Interesting Sidewalk monument
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With no children at home I don’t need to go to Costco more than two or three times a year. This is a good thing since I don’t have a car. Today I took the train to Nori’s and she met me at the station in her van. We drove to Kawasaki and I stocked up on things I use, but can really live without. You should see how many things I thought of buying, but left in the store. After Costco we went to the Lazona Mall in Kawasaki for lunch and to visit a grocery store that Nori likes. She will deliver my purchases to me Thursday after we go to the temple.
Bridge at Hamarikyu
This morning I asked Rick what his plans were for the day. Temple, haircut and working on his talk for Sunday. I thought we would be staying close to home so I just started working on things around the house. About 3:30 PM he was ready to get out of the house. I made the comment that I needed to go to Ikea sometime soon and he was ready to go today. We took the train and first went to visit a huge (over 250 stores) mall near Ikea. We walked around to get an idea of what was there and then walked over to Ikea. The first stop was the restaurant for dinner. Rick had roast beef and of course I had Swedish meatballs. It was good. The market place was then next stop for a few things I needed. We bought some packets of gravy, some black salt licorice and had a 50 yen ice cream cone on the way out.
I like Ikea! Sometimes I get overwhelmed by being a foreigner and being foreign is more obvious here. In London, I could blend in as long as I didn’t talk. It helps me if I can go somewhere that isn’t so foreign. Since I don’t ever frequent McDonalds Ikea fits the bill.
I think this bike is really cool. They are having a contest to win one between now and November 17, 2010. Click on the photo to go to their website to enter.
It seems that I am forever reminded of things that I forgot to teach my children. When James went on his mission to Haiti and was an AP he couldn’t drive the mission vehicles because they all had manual transmissions and we hadn’t taught him to drive one. We took care of that with Andrew and he drove a lovely old Mustang we bought that had a manual transmission.
One of the areas I really failed in was teaching my girls anything about sewing. Now, Ally has Maddie the fashionista who wants to learn to sew her designs and Kristina is trying to make Halloween costumes for her and Brian. She needs to make an applique for the front of their costumes and I was feeling rather guilty that I wasn’t there to make it for her. Then this morning I was inspired. So I got out my fabric and wonder under and created a tutorial with step by step instructions and photos. I hope it works for her. I was going to post it here today and then realized that I might get in trouble for posting it in case they want it to be a surprise. I have to call her in few hours so I’ll ask her and possibly post it later.
I am impressed at how active senior citizens in Tokyo are. I see them out cleaning in front of their homes, walking, shopping, exercising, biking, cleaning up the park…Today they were in the park painting the pond. I love the women on the left who is framing the scene with her fingers.
Ximen, Taipei
Today we headed to the station near our hotel and went to several areas of Taipei to just look around. We began at Longshan Temple. Since it was a holiday 10-10-10 and they are celebrating the beginning of their 100th year there was a lot of praying, singing, and incense burning going on. It was very interesting to watch.
After Longshan Temple we went to Ximen, but everything was still closed so we took the train to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial. It is a beautiful square with the memorial at one end flanked by a concert hall and a theater and a wonderful gate at one end. It was beautiful open area made more interesting today by the huge inflatable balloons scheduled to be part of the parade later this afternoon. Here are the photos.
Chiang Kai-shek Memorial
National theater
The Gate
Happy 100th
We left this area and took a train ride up to the top of Taiwan to a stop called Danshui. It’s a seaside town and for some reason I didn’t get many photos there. We did eat some yummy pork dumplings.
From Danshui we hurried back to Taipei to watch the big parade. The spot we selected wasn’t very crowded and it was as much fun watching the people watch the parade as it was to watch the parade.
Marching Bands
Patriotic Dog
Spinning
Posing
The couple above cracked me up! they took turn taking photos of each other in front of “every” float, band, etc.
Taipei Hell's Angels????
Enthusiasm
Future "Angel" in training
Cute Family
Brothers
Father and Son
This father and son had the best time at the parade. It was easy to see what a close and wonderful relationship they have.
We ended the day by going back to Ximen for dinner.
When I was attending university people would often say “Keep on Trucking.” It was on bumper stickers, hats etc. It was the same as saying, “Hang in there” or in Japan we would say, Ganbatte.” The image on the bumper sticker was of a man leaning way back and really stretching his leg out to take a huge step. The artist made the foot in front much larger proportionally to emphasize the big step. My friends and I would often “truck” across campus, taking huge steps to see if that got us places faster. It usually did.
We saw this statue in Taipei and it reminded me of “trucking.” The alarming part for me is that he is missing his head. I wonder what that means?
