Sightseeing on Saturday

On Saturday, we spent the entire day sightseeing around Taipei with our Rotary hosts. We started at the Li Mei Shu Memorial Gallery, which is an art gallery about 30 minutes outside of Taipei. The whole muesum features the original drawings and paintings from one of Taiwan's most famous artists. And of course, because everything on our trip exceeds our expectations, it was only natural that our tour guide was Lin Mei Shu's son! The paintings were incredibly life-like and the stories our tour guide told about his dad's work were inspiring. Below is a photo of our tour guide and his wife, who is also the model for the painting behind. How cute are they?

Our tour group

In addition to being a painter, Li Mei Shu also helped design the temple around the corner from the gallery. A short walk around the block put us at the gates of our first Taiwanese temple. When visiting the great cathedrals of Europe there are no words or photos that can describe the beauty of the detailed craftsmanship...the same goes for the temples of Taiwan. Nothing can compare to being there and seeing the details, but here are a couple photos from our visit...

Group photo 

Whitney with the guard dog

Lauren and the "Pink Ladies" Rotary Club (all female RC)

Bryan in one of the bridge cupolas

Temple

Fred in mid-prayer, which really means that he just said a prayer and dropped two Chinese wood pieces to the ground. How the pieces land determines how the gods will respond to the prayer. Very ancient ritual!

Inside the temple

Temple alter

Our entourage for the day

Following another mystery food lunch, we headed to the a Ceramic Museum and were given a lesson on the history, technique and art of the Taiwanese ceramic industry, which has been a part of the culture for ages. After the museum, we drove a short distance to the ceramics shopping district and our first stop was the Ying Ko Ceramics Museum, where we got the chance to create our own bowl from clay. Check out the serious artists below.

Pottery experts

Bryan's bowl (sorry it is upside down!)

We enjoyed another interesting array of food for dinner at a seafood restaurant. We had the whole restaurant to ourselves and several other members of our host Rotary clubs joined us for dinner. Among them were Fashion, Gift, Banker and Tiffany.

 Boys table

Ladies table

After two nights in with our host families, we were dropped off at a hotel to enjoy two nights on our own (sort of). Once back at the hotel, we finally had a chance to be alone together as a group. We shared a beer in the lobby bar and recapped the past three days. Needless to say, our experiences in Taiwan make some great stories! We can't wait to share them with our friends and family when we return.

Sunday was our first 'official' day off and no day off would be complete without a little fun. Stay tuned for more posts from Taiwan...