On my way home from India, I stopped in Taipei, Taiwan for three days. It was my first time experiencing the Chinese culture as well as travelling alone. I stayed in the Da’an District in south Taipei City.

This is me in front of the Liberty Square main gate.

On the first day, I visited the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. It was a massive complex that was unlike anything I had seen before. It was what I had imagined when visiting Asia with its ginormous buildings and orange tipped roofs. I was blown away by the sheer size of these structures. I walked through the massive white archways to be in the middle of Liberty Square. The memorial hall is the gray building in the background of the picture. It normally is white on the outside but it was under construction. It took me nearly 10 minutes to finally get there.

One of the guards can be seen behind me.

I eventually found myself in the memorial hall of Chiang Kai-shek, the former President of the Republic of China. The memorial reminded me of the Lincoln Memorial with both memorials having an enormous statue of the person sitting down. There are also two guards always watching over the monument. They have a similar "changing of the guards" ceremony to that of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington D.C..

This is outside of the temple Main Hall.

My next visit was to the Lungshan Temple of Manka, which is a Buddhist temple. There was an awe in walking through the archway to get into the temple courtyard. Most people were walking around with incense sticks. The method to worship here is to follow a path around the temple worshiping the gods in each hall along the way. They eventually end in the middle at the Guan-Yin Censer to place their incense in the censer. I also saw people people tossing Jiao. This is a way of asking the gods about an issue someone is having. There were three different cases of Jiao, Holy, Hsiao and Yin Jiao each with their own interpretation. It was interesting to see so many people partaking in this activity.

Everyone from the plane to the hotel staff said that I had to go to the famous Taipei nightmarkets. I visited the market in Ningxia to eat dinner. It reminded me of a bustling city street in New York city with its bright lights and different smells. I was anxious to try new foods but ultimately not get sick. I definitely wanted to see my food being cooked. I had heard the grilled squid was great here so I had to try this. They cooked the squid right in front of me and of course I got the spicy version. They cut it up and it was delicious! I also had an egg and onion pancake which was tasty as well.

My next stop was Taipei 101. This is the 9th tallest building in the world with a height of 509.2m. I wanted to go up at night and see the city lit up. It was incredible to see all of the city lights with the mountains in the background.

The next morning I got up early and headed to the National Palace Museum. This museum holds one of the largest collection of Chinese artifacts in the world. Similar to the Memorial Hall, the complex was grandeur and I was impressed by the vastness of the grounds. My favorite piece was the "Planter with a coral carving of the planetary deity Kuixing". The intricacy of the design and vibrant colors made this piece impressive. This piece is the first one in the slideshow and has a red figurine standing on a green jadeite dragon.

Unlike India, English is not widely spoken in Taiwan so getting around was difficult. I relied mainly on the help of the locals as I wasn't travelling with a Mandarin speaker. They were always willing to help me even if they did not understand what I was saying. I also found showing a picture of where I wanted to go with the Mandarin translation in the picture was the best way to get around. This trip gave me a taste of Asia and made me realize how much more of this continent that I wanted to see.

This won't be the last time I will be in Asia and I'm hoping I will be back sooner rather than later!