Longshan Temple

The Taipei Zoo

First of all, I'm going to have to say that I love zoos.  I really do.  Going to the Taipei Zoo might be the most memorable part of the trip.  There's nothing in the world that makes me feel like a human being than seeing animals in captivity.  Nothing.  The fact that the Taipei Zoo is the largest in Asia also helps.

These are the signs for the zoo right off the conveniently located Taipei Zoo subway stop.

The zoo has animals from all over the world, including this zebra.  A nice surprise was seeing American animals, like the brown bear and the otter.

One of the coolest exhibits in the zoo was the butterfly exhibit.  The entire thing was a greenhouse that you could walk through and butterflies were everywhere you looked.

However, the coolest thing to see in the zoo was the pandas.  I've never seen any before.  In person, they sort of look artificial, like they were animatronic.  However, they were fucking badasses.  For one thing, all they did was sit and eat shit.  After that, they took a nap while hundreds of people were watching them.

The zoo's so big and it was a pretty hot day when we went, so we didn't make it around to seeing every animal, but I would definitely recommend the zoo to anyone visiting Taiwan.

The Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial

The first thing we did in when we got to Taipei was go to this memorial.  Sadly, I don't really know anything about Chiang Kai-Shek but this is his memorial.

You might not be able to tell from the picture, but it's four stories up from the base to the entrance.  It was a bitch to walk up in the heat and it was sad when we found out there was an elevator that we could have taken.

This is the statue that sits inside the structure.  I think it's weird that he's smiling.

Taiwan's cool.

I'm updating from my hostel in Taipei right now.  I've done tons of shit in the two days that I've been here.  I've even seen some fucking pandas.  Tomorrow I'm leaving Taipei for a few days in another city.  I'm not actually sure which one, but Evan knows, so it's alright.  Not sure if the next hostel will have a computer that I can use, but I'll try to update when I can.