CKS Memorial Hall

6 months had passed, then only I realized I haven't post this up, haha...

Ok, back to our Taiwan's trip, it's nothing too special on the 2nd day. As we were quite tired after a long trip to the northern part of Taiwan the day before, we just wanted to take things easy that day. So, we decided to walk around Taipei city with our folks & kids.

Well, the place a tourist shouldn't miss when they stroll around Taipei city is for sure the CKS Memorial Hall (國立中正紀念堂).

The boys were thrilled to bump into so many real soldiers. They so admired them.

Well, I kind of admired them too, for their seriousness.

It's hard to differentiate them, everyone look just the same.

They have reminded me of the clone-troopers in Star War movie, hehe...

Ok, I think they were getting ready to go for an outing then.

Asked them if they want to become a soldier when they grow up later, they nodded their head. OMG, I'm having every mom's night mare there.

The liberty square.

National Concert Hall on the left.

National Theater on the right.

Standing at the center of Liberty Square.

With the Memorial Hall as backdrop.

Young soldiers who were moving the canons for don't-know-what-reason.

The boys walked closer & closer, luckily they didn't get shoo away.

Vincent think they are super cool.

He deliberately asked me to take a photo of him when he pretended he is one of the soldiers who was working on the canon.

Little flowers which had captured William's attention.

Before walking to the Memorial Hall, we made a little detour to the garden along the way.

The Chinese garden is always associated with ponds, ornamental bridge, waterfall, green grass etc. This one is no exception.

Oh yeah, and gold fishes too.

I enjoyed people-watching though. Like the father who was pampering his son...

or the kids playing happily around...

Since we were here, I thought we should pay a visit to the late president Chiang Kai Shek in the monument hall over there, but parents-in-law prefer to sit in the garden though. So, we had to leave them in the garden and moved on.

Two sets of white stairs, each with 89 steps to represent Chiang's age at the time of his death, lead to the main entrance.

The main entrance features a pair of double doors, each standing 16m high and weighing 75 tons, that open into the main hall.

A large bronze statue of Chiang Kai-Shek dominates the main hall. The figure is shown smiling seated and wearing traditional Chinese dress. Inscribed on the wall above and behind the seated figure are the Chinese characters of Ethics, Democracy, and Science.

I've tried hard to explain the words on wall to William, but apparently, he was more into this young soldier who couldn't even blink his eyes.

Seriously, I don't think I can stand there like this for any longer than 2 minutes.

The other soldier who was standing at the opposite. Well, I guess all they did for the whole standing-session is probably to look at each other, or day dreaming.

The Liberty Square as seen from the Memorial Hall.

No wonder it's a popular place to hold big scale concert.

Alright, time to go to pick up the parents-in-law now...

What we didn't expect to see is the open fountain at outside. The boys ran straight into it without asking for our consent.

They have been complaining about the boredom of having nothing fun to do in this place. So, when they finally found one, they won't take "NO" as the answer.

End up, they were not too far from soaking wet. Without carrying any extra clothes & socks, we need to keep the clothes and dumped the socks. Sigh.

After the kids finished their business, we hired 2 taxi to go to our next destination, TAIPEI 101.

Albeit the tallest building it is, there is nothing too special about this place. We took our lunch at a food court, then continued the rest of our journey thereafter.