Memorial Halls and a Temple

Today we made like tourists and hit up some of the Taipei landmarks. I saw more people speaking Korean today than I had for my entire duration here. The first place we went was the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. It was built in honor of one of the most influential persons of modern Chinese History. Go wiki him or watch Bodyguards and Assassins...or both. But definitely watch Bodyguards and Assassins.

The Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall houses various exhibits and a library. Outside there were a bunch of people practicing tai-chi and a large group of youths taking a study break by practicing their dance moves. I'm serious; for some reason, there were all these random kids just hanging out and dancing.

Inside there's this awesome statue with guards standing on either side. In front of the statue is this equally awesome sign that says, "Please Salute." So I did. I really wanted V to take a picture of me saluting the statue with the "Please Salute" sign clearly visible, but we decided that this was too disrespectful and decided against it.


Overall, I thought it was a pretty impressive building until I saw this:


That's the National Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall in the distance with its two concert halls and gate in front. That picture doesn't really portray the magnanimity of this place. This picture helps a little:

Chiang Kai-Shek is the somewhat polarizing father of Taiwan. He pretty much built the country as a military foundation from which to take back China and spent much of his life more interested in a democratic China than Taiwan itself. I don't totally know what I'm talking about, but I think that's his legacy in a nutshell. He had a good son apparently. Interestingly, his sign does not say, "Please Salute." Hmmm.

Afterwards we went to one of the most popular temples in Taipei, the Longshan Temple - 龍山寺. Yes, it is possible for a temple to be popular because people here go to pray all the time. A lot of the time, people will just go to pray for a good test score or a successful career or a good love life, but you always see the token grandma with beads praying for everyone's well-being. People here are quite superstitious actually, and they actually listen to fortune tellers. Mama and Ba haven't eaten beef in something like twenty years because a fortune teller told them that the business will go well if they don't. It's true that the business has been good ever since, but I wouldn't let anything stop me from eating beef. I think they should go back and ask if it's ok to eat beef now.


I think I've been to this temple every single time I've been to Taiwan and I was due for a really good prayer. As soon as you get there, the unmistakable scent of incense fills the air. We both lit up ours and prayed at the respective altars while depositing the incense into burners. Towards the end, I drew a stick from a lot to determine my fortune and got lucky number fifty-three. We matched this to the proper fortune later and found out that basically, I picked like the luckiest one. I'm going to be successful in everything I do. I've had a rough time of late, but things are about to turn around. It might take a little while, but apparently, I will accomplish everything I want. Booya.

We met up with V's sister for a bit and I hung around while they bought face crap. Then we went to Sogo for this Fancl sale. Fancl is a Japanese cosmetics brand famous for using all natural ingredients. So natural in fact that all their products must be used within months of opening (like food). I bought V this Tense Up EX II drink. It's a beauty supplement with various vitamins, 2600 mg of Collagen, and 30% fruit juice. You drink it and it fixes your face. Everything's worth a try.