus at 4:50am to go see the sunrise behind the main library. Unfortunately the clouds here don't even rival those of Phoenix, thankfully the weather gods listened to my prayers and a SINGLE mini cloud came and sat over the main library. And POOF, with some manipulating on my phone, I got a gorgeous sunrise photo. Unfortunately I had to wake up ridiculously early in order to get the photo, I definitely took a nap after I got back from campus.

The great thing, about my sunrise adventure was that no one was really on campus so I decided to take a few extra minutes and see some other places before going back to sleep at the apartment. Surprisingly it felt really good to be up and moving early in the morning. The big picture-esque spots on campus at NTU are the main campus library, as well as Drunken Moon Lake. It's just a small pond on campus.

After my morning seeing the sunrise on campus, it was time for a morning nap to compensate for the lack of evening sleep. Naps are amazing. I love them. They're the best.

Later in the afternoon I had planned to go visit Wulai. Wulai is a small town just outside of Taipei that is famous for their indigenous Ayatal community, and they also have a nice waterfall there. Or at least that is all of the information that I have learned about on Google. I figured that it was as good of a time to go and explore the area.

To get to this township, you had to ride to the end of the Green line, and then take a bus another 30 minutes until you get there. My subway got there about 20 minutes before the bus got there. When I saw that the bus was supposed to be at the station already, I started looking around. Unfortunately I found the bus to go to Wulai just as it was leaving...so I didn't go to Wulai. I could have taken the next bus, but instead I decided that I'd go back up to campus and go explore the parts that I had yet to visit. NTU is a huge campus, and I really only ever see a small fraction of it on my walks to and from class at ICLP from the front gate of campus.

Besides the typical finding interesting looking door frames and architectural buildings, I managed to find the agricultural area of campus with rice fields and watermills.

Allowing yourself to go out and explore without the confines of a legitimate plan are something that I'm definitely glad that i did. Being slightly OCD when it comes to planning, has benefits along with downsides. Spontaneity is useful in life. It can sometimes be difficult to accept the uncertainty of spontaneity when all you want to do is have a plan. But it definitely beneficial.

August 4 was yet another day without a definitive plan fo what was going to happen. I knew that I had to write my final presentation for my class, because it was due the next day. So I worked on that during the day. After I was done with that assignment I went up to a northern part of Taipei City. To get there I only had to take a minimum of two subway trains, I could get to the location quicker if I took a shortcut and switched trains an extra time. I somehow managed to take four different trains to get to where I wanted to be. It wasn't my best showing of how well my internal mapping skills were able to work. However, I still managed to get to my desired destination.

I was en route to the National Revolutionary Martyr's Shrine the last location in Taipei with the guard changing on the hour. Now after visiting three of these locations I'm still unsure as to what exactly they are guarding. Who knows? I don't.

Anyways when I got there I thought that the changinf of the guard ceremony thing wasn't going to be happening since I got to the site close to 1:20, but for some reason the event was still happening. So, you guessed it, pictures were taken. Unfortunately I didn't get a lot from their front side when I arrived onsite, but I feel as if this perspective is interesting with the 牌坊 (the big gate) in the background.

When this round finished I kept walking around the premises because it seemed as if there were other places to see, or at least that's what the google images were showing. Unfortunately, the building/temple opposite that of the 牌坊 was under construction, so I was unable to get up close to the structure. But that didn't stop me from more interesting pictures.

When I finished looking at as much of the martyr's shrine as I could due to the unforeseen renovations, I hung around the premises a bit longer because the top of the hour was nearing. That meant more guard pictures. I'm not entirely sure why I find them so intriguing, but I think they're quite interesting with the precision between the set of guards, having a subject for my picture, or something that I don't even realize.

Just to keep in line with the other photos of the guards around Taipei I made sure to get a profile image with the rifle and one where they have their arms up.

The Martyr's Shrine was definitely quite interesting and I'm happy I went. It was ridiculously hot for Taipei weather. But when I come to think about that is what I'm going to be experiencing while I'm at home in a few weeks.

Once satisfied with my photos from the Shrine, I had one more place that I wanted to visit while up in that part of Taipei. To the left is an image of the Grand Hotel of Taipei. It is definitely one of the beaugier hotels in the Greater Taipei area. The interesting thing about this location is it is a 14-story building that was built in a traditional Chinese standard. On the inside it is even more exquisite than the outside and the views of Taipei. Even though there was no way that I'd ever stay there as a guest, it was definitely interesting to see the inside and all of the architecture there.

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One more blog post and then I'm caught up. I'm really excited for the next one. There is lots to talk about in this upcoming week!!! Stay tuned!