July 6 and 7
- Kate Ross
- Jul 12, 2019
- 5 min read
Last weekend was interesting. I didn't see nearly as many places as I did the previous weekend, but it was very exciting nonetheless.
July 6 CET students gathered to celebrate the Fourth of July! Yes I know, it wasn't the fourth of July anymore, but we had class Thursday and Friday. So our first available time was Saturday! Cooking a Fourth of July BBQ in Taipei with a grill outside in wind is exceptionally difficult. Somehow, the CET students banded together and made it work.
The Texans were in charge of cooking steak inside and the hamburgers & chicken skewers outside on the grill. Something that I truly appreciated was the choice of cooking the steak in butter. Coming from a kosher household we can't eat steak that has been battered in butter, so this tasted amazing. Upstairs on the grill our two Taiwanese girl roommates were working together to help with cooking, and if you watched them you'd see them every now and then sneaking a bite. Basically they were eating as they went. Totally hilarious!
Everyone helped out where they could. We had students upstairs and outside cooking food on the grill. Students downstairs heating up charcoal to help the flame outside. Students from Texas yelling "little bit of salt" while cooking steak. Students cutting lime and onion. It was an entire endeavour, but with everyone pitching in and helping with their respective posts we were ready to eat in no time.
This was definitely an exciting way to sit and bond with everyone.
Following the BBQ, I went to a showing of Spiderman: Far From Home. Very awesome film! 10/10 Recommend. Sometimes Marvel films are just terrible (Captain Marvel), but Spiderman was definitely one of the better ones.
July 7 was a work morning. I needed it. It was totally worth it. In the afternoon though I decided it was time to go out and see the something that I hadn't yet seen. My phone had told me that it was going to be a nice, clear day all day so I thought "maybe today would be the day that I go to the Taipei 101 Observatory."
I had planned a quick two stop afternoon, I guess it turned out to be exactly not that.
I walked outside from my nice morning inside doing work, and it was a giant gray cloud blob. So basically not an amazing day to go see the observatory. (Gotta save it for another day). Even though it wasn't clear enough to make it worth it to see Taipei from the observatory, I was still able to go and see some pretty cool sights. I walked around a park near Taipei 101 that was close to Taipei City Hall.
As you can tell these are images of Taipei 101. The first and third images were me just trying to see the difference of how where I set the focus of the camera affects the overall outcome of the picture (there is a more elegant way to say that, but it didn't work).
While I was trying to burn time (to get to my last activity of the day at the right hour) I also visited Dr. Sun Yat-Sen National Memorial Hall while the guards were taking the flag down for the evening. I am entirely unsure of what this man did for Taiwan, however there were entire museums dedicated to his life along with art galleries.
Outside of the memorial, and inside in front of his memorial statue.
I find it fairly interesting of the resemblance between this Memorial and the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial. Most likely because they both designed by the same architect. However, even though I quickly glanced through the museum and art galleries I could tell that he played a significant part in the development of Taiwanese history and culture. In fact he is the man on the $100NTD (You have to do something that is really important to get on a countries' currency).
When I was headed out to go towards my final destination I noticed that there was something about to happen. Mostly because "Men In Black" were peaking around the flag pole. I was leaving the memorial exactly when the guards were lowering the flag. It was VERY cool to watch happen. The best part was that in contraditction to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial changing of the guards I was able to get right on up in these guys' business.
Here are some videos of the guards taking the flag down.
The fact that there was no barrier between me and the guards was particularly awesome because it allowed for some pretty awesome pictures.
Following that pretty cool experience, I was hoping for better clouds for an amazing sunset. I unfortunately didn't get the clouds that I was hoping for. Still, managed to get some cool pictures (and video) at the top of Xiangshan mountain, which is an iconic tourist destination in Taipei. There you are able to see the most gorgeous sunset (or at least when the clouds are behaving, which they weren't).
As you are able to see, the clouds were absolutely not behaving, so no "Photo contest" worthy sunset Taipei Panorama Picture :-( Nonetheless, I still managed to take some cool pictures.
The image in the top left is of the city, right after all of the lights began to turn on.
The two foreign looking blobs in the top right image, are actually the name of the mountain (Elephant mountain or Xiangshan) in Chinese.
On the bottom left image, you can see the entire sunset that occurred. That was it. It truly wasn't a mind-blowing sunset.
The middle bottom image is of an American family. The best part about this family, was that I was able to see my family exactly in them. He had two kids, one was completely disinterested, and the other was "interested" in what her dad was doing. While on their rock, the dad said "I need help changing my lens to a wide angle lens." Meanwhile when they finished and were on their way down the mother asked "Hey, do you need any help carrying the camera or tripod?"
Literally this family was the Ross family exactly. It was HILARIOUS!
Finally, the bottom right image is of Taipei City from the mountain when it was completely dark.
Please enjoy this song that a local sang to me as he was passing on his way off the mountain.
I can honestly say, that one of the absolute highlights of the day was dinner. I didn't realize how much I was missing this staple from back at home until I actually went and got it. Roughly in between XiangShan mountain and Taipei 101, is this AMAZING cafe. It serves the best ever! Or at least best Jewish NEW YORK food. For dinner, I went and had a blueberry bagel with cream cheese. I have really missed my bagel runs on campus and at home. It was an amazing experience. When you don't have something that is a part of your normal everyday life back home while abroad it really makes you miss it. It is such a great idea to really embrace the culture and the cuisine while traveling. I totally recommend it. However, keeping kosher in Taiwan has proven to take a mental effort type of toll on me, so I was all in for the blueberry bagel splurge.
10/10 I'd recommend you go drop whatever you are doing and run to the nearest bagel store right now. Especially if you can't remember the last time you had a bagel.
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