There were a lot of fun activities on CNY day at the Taipei Grand Hyatt where we stayed for a couple of days.
This guy had some incredible clay molding skills.
Since it's the year of the rabbit, he's making rabbits!
The paper crafts were really detailed and intricate.
Chinese calligraphy is such a beautiful art form.
The music was traditional Chinese, classical and so pretty.
Whoa! The firecrackers that kicked off the festivities were I-N-T-E-N-S-E!!! It was so thrilling to be there.
I have never heard so many firecrackers go off at once in my life. There were hundreds of long strands coming down from the building in the entrance area. It was incredible.
The drums captivated the crowd.
This guy was recording the live event to show on the Internet.
It was so scary watching these guys jump around on these tall risers. At one point, they fell off and I got it on video, which I'll post later. They quickly remounted and continued the dragon dance.
The decor in the Grand Hyatt was so elegant and provided ample seating for conversation with friends.
We strolled over to the mall at the Taipei 101 to see our second dragon dance of the day.
We attempted to go to the zoo, but spending hours waiting in line for the gondola ride, the zoo had closed.
Here we saw our THIRD dragon dance/acrobats of the day on our first official Chinese New Year day.
We met some friendly Filipino women in line that I had fun socializing with since they could speak English.
More clay creatures, but not quite as spectacular as the ones at the hotel.
More paper crafting. I like the lacy heart design a lot. Check out the rose border. That looks complicated!
There were some water color paintings that I wanted to see but we got to this building just before it closed.
Finally! It was a long wait and we just barely made it before it got too dark to see.
There wasn't much at the top besides tea shops and we were tired, so we took a taxi back to the MRT.
An Easy Card is the way to go.
The following day, we went to a Taoist temple.
We briefly stepped inside to see what was going on, and didn't want to be disrespectful to those who were there for spiritual enlightenment, so we left and walked around outside.
Here's Kelly showing us how to use the MRT with the Easy Card. It's easy!
We took a tour up to an aboriginal tribe in the mountains to this village of the Walai people.
We waited in another ridiculously long line to ride the train.
It was worth it to see the show in the Gaga Theater with these talented youthful dancers. Their show was the best part of the tour, by far.
We rented bikes and rode along the coastline. I had a regular bike and Kelly and his parents and Christopher went in the surrey.
Christopher had a blast flying a kite on a very windy day along the seaside.
Squid on a stick.
Grilled to perfection.
Kelly enjoying his hot squid.
One of the odd car names here in Taiwan, the Nippy.
Twin girls at church.
One of the elders' cousins was in town with her Taiwanese husband and their son.
Someone gave us some corn on the cob at church so we cooked it as soon as we got home.
Marlene and Dee's last day before heading back to Colorado.
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