Taiwan 2015

I was back in Taiwan this June for another conference, this time the Computational Economics and Finance Meetings.  And my youngest son, Alan, came with me.  We were there for week from the 19th of June through the 26th, when we flew to Korea.  The weather was hot and muggy.  It rained frequently and I had difficulty walking long distances.  The conference ran from the 20th through the 22nd, and I did get some free time to go out then, but frankly we were both uncomfortable enough that we went out very little.  When the conference was over, however, we went on a two-day tour to Sun Moon Lake in the mountains of central Taiwan and that was lots of fun.

Wenwu Temple at Sun Moon Lake

So here is a breakdown of our trip.

We visited a couple of the same places that Yeongmi, Joan and/or I saw in 2014.  This included Taipei 10, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial and the National Palace Museum.  We also hit the Shilin Night Market.

Mass Transit

Taipei 101

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial 

Creepy Fetus Statue at the base of Taipei 101

View from the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial 

Inside the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial 

At the National Palace Museum

On the morning of the 24th we caught a tour bus at the hotel where the conference had been held and headed south.  There were four sisters from Jakarta and a couple from southern Colorado with us on the tour.  Our first stop was the town of Puli, which is famous for its rice wine.  That wasn't much of a draw for me, but we did catch some tunes at an outdoor pavilion while we were there.

Alan hauling wine

Our tour bus

From Puli we drove up to Sun Moon Lake and visited a couple of temples, a pagoda, and a village by the lake shore before checking into our hotel for the night.

  

The next morning we drove down from mountains to the seaside town of Lukang where we visited two of Taiwan's oldest temples.  Then we had lunch in Taichung before driving back to Taipei and our apartment.

Lukang Longshan Temple panorama

The whole tour group and Lukang Longshan Temple

Finally, on the morning of our last day, we checked out of our apartment and dropped our bags at the train station in Taipei and then went to see the Confucius Temple, which I missed in 2014 and the Taoist Temple nearby, Baoangong, which we did see in 2014.  Then back to the station to get our bags.  A stop at the conference hotel to pick up my missing iPad and off to the airport and then Seoul.