Day 61 Taipei, Taiwan

Well we are back. We had very spotty internet service yesterday due to the fact we receive our signals from a satellite. Supposedly sun spots have something to do with the outage. I think it has something to do with global warming, like all the other problems we experience.
Anyway, we spent the day in Taipei, which had the feeling of a large metropolitan city much like many of the others we have visited. While there we saw the changing of the guard at the Royal palace then visited a museum of antiquities. The museum was shoulder to shoulder people all trying to listen to their own tour guide thru a sporadically workable headset. I can only take so much carved Jade and ancient Chinese pottery. Leaving the museum we were off to the Chang Hi Sheck memorial. I found it to be a tribute to propaganda. I was amused to hear our guide talk about all the learned people that disappeared under his rule and when I questioned why build a shrine to someone like this he evaded the question and said he was a great man. All we saw there was awards that were given to him from leaders from around the world and pictures of him and his wife from his early days to the end of his life.
We then got a chance to drive to the Taipei 101 building which is the second largest building in the world. The Taiwanese are very proud of this building as a symbol of their country and what it can accomplish.
Then it was back to the ship to get on our way to Okinawa, Japan tomorrow.

Chris - I found Taiwan, or the part we saw, to be a beautiful mixture of green mountains, shrines and metropolitan cities. You'd look up to a mountain and occasionally there'd be a temple or shrine perched high up in the mountain. Quite a beautiful, serene sight. Taipei looked like a lot of other metropolitan cities, but interspersed with the buildings are monuments, shrines, temples or memorials. The city was very lush with an abundance of trees and flowers. They had palm trees with flower patterns in the median of the streets which softened the feel of the busy city. It was also apparent that there was a lot of American influence in this busy city. There was a 7 - 11 on almost every corner, literally. They are open 24 hours a day and it was one of the first things our tour guide told us about. We also saw the likes of McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Blockbuster, Coke etc. All in all I was very impressed with the beauty and look of Taiwan.