Our Columbus Day Weekend: Zoodinlegmem

The Zoo

(Since I just did a post about the zoo in DC, I thought I should update about our trip to the zoo here.)

                  The Weekend of Columbus Day we thought we would take some time to do a fun Gondola trip up the side of Yamingshan Mountain and then on the way back down go to the zoo here.

                  We invited some new friends along with us.  Lilu, Chris, and their daughter Sophie live a couple floors below us.  Lilu is from Mainland China and we get along really great.  She has lots of great insights and gives me courage to try foods she insists are good.  When just she and I and the kids go out, her speaking Chinese makes everything we do together much easier.  Elliana and Sophie get along really well too so its great fun! 

                 The Gondola ride offered some great views and the kids really enjoyed it.  At the top, surprisingly, really wasn't as scenic as the ride up, but there were some little shops and tea restaurants that I have heard are alright.  

             Since we wanted to get in more zoo time, we didn't stay long, but headed back half way down to the zoo.  There were some really interesting animals and the kids had a lot of fun with the monkeys especially.  

This little monkey dude was very interested in Elli, right after this shot, he put his hand up next to hers! It was awesome, but my hand wasn't fast enough to get it on camera. 

 Good friends leading each other to the next exhibit.

Momma and baby Monkey! Too cute!

 I wish I could remember the name of this deer like animal.  It was really cool to see in person.  I remember it was from Africa, so ask Tyson and Diana, because they are probably Africa Animal experts by now, right? Or have you guys been slacking...

 Sienna fell asleep so nicely for us.  At least one of our children are easy! 

 I wish we could have gotten more pics, but just our luck Elli didn't sleep well the night prior and was a "joy" to be around.  She was teetering on melt downs all day, which was a bummer since it was our first big outing with Lilu and Chris.  But they were really understanding and amidst all that, we did enjoy seeing some very cool animals and even ate a pretty good and interesting lunch of noodles and chicken drumsticks, deliciously homemade soy milk, a chinese burrito like thing, and some interesting sweet dessert that is too hard to describe. AND the best part-- the cost of admission to this zoo is roughly $2 USD.  Can't beat that!

Honestly, can't beat this toddler tantrum pout either.  She is like the picture perfect epitome of a toddler!

Dinner

That night we ended the night by going for an early dinner with Chris and Lilu 

while the kids played at our house with Alile.  We had plans to go somewhere else, but it was way crowded and we didn't want to take too long.  We saw this fun looking South Asian/ Fusion style restaurant and thought we would take a chance.  It was really very good with a great ambience, a little pricey though :(

I got a yummy scallop risotto which I really liked.  They also had these cool glasses with a rounded bottom that would sway back and forth on a tilt.  I thought it was pretty fun!

The Art of the Brick: LEGOS

On actual Columbus day, We also did a little family trip to an exhibit downtown.  The artist uses legos as art in really cool formations.  I know a lot of you have seen things like this before, but it was our first time, and we thought it was pretty cool.  Here's a little of what we saw.

Elli wanted to touch each exhibit.  You can see from above that it annoyed her that she couldn't!

Yep- the whole dinosaur out of legos!  Pretty cool!

Only the strings weren't legos! Looked very similar to the real one.

These lego portraits were really intriguing close up and at a distance. 

At the end, they had a little area where you could create your own lego masterpiece. 

Elliana was very focused on creating her art piece.  She was content working on it for quite a while.  We finally had to tear her away when we wanted to go.  

Quite the artist! 

Memorial and Changing of the Guard

              After the lego art, we went to Sun Yat Sen Memorial. Sun Yat Sen was kind of like the founding father of modern china, after the Qing Dynasty collapsed.  Most Chinese and Taiwanese revere him.  The ruling party that governs Taiwan today is semi linked to him.  We thought that this was a good way to commemorate Columbus.  Columbus found America, Sun Yat Sen established the foundation for today's China. :)  It also helped that this memorial was right around the corner from the Lego exhibit-- yeah, we actually didn't think it through more than that.  

             At the memorial, they do a changing of the guards somewhat similar to the one at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Memorial Cemetery.  Elliana was transfixed and only made a noise, a growl actually, when the walked by her.  Don't really know why she decided to growl but thats Elli.  The whole changing was actually pretty long too- I think they did like 20 different back and froths with their rifles.   I didn't have my phone during the actual changing, because Todd and I got separated for a bit, but we still got pics of the  memorial and the guards walking away.  

And that was our Columbus Day Weekend: ZooDinnerLegosMemorial

On another note, two days later was National Day which is supposed to be celebrating the nation's birth of sorts (10-10 when the Qing Dynasty was overthrown.)  We thought it would be like our Independence Day, but apparently, that's not the case.  They government does fireworks, but it changes every year where it is done, so no town feels slighted, and people don't do their own.  This year it was in a city a big distance away.  We wanted to go to the parade or something in front of the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, but it was almost impossible to find information on it, and apparently only tour buses really are able to go see most of it.   So since we couldn't find out any definitive information, I instead did some local shopping with Lilu and got a massage at a nearby place. Kind of lame, since I would have loved to celebrate with the locals but apparently even the locals don't really do anything.  My chinese teacher said it is partly because Taiwan is unsure of their own identity right now, and, since this national day is still very linked to China, it is controversial.  The chinese massage was interesting involving slapping my legs, scraping my back with this weird comb contraption, and some good regular massaging too; but considering I got few bruises as a result, I think my next massage will be somewhere else.  Happy Birthday Taiwan!