We woke up bright and early around 5:30am thanks to jet lag. We lounged around the room, while the kids listened to audio books till the hotel breakfast opened at 6:30.
After breakfast we headed out for the day. Our plan was to walk to this nearby lake with amazing temples.
These are super famous pagodas in this town because you walk in the dragons mouth and out of the tigers for good luck. It was fun and really beautifully made.
Directly across the street was this beautiful temple. This area was apparently very sacred around the lake. It has a ton of temples, and pagodas, all around it.
This dragon was across from the second temple. You walked through it and inside was full of beautifully carved images. It also had this pond in front and under the dragon, that was exploding with turtles. L was in heaven!
After about three temples and four pagodas, in the roasting 80+ degree heat we were toast! So we actually grabbed a taxi to take us the mile and a half to the subway station. Best decision! At the subway station I noticed this cooler full of drinks. What the what?!
We took the subway to the Dream Mall. It’s the largest mall in Taiwan. It has a Ferris wheel on the roof! Yes, it seemed big, but it didn’t seem like USA, Mall of America big. It was perfect for what we needed though, which was lunch and some inside time, away from the heat.
We then made our way up to the roof. Not only was there a Ferris wheel, but there was also overpriced games and rides for the kids.
After veto’ing any more rides we bribed the kids with ice cream in a awesome ‘puffle’ waffle cone.
We got back on the subway, and headed for the hotel. We let Ty have a short snooze, while the kids and I did audiobooks and blog. Then we headed out to a new night market. This one turned out to be all clothes and no food. The kids and I were all hitting the wall of exhaustion by this point. So we quickly went to the previous night market.
The kids were obsessed with trying this new game. You used a gun to shoot, tiny plastic beads at balloons for prizes. We paid for two rounds each and they only got a teeny, tiny toy. Such a rip, like all games, around the world… But they LOVED it!
After this we walked back to the hotel. The kids were asleep almost instantly, and I wasn’t far behind them. I forced myself to stay up till 9pm. Ty who had a nap, wanted to play cards, or stay up and chat. I couldn’t hang though. It was an early night for me.
