Okay, so, many of you know I visited Taiwan, well, Taipei, their capital, actually, last weekend.
I was going to post pics here, but a friend has already put up a web page of our trip, so I decided to link that in.
Let me explain. You see, this trip wasn't family vacation, but a fun trip with some friends of mine, many of whom know/have met CraigT, the host of Renewed Reflections.
A chic and fun jazz piano bar in Tokyo called
Little MANUELA is our hangout. This is actually where I first met Craig, and was introduced to him from a friend who also went on the Taiwan tour--this person is also the guy who put up the tour pics, and is the webmaster of Little MANUELA's site. The owner is also the pianist of the club, who knows virtually nothing about putting up websites
so one of the regulars of the club prepared the site, and maintains, absolutely free of charge, through friendship. The English page I have linked in is by me
the translation also free.
Since the English page is only basic information (this due to the limit of server space) the tour page is in Japanese, so below the link are the explanations of the pics.
http://www.littlemanuela.com/Taiwan2007.htm
The first pic was taken in front of the National Palace Museum. The artifacts of this museum was mostly brought over from the National Palace in Beijing by Chiang Kai-shek who headed the Koumintang, the Chinese Nationalist Party, and fled to Taiwan (Formosa) when the communists took over mainland China.
The small pic of the artifact is a 5 or so inch jade sculpted into the shape of a Chinese cabbage, with a grasshopper and locust, which both are symbols of fertility and good crop in China, perched on top.
The group pic of us girls was taken in the lobby of the Grand Hotel Taipei--one of the famous landmarks in Tapei--the exterior of which is shown below (and no, we did not stay there
).
The pic on the right is the room where we had dinner the first night, at an exclusive membership club in called the TAIPEI WORLD TRADE CENTER CLUB. The group pic taken after dinner.
In the next pic, the singer is the present COO of Taiwan Fuji-Xerox. The pretext of our trip was visiting him
as he will be returning to Japan next Feb. The pianist is the owner of Little MANUELA, the keyboard player the owner of SWING, the jazz club in Taipei where the COO is a regular, and where we went for some after dinner fun. The drummer is one of the regulars of Little MANUELA, and the owner of a kimono shop.
Group pic outside Swing.
****
The next day.
The COO and 3 of the guys went off to play golf. The rest of us trouped off to Jiufeng, a town build clinging to the mountain side about an hour's drive out of Taipei. It started out as a gold mine, but became a favorite tourist spot after having been introduced in a Taiwanese movie. We went up and down and on and on through a narrow alley filled on both sides with small shops loades with goodies from local delicacies to souveniers to clothes to....just about everything. The alley ended in a breathtaking obeservation point, then we went down a series of stairs to a tea room/restaurant with a terrace that also had a great view.
Then back to Taipei, first to Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world until very recently, and the observation floor on the 89th floor. The elevator took us up in 39 secs.
Then off for some shopping-- a dried food store loaded with Chinese delicacies such as dried mullet roe, dried sea cucumber, dried abalone, and on and on and on, row on rows of such stuff.
The golfer joned us for dinner at a popular restaurant that is the favorite of the local Taiwanese.
*******
The last morning, we had brunch at Din Tai Fung, a famous dim sum restaurant that recently opened a branch in Tokyo.
Last stop, a tea shop (no pics, sorry) where we bought this season's freshly picked Oolong tea leaves. (I am sipping tea brewed from the leaves I brought home, as I type this.) Then off to the airport to board our plane.
Not without one last adventure, though. The hotel porter had loaded by mistake, a couple of bags from another group into our bus, so there was a frantic phone call while we were speeding to catch our plane.
The bus driver had to head back immediately to the hotel after dropping us off. The poor owners of the bags must have been having a fit until they received their bags safely.
Taiwan Tour 
So long as you are putting your best foot forward, then, 
Pain is only temporary but quitting is forever
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