Melodie and her fellow teachers didn't have to work on Friday, so we used the surprise day off to do some sightseeing around Taipei. After breakfast and a trip to the laundromat (not so easy when everything's in chinese, but we had sweated through most of our clothes so it had to be done!) we traveled about 15 minutes to Longshan Temple. None of us knew anything about the temple, but when we arrived we saw a pretty impressive and colorful piece of architecture.
There were a bunch of tables and on them people were leaving offers... including some Lays chips, cookies and orange juice. Mmmmm Buddha's favorite. A lot of people had sticks of incense to wave around while they prayed. Luckily, there was a holy shop on site where you could purchase the chips, incense, etc.
After a delightfully air conditioned lunch in Ximen we headed to the end of the subway line, Danshui, where we passed by a lot of squid-on-a-stick carts to get on a boat to the Lovers Bridge area. Lovers Bridge is pretty iconic around here... you see it in a lot of ads, and it was a pretty nice place to visit. There was 50s music playing, a bunch of cafes and restaurants to stop at, and carnival games for the kids to play. The bridge itself was probably just built for touristy purposes because while it's pretty happening on one side, the other side of the bridge just had a big seafood restaurant and a bunch of old boats.
We grabbed a beer and enjoyed it on a bench (50 points for being able to drink in public areas!) As the night went on the bridge lit up with different colors and it was all very nice.
On the trip home we were all pretty tired from covering a lot of ground over the course of the day, but none of us were as tired as this fellow:
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