Night Market & Chinese Temples

The night market was a huge highlight of my trip in Taiwan. Imagine a mall mixed with the fair...it's a very long line of tents outside and there are soo many people everywhere! It is huge and there is everything for sale from umbrellas to purses to carnival food...and really nasty unidentifiable food too. And the shoes! It is a girls' shoe heaven! You never know what you might see, people dressed up and standing on stools yelling into a microphone to try and get people to come into their stores, and the strange thing is it seems to work! We went to the night market 3 or 4 times and each time we discovered some new alley full of wonderful shops where we got to bargain to our hearts' content:) All of the girls at the market wear colored contacts and fake eyelashes so long that they look like Venus flytraps, they are very blinky! In the picture of me with the two girls, you can see the one on the far right is sporting these snuffleupagus lashes! (By the way I loved those girls, they worked at my favorite boutique "Miss Baby" where I discovered several gems!) I found it very interesting that all of the mannequins in the shops are white with big heads of blond curly hair. Another thing that I loved in Taiwan is there are beautiful Chinese temples EVERYWHERE. They are very elaborate and my favorite one is tucked into the hill where my sister lives so we would pass it everyday. There is a big furnace where they burn fake money for good luck (what?) and at night it glows a strange shade of red that is borderline creepy! I had to get out one night and take pictures, I was a little scared but don't worry, the smell of burning incense calmed me down, haha!

Taipei 101

While we were in Taiwan we went to the Taipei 101 building. Up until January it was the tallest building in the world, it is now second to Dubai. We went on a foggy day so the view wasn't as amazing as usual but it was still really cool! The building itself has lots of fun, upscale shops and lots restaurants. We had lunch and then stood in line for about an hour before getting on the fastest elevator in the world to the 89th floor. The elevator was really cool, there were fiber-optics on the ceiling and a little elevator meter that showed how fast we were flying through the floors! We were so high up that we could feel the building sway back and forth...scary yet fun all at the same time! That night we went out to dinner at Tai Town and stopped by the Grand Hotel, the only traditional Chinese hotel in Taiwan. So fun!

Ping Shi

It's Chinese tradition to write all of your goals and wishes for the New Year on a lantern and send it off into the sky like a balloon. Apparently if you do this all of your wishes come true so we thought it was worth a try:) We drove to this little town called Ping Shi, along with masses of other people, and we set out to make our lanterns! If you Google Ping Shi, a video comes up of all the people letting their lanterns off into the sky all at once, it is the most beautiful thing ever! Shayn and I were quite pleased with our lantern, and when we were finished writing on it we took it outside where they lit it on fire and we got to watch it sail away...I'll have to keep you posted on whether or not all of our goals and wishes come true this year:) On the way home we almost ran out of gas and when we stopped at a little town to ask where the gas station was, they directed us to the "gas station", which turned out to be a lady who meandered over to the car holding a funnel and a small jug of gas. She funneled that gas into the car like it was an everyday occurrence and sent us on our merry way, what an adventure!

Valentine's Day

We got to experience Valentine's Day Taiwan-style this year! Pixie sent goody-bags for the kids and we spent an afternoon making (and eating!) Valentine's cupcakes. Then Erin and I planned an amazing date if I do say so myself:) We went to dinner at the cutest little Indian place and it was DELICIOUS! Then we went and had back and foot massages at this place where they give you some really hot sea-green shorts to wear during the massage. Actually not hot at all. We followed that up with ice cream fondue at Haagen Dazs, that's right, ICE CREAM FONDUE...best V-day ever:)

Chang Kai Shek Memorial

We had so much fun at the Chang Kai Shek Memorial, it was absolutely beautiful! We were lucky to get a little sun on a Sunday afternoon and because it was Chinese New Year there were lots of people there and a little carnival set up with games and food. This was where Shayn and I got to smell stinky tofu for the first time and let me just say that it is a life-changing experience...wow, that is a smell that will stay with us forever! We had front row seats for the changing of the guard which was really cool, those poor guys really stand there all day and don't even flinch! There was so many beautiful places at the Memorial, we had to take advantage of the photo-ops!

The Year of the Tiger

We had so much fun on Chinese New Year's Eve! Erin and I found the cutest mini pineapples at a market that we used for our centerpieces and even though tradition calls for fish on the holiday, we decided to have hamburgers instead since round food is supposed to be good luck. After dinner we went out to the balcony where we had lots of fun with sparklers and fireworks. The boys pulled out the big guns for the finale on the top balcony and we all cuddled up to watched the show! Before bed we gave the kids little New Years treats that included dragon-heads and dress up masks that turned out to be a huge hit...who knew?

Uncle Shayn!

We decided to keep Uncle Shayn's impending arrival a secret from the kids so that it would be a fun surprise for them. He arrived late at night so during breakfast the next day we told the kids that we had a surprise for them, and I think that the last thing they expected was for a person to emerge from the guest bedroom, they were literally speechless. Well, for a brief second anyway. Uncle Shayn was quickly whisked away to look at every dollhouse and pirate ship on the premises. From that moment on it was lots of rough housing, tickle wars and adventures of spider hunting...and Auntie Ashley was almost completely forgotten until his departure! One day Kohen asked me in all seriousness if Uncle Shayn was Mr. Incredible-now that's a fan base! Every morning at the crack of dawn we could see three little sets of feet through the door crack, not so quietly whispering for us to get up. One morning Nathan and Shayn went golfing and when I opened my bedroom door in the morning, Aly tried to peer around me desperately asking, "is Uncle Shayn in there? Where did he go!?!" Well for me to say that the boys had a good time golfing is probably not doing it justice, Shayn has officially declared it his best golfing experience ever, and I have to admit they had a beautiful view:)