It has been a very long smokey season in Chiang Mai and the air is hot and dry and cough-inducing. We had to go somewhere for our VISAs: so why not go to a big city for some fresh air?

Several weeks ago (I haven’t posted in a while!), we went to Taipei to try again applying for our family’s non-immigrant VISAs. That part of the trip was unsuccessful, but almost every other aspect of our weeklong trip was great. Jeremiah is writing a post about one event in Taiwan that threatened to ruin our trip. (Link to Jeremiah’s Post Here). We would walk several blocks to the Thailand Economic Trade Center each morning and give the people behind the desk our paperwork. It would take many hours to process, so we would leave to go enjoy Taiwan before going back to the Thailand Economic Trade Center later that day for our paperwork and let-downs.

Now for some non-gloomy things we did: The first day, we were sitting in the park near the building we had just dropped our paperwork into and then our parents said we had a plan and we walked to the nearest Metro. Although Chiang Mai is a big city, there are no Metro stations, so Taipei was interesting just because of their HUGE underground train system. None of us had been on a Subway train since we were in Hong Kong after adopting Tallulah five years ago. It was nice and well organized and it made traveling around the city easier.

Taipei was very orderly and organized which all of us agreed was a nice change of pace compared to “no-rules do whatever you want Chiang Mai.” There were green paths on the street for people to walk on and a bike lane on the sidewalk. And that was nothing compared to the escalators.

So perfect. So organized. Everyone stood on the right side of the escalator so that those in a hurry could pass on the left.

I digress. As I was saying, we left the park and walked a short distance to the next Metro station. That day we started off our trip with one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced: Taipei 101. If you haven’t heard of Taipei 101 then you should look it up. It is the world’s 11th tallest building at 1667 feet high! We took the metro station right to Taipei 101 and immediately hopped in an elevator up to the seventh floor. On the seventh floor, we got our tickets and we ushered into a really nice elevator. Much better than the one at our hotel that loved to close on people. When we were traveling up, faster than I thought was mechanically possible, the lights in the elevator dimmed and showed fake constelations on the ceiling. The screen on the wall showed floor numbers changing nearly as fast a stopwatch. Then we hit the 89th floor: The Observation Deck. It was awesome. It was cold and covered in windows that gave us a full 360 view of Taipei.

We saw mountains and skyscrapers and buildings that were made to look cool just for us tourists.

Yes the middle one is an Apple Store shaped like a Laptop Computer.

The next day, we went to Taipei Zoo.

The Zoo had its own Metro station so it was very easy to get there. Wait, no it wasn’t! Before we went to the Zoo, my dad had to go get something from our hotel room and he was going to get on the Metro closest to our hotel and hop on a train and meet us at the next stop. The “little” disaster that happened earlier in the morning had slowed down the trains and only a few passed, so crammed with passengers I was worried someone would suffocate. (Again, Jeremiah is writing about the “little disaster“). Only three trains came through before we found Dad. (The train going the opposite way came at least 10 times!) Dad had decided it would take too long and be too crowded when he saw the trains by his metro so he decided to quickly walk (run) to our Metro station instead. By the time he got there, the “traffic” had sped up and trains were moving normally. We hopped on and went to the Zoo.

The Taipei Zoo is the largest zoo in Asia. It is huge. All of us were exhausted walking around it. It is so big we had to go to it twice to see everything! The second day, though, we went to the North America section and were disgusted by this guy.

It is hard to tell but this is an American Bison. We are used to seeing skinny cows but none compare to this creature. I am sure when, in Genesis, Pharaoh has a dream of seven fat cows being eaten by the sickest, skinny cows, he was seeing this buffalo as one of the “famine cows.”

Anyway, one thing that is cool about Asian Zoos are that they can have more outdoor exhibits because the weather outside is the weather in the animal’s natural habitat. They have the indoor penguins and pandas and that’s about it.

The name above intrigued me so I looked it up and apparently this breed of penguin, the Jackass Penguin, are called Jackass because they sound like donkeys. Weird.

