Kristi-Meredith meets Asia

I spent my last week in Taiwan traveling with my best friend Meredith and her husband Dave.  I was super excited to see them, and we had a blast bashing around together!  We spent 5 days in Taipei...here's some of the highlights!

 Train ride from Taichung to Taipei...standing room only.

 The Park!

 Here we are at one of the metro stations...I'm not quite sure how to explain the chaos of this night!  It was New Year's Eve and we, along with 750,000 other people, were headed to Taipei 101 to watch the fireworks.

 These people were all in front of us, waiting to somehow find space in a car.

There were gaurds at each of the doors ushering people on and off...look at all those people crammed in there! I couldn't take a picture once we finally got on because I was too close to people to even move my arm. Insane!

 We finally made it downtown to where we could at least see 101.  The fireworks were pretty sweet coming off the entire building!

 It is now the year 100 in Taiwan, Republic of China!

 Happy New Year!!!

I took this picture on our way out of the city...before we entered the funnel.  There were SO many people trying to leave that the street was litterally clogged. We couldn't have moved if we wanted too! We were surrounded, pushed and shoved along by the crowd until we finally emerged and could breathe again!

  

 Scooter madness on the street

 Good Morning Taipei! We started the New Year off right at the temple.  It was wonderful to go to the baptistry one last time before going home.

 Next we visited Jiufen, a fun little city up the mountains.  Dave had some friends from his mission that were kind enough to drive us there and show us around.  We had lunch and then wandered through the shops.

This man paints beautiful Chinese characters that he turns into pictures.  He made the colorful scroll below for me that says

"Wo Ai Taiwan!"

 Here's the view of the adorable village at dusk...

 And overlooking the ocean!

 Me and Mer

 Here we are after Sunday dinner with Dave's friends and the missionaries!

 We went to a little night market in Bitan where there was this awesome bridge...the lights on it were constantly changing color...I included 4 pictures to prove it!

Day #4: Chiang Kai Shek!

 This is the face of a wet, tired, hungry, grumpy Dave.

 Back to Taipei 101, the 2nd tallest building in the world! This time we did go to the top...it was a cloudy day, but still pretty cool! 

 Cherry blossoms in the city!

Next stop: The National Palace Museum.  Lots of old Asian stuff...we got kinda tired and didn't see everything, but don't worry...we DID see the jadeite cabbage!

 Mer and Dave at their finest.