Taipei Temple Trip

 This Saturday we took a bus trip to Taipei with other church members from our English branch and went to the LDS temple. It wasn't our typical Saturday afternoon jaunt to the temple like we used to do back in Utah, but rather a whole day's adventure. Every quarter, our little branch charters an entire bus and each person pays the equivalent of US$12 for the trip. The church funds make up the difference, based on how many people make it (quite a bit in this case). They have to wait until 11 a.m. to leave due to a bunch of the English teachers needing to finish their Saturday morning class instruction. It was a pleasant 3-hour bus ride with Disney DVDs playing the whole time. The bus driver and his wife had a little girl who was up top with us watching the movies, but besides her, no other kids came this time around. The kids were disappointed, but the movies helped drown their sorrows.



This is our first view of Taipei!

That really, really tall building is the "101," the 2nd tallest building in the world! I'd recommend coming to visit us soon and going to see it because rumor has it two other mega skyscrapers are about to be completed and they will beat this one, putting it in 4th place. Not as cool at that point.

 The one freeway rest stop that we had was quite the experience. I've never seen the likes. This place could almost be the destination of a trip rather than just a quick bathroom pullover! It was huge and clean and had all sorts of food places and amenities. There were about 50 toilet stalls (not exaggerating). Theo and I were directed into this special handicapped/family stall that had such features as a toddler-restraint seat, robot toilet/bidet and so-cool-a-little-kid-would-just-have-to-use-it little zebra toilet. I didn't see a baby changing table, but since the floor was relatively clean, we did ok there. At the stop on the way back, a very helpful restroom attendant ushered me to a different building where there was a breastfeeding room complete with a posh baby bed, with a pillow, and water proof mattress for changing diapers. I wish I would have had my camera or phone on me! Theo was so impressed with the accommodations he had a hard time lying still :)

Oh, and did I mention that there was live music for the relaxation and pleasure of the resting travelers? Violinist on the way there, saxophonist on the way back.

 Here is angle Moroni. We learned that he actually is facing West (not East like all the others) because he is looking towards China. Very interesting to think about.

The temple grounds were small and smack dab in the middle of the busy city (you'll see in a bit what I mean, seeing another photo). The boys and I walked around and took pictures for while, then made our way into the adjoining visitor's center / distribution center / institute building / stake center. The visitor center was basically a kiosk with some pamphlets and lovely sister missionaries and the distribution center was closed already, so luckily the Stake center had a gym for the boys to run around in for 2 hours. I had the slight hope of switching in for some baptisms, but that didn't work this time.

 There had just been a reception or something in the gym so with left-over balloons, a few kids hanging around and a wheeled chair-stacker (not to mention the several water dispensers in the hallways with folding paper cups and three choices of temperatures), the boys thought they were in Disney Land :) Also, in typical Taiwanese style, I had the pleasure of a few friendly chitchats with complete strangers who knew English incredibly well.  The 2 hours of waiting flew by.


Below is our church group: 2 senior missionary couples (one who just arrived 5 days prior) 5 English teachers, a young couple who are university students in the International Business program (and she's my private lessons yoga teacher), a long-time Taiwan resident who entertained us with a non-stop conversation all 6 hours of the driving trip, and a new convert from the Philippines who's baptism we attended our 2nd week here and who was having his first time to the temple and to Taipei!

Here is Brother Miller using Ryley as an arm rest. He's a funny, relaxed guy who recently decided the idea of an IronMan tickled his fancy so he gave himself 2 years to train: picked up biking for the first time, has run a few marathons, and polished up on his previous swimming skills. In 2 weeks his grand goal will be realized. He even got sponsored and was given a sweet bike. Very cool story.



Below is what Ryley is taking a picture of. As you can see, the temple is just right there in the middle of it all. It has that blue roof to match the Chinese architecture of the nearby monuments (names of which I forgot).

After our temple time, our bus drove us to a specific area to eat where Brother Miller knew there was a Mexican restaurant nearby (quite the rarity in Taiwan). We wandered around for awhile, asking a friendly, foreign-faced young man if he knew where it was--he did, pointing us in the right direction.

One of my favorite moments of this trip was in one of the narrow alleys where our large group was wondering: with no side-walks (of course) and scooters swerving wherever they pleased, I told Julien he couldn't scamper off ahead but had to hold someone's hand (intending to mean either Ben's or mine). But without skipping a beat he kept scampering to the front of our group and happily grabbed the hand of the senior missionary Elder and didn't even look back. It was cute.

The Mexican food was pretty bad, but given a few more months deprivation of the cuisine, I think we'd come to really appreciate it. To add to Ryan's "firsts" for the day, it was also his first Mexican food. He seemed to like it.

We ended up back at our apartment about 11:30 pm, having had a very nice day :)