in oz.

so in case you didn't know, i'm in brisbane now. arrived a few days ago.
my apologies to those that i didn't get a chance to say a proper goodbye to. i will see y'all next november. maybe. ;)

the flight here was pretty straight forward. toronto to vancouver, vancouver to taipei, taipei to brisbane. no major delays, cancelled flights, or lost baggage. win-win.

i did have a massive stopover in taipei though. i think it was about 17 hours long. thankfully the government of the republic of china (not the people's republic of china, there's a difference!) provides a free 1/2 day tour for those that have a stopover of more than 7 hours long. so i jumped on and took a little tour...

first stop was the Longshan Temple. it's apparently the oldest and most famous temple in taipei. it was impressive. not necessarily because of it's size or architecture but the fact that there was this temple right in the middle of the city.

if i remember correctly, these people on the left are praying to the god of "study". there were also gods for health, business, fertility and matchmaking. haha. if anyone wants to make requests, i will say a prayer for them to the matchmaker god the next time i'm in taipei.

next was the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, also known as National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. My (limited) understanding is that Chiang Kai-Shek played a very key role in forming Taiwan into a democratic country and not a communist one like it's "big brother".

the stairs in this picture... there are 89 steps. why 89? that's because Chiang was 89 when he passed away! duh! silly! isn't that obvious?!?!

the third step was this place called Martyrs' Shrine. it's a shrine dedicated to the soldiers of china's wars.

now at the main entrance and closer to the shrine itself there are guards. kind of like our mounties, these guards aren't allowed to move. however, they have these little minions.

guess what this guy's job is.
that's right. his sole purpose is to wipe the sweat off of the guards faces!

and finally, we had a quick photo-stop in front of Taipei 101.

the tallest building in the world. it cost nearly $2 billion dollars to construct and even has double decker elevators! how cool is that??? however, it's soon expected to be overtaken by the Burj, Dubai which stands at 141 floors.

and then it was back to the airport. after another 4 hours, i was on the plane to brisbane. i enjoyed taipei. definitely a place i'd like to revisit some time.