They had every kind of elephant (which I didn’t take any pictures of because there are plenty of elephants in Chiang Mai), every kind of bear,

and a ton of wild spiders everywhere. (It’s really hard to tell, but the first spider is really close to the camera right in the center of the photo!)

Speaking of spiders, they’re a few things that the Taipei Zoo had that, in my opinion, beat almost every other Zoo. Their Insectarium was probably the most filled and informative Insectarium I have ever seen. Their butterfly room had only a few species of Butterfly and I thought that was it but it kept going on and on and on. There were small bugs crawling around the walkways like praying mantis and ants. (The “leaves” on the tree in the 3rd photo are butterflies!)

There were butterflies and wasps and bees flying around. Fun fact we learned at a bee farm, asian bees are not aggressive. Seriously, it is crazy. When we went to the bee farm, I expected us to put on hazmat/beekeeper suits and not to touch any bees but they would just pick up a bee and set in our ungloved hands. Not a single sting.

Anyways, the coolest part of the zoo was definitely the Pangolin Dome.

The whole time we were there, we wanted to see the Pangolins. They are a rare and endangered animal that is kind of a mix between an armadillo and an anteater. They are really cool and really cute. Except the Pangolin Dome had no pangolins! We saw one sleeping in another exhibit but that was it. What a let down!

Even though it was called the Pangolin Dome, it was home to many, many more animals than that. It was, as the name suggests, a big chain dome full of trees and plants. We walked on a windy concrete path and was immediately met by these two HUGE birds just right next to us. (That dark thing in the tree is called a “Great Argus”, and it was as long as a young child!)

The one on the railing, the Great Cussarow, looked like it would lunge at any moment.

Right after we passed those birds, we were met by two or three little Cotton-Topped Tamarins. Now, I don’t really care for monkeys. I think they are ugly, creepy, and grosser than most animals. Same with koalas. But if I had to get a monkey I would definitely want it to be these guys. They were small and brown and orange in color, but their highlighting feature was their mane of pure white hair. They look like the coolest little rockstars ever. Plus, they weren’t shy. My dad set his hand on the railing and one of them just walked over it to impress the other tourists.

Also in the Pangolin Dome was a little “Kingdoms of the Night” exhibit. (If you don’t know what “Kingdoms of the Night” is, go to the Henry Doorly Zoo under the desert dome). They call it The Nocturnal Zone. There was a lemur and a loris and a monkey but that was it. This room was so dark we had to feel along the walls to find our way out into the light. There was also an “Amazon river” with a GIANT FISH and a some stingrays and other creatures of the Amazon.

In addition to the two that met us at the entrance, there were several other beautiful birds flying around. Scarlet Ibis, Blue Macaws, Red-and-Blue Lorikeets, and Bee-eaters were some of the birds you could see.

There were so many animals in this place that we didn’t even see! Their website says there was a two-toed sloth climbing around. We saw some tortoise but there were so many of those, scattered throughout the zoo. There was one building with practically every kind of lizard and turtle and tortoise in the world. Plus, the Iguana Tree. (I just looked it up, and the Pangolin Dome doesn’t have any pangolins but the is whole building is pangolin-shaped!)

There was no aquarium which is probably the only thing that makes Zoo #2 on my “Favorite Zoo’s List.” I know. You may think I am crazy but the Henry Doorly Zoo remains #1. I really loved the Insectarium and the whole Taipei Zoo was basically the Lied Jungle but the lack of an Aquarium and other indoor exhibits like that put it in number two.

It is close also because of this guy….

…who did something legendary! My dad looked at him and said, and I quote, “Wassup buddy?” and the monkey acknowledged him with the coolest “wassup head nod” ever!

A few weeks after we came back, we went to the Night Safari here in Chiang Mai. It was a Homeschool Co-op event and the Night Safari is probably #3 in my “Favorite Zoo’s List.” That is a story for a different post though.

There is so much more that happened in Taiwan so….

….To be continued…..