Christmas

Just a few quick pics of our Christmas.

Merry Christmas!!!!!!

We love you all!!!! And miss you more than you can imagine!!

Up, Up, and Away

This weekend we went up to Keelung to see what we could see and ended up finding a huge temple. It had about 4 different sections to it. The first is the main temple that you see below, it itself was massive. Now look up to the left and behind it... see the pagoda... that was only about halfway up to the next section. Why is that pertinant? Because we walked of course, and I want you to feel sorry for us walking up a freaking mountain with 3 kids in tow. Here is the entrace to the temple, or at least as much as the camera would allow.
Here is one set of stairs that we climbed... we climbed at least 3 sets of these, and then you have to count the actual climb up additional stairs that went up the side of the mountain. If you look really really close at the top you see a little blue speck.... that would be my daughter,
and yes it really was that far and that steep.


This is actually the third level... I don't know what happened to the second... it was quite beautiful - it was like a picnic, relaxation area, with a bunch of small pagoda's everywhere with stone tables and chairs inside. I know this because this is where I actually started second guessing our little gaunt while laying flat on my back on one of the stones. I must have hallucinated about taking a picture of it - you know I heard lack of oxygen can do that to you.
Below in this Pagoda there is an actual musuem where you can go in and learn the history of Keelung. Unfortunately they wouldn't let you climb to the top.

This is what awaited us at the top of the mountain, and I don't use the word "mountain" lightly. This statue was over 5 stories tall. Once again if you squint and look at the bottom middle you can see my children.

You could actually climb to the top of the statue and they had little peep holes to look out (no not the eyes). Below you can see the stairs/ladder that we climbed up to go to the top. Remember that we just climbed up a side of a freakin' mountain and now we're climbing another 5 stories... yes we are retarded.

The Goddess was protected by two extremely large dragon/dog/don't actually know thingies, but impressive none the less.

To the grrreat delight of my children you could ring the actual gong at the temple. And yes it was huge and made an extremely lound noise to go along with it's size.

And of course it was one of those "not as easy as it looks" events.

It took quite a bit of effort.

Then of course they had vendors and such around the grounds. The kids got to ride motorcycles. And by the way they were driving, they could have driven on the streets of Taipei.

Keelung is a port city. In fact this is where we had our stuff shipped when we came. Below is a picture of one of many loading zones that surround the area. It was a foggy day, but if you look out past everything, then you see the ocean. And no, you can't see China.

You guys are just silly sometimes.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXO

(click, click, click.....damn - still doesn't work)