3 Engagements

Day 29
Rained again today.  I met up with some friends for lunch at Guan Yin restaurant on Ming Chuan Dong Lu.  Lunch was a nice banquet, very delicious and full of dishes.  I met people who were hard core volunteers from LA.  



Bringing your own chopsticks to help the environment from disposable chopsticks is very green and a in for the social thing right now.  So I carry my own set.


This man who's name I forgot shared a story of how he was volunteering in Sacramento and he fell asleep behind his wheel on his exit home in LA.  The car flipped and rolled off the exit ramp.  He was able to climb out of the car and go get help by walking home.  He said his house was right off the exit.  He truely believed he had been saved and was able to walk away without a scratch.  I didn't talk about my accidents, I was busy stuffing my face with food.



Mr. Hsieh who was a photojournalist for a magazine is now retired and looking into becoming a Buddhist monk.  He is a very nice person, a quite fellow.  Photography is our common interest.  










Lunch ended at 2:30pm.  I took the metro and then transferred on to a bus up to Yang Ming Shan for hot spring at LaKu.  I made it in the bath at 4pm.  It's 300 yuan or $10 us dollar for an hour a nice room to yourself and fresh double pool of hot and cold.  I like the double pool set up.  






I got out at 5pm to catch the 5:25pm bus back to the metro to make it for my dinner with friends.


This is the escalator interchanging metro lines during rush hour.  It's a steep long escalator, glad it was working and running.  


Dinner was at 6:30pm, great that my friends are good at giving directions.  It was fun to meet up with them.  It is an interesting thing to meet up with friends one in a blue moon but still hang out as if nothing had been missed, we catch up.  

Puppetry Art Center of Taipei

Day 28 con't
I took the metro blue line to Chen Yi Fu Xing exit #5 to Taiko and stood there for free Jing Hua Cheng shuttle a.k.a. Living Mall, the Puppet Museum is right next to it.  I had a cup of freshly squeezed OJ for 60 yuan.  It was great!  Fresh juice is the best!

These are original scripts hand written for shows.  

I learned that there are different types of puppetry: string, glove, shadow. 










The glove puppetry is reserved for historical stories and legends.  The modern ones appear on TV shows with special light effects.  The modern puppet's face has a distinct facial expression and costume.  A current popular type of show is called JinGangXi a.k.a. Vajra Show.  These stories are about marital art legends who have super natural powers of coming back from the dead.  They are called Vajra because of the indestructible nature of the life and body, depicting chivalry and courage. 













These items show how legends influence a culture.  The story is of a female who used these items to protect her wedding and today these items are a must have in modern culture in a wedding ceremony. 


These fire works are also used today to ward off bad luck or bad spirits in weddings. 
 





















These are traditional instruments for the puppetry theatre performances.  











Traditional string puppetry








Traditional shadow puppetry, which I love very much except it's made of cow hide.  



It rained earlier today and made the summer humid weather more easy to enjoy.  I seem to be having one of these shaved ice a day.  I like classic black syrup.