I was visiting some Tai Chi Masters in Taipei and Taichung. Here's the Taipei 101 Building, the tallest building in the world since 2003.
Click the Taiwan Satellite image to see a map of where I live (in the SE corner in T'ai-tung).
If you're interested in some basic facts about Taiwan, visit here for the Wiki.
And here is a famous Daoist temple in Taipei that I visited which also has many Buddhist images. Many people go here everyday to give offerings of incense to the the Gods and pray.
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After Push Hands class with the Tai Chi master, I went to the National Palace Museum:
Here I saw the ancient treasures of China from 5000 B.C. to present... all these treasures were brought to Taiwan during the Communist Revolution in China circa 1949 (Thank God!). The communists would have destroyed most of the treasures and erased so much history if the Nationalist Army had not rescued them and brought them to Taiwan. A cool thing about this museum is you can see in the picture how the museum goes into the mountain. It has a high tech security system that will retract the most precious ancient treasures into vaults within the mountain in case of earthquake or attack (by agressive American politicians... they're not too worried about China anymore).
It was an enlightening experience to see things such as past emperors' hygienic tools that kept them looking cool and powerful everyday. Also amazing, are small intricately carved statues that can fit in the palm of your hand that took a master artist 5 years to complete! This one is carved from an olive pit and has a story composed of 300 Chinese characters carved into the bottom of the boat!!! The actual carving is smaller than this picture!:
This snuff bottle given as a gift to an Emperor of China is painted on the INSIDE! It was painted with a minute brush through the small hole in the top!
Check out this Bullet train. My girlfriend and I rode on one in Japan at 186 mph. It was a wicked ride! At times it felt cooler than a roller coaster ride! Click the pic to read about Japan's Shinkansen:
And now Taiwan has a bullet train too! It just began operating and I'm looking forward to boarding it! A previous 5 hour ride across Taiwan has been cut to 1.5 hours by the "Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp."
Next, I hope to catch a ride on the MagLev in Shanghai, China. It can reach 500 kmh by gliding over magnets! (click the pic for the wiki).
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