Made in Taiwan: Danshui

On Sunday, a group of us went to Longshan Temple and Danshui. It was Ting, Rooney, Cristelle, Alex and myself. Ting wanted to take us to Danshui and then added the temple in as well. It was kind of on the way - in Taipei.

Longshan Temple is really cool. It is a huge temple in the middle of the city but it is a gathering place for many different types of people. As soon as you come up from the MRT there are swarms of people. Old men playing some sort of game, old women standing around talking, vendors, homeless people, tourists, people coming to pray, monks, and more. In short, it is a great place for people walking.

When you enter the gates of the temple, there is a pretty good sized waterfall. It was cool. And the temple itself is gigantic. Ting walked around with me and told me all sorts of interesting things about the temple. There are always tables that are loaded with food that the people bring to give to their ancestors. But she told us that when the person leaves, they take the food with them so it is always food that the person wants to eat themselves. Haha. Needless to say there was a lot of fruit and cookies.

After the temple, we walked around the surrounding area. It was a big day market that sold loads of food and other things - some normal, some weird. At one point, a homeless guy came up to Rooney and started talking to him (in Chinese of course). Then he started doing KungFu and we thought there was going to be an altercation. And then it turned into a dance off. Haha. It was hilarious. We were snapping pictures and thanking the Lord it wasn't us who were forced into the competition.

After the temple area we hopped on the MRT and headed to Danshui. It is a little port town that is no longer a port but still has a lot of the charm. It was so crowded. The weather was wonderful and it's right on the coast so it's a perfect spot for sunset. We ate "linner" at a Mexican restaurant. It was DELICIOUS. So good. I had a burrito and we had a pitcher of margaritas. It was great! We were all very happy.

As we walked back along the water, there were so many games and so much food. It was like a carnival. There were all sorts of shooting games. Rooney tried his hand at one and to the surprise of us all, except maybe himself, he excelled. He won a toy which he then gave to some passing child. Haha. But he had a lot of fun doing it.

When we made it back to Taipei we decided to walk around the Shilin night market. It is one of the biggest and after walking around it I'm not surprised. It is huge. You can find everything there. And then you can find it all again. It is crazy all the things they sell there. We tried on a lot of crazy clothes and accessories. It was a good laugh.