Macau Pictures

And some pictures of our other recent trip to Macau - formerly a Portuguese colony (for about 450 years) and now Chinese - making for an interesting cultural mix.

Mainland China is very close

Mega casinos are big business here

Japan Pictures

We've been updating and posting pictures on Facebook recently, but here are some pictures from our trip to Japan earlier this year ...

TOKYO

Rush Hour on the subway

Toda-Ji Temple

Imperial Palace

Shubuya Crossing - the busiest in the world

Tokyo's famous fish market

KYOTO

Buddhist Stupas

Geisha!

 NARA

 BACK TO KYOTO

The Bamboo Forest

The Golden Temple

Plum Blossoms

MIYAJIMA

HIROSHIMA

A Bomb Dome - a building beneath the atomic bomb explosion that survived

Peace Cranes in the thousands

Hiroshima Castle

December Update

Lovely weather on the whole, settling in and exploring more - loving life in Taipei.

Exploring the great museums and galleries (and their tea shops too) - this is us trying ice cookies (yes - frozen!) - very nice and elegant.

Our friend and former colleague from Shanghai visited us in November - we went to a night market to eat and then out for drinks in trendy Ximending.

The river and coastal trails are fantastic - these pictures are taken on a recent walk from the beach along the river into Taipei city.

We took a trip to Changhua and Lukang this month - they are cities about half way down the country (west coast).
First up are photos from the old city of Lukang -

 This is the old Longshan temple - very famous in Taiwan and known for its classical architecture.

 
The next photos are taken in the Matsu temple, a popular goddess in Taiwan.

Lukang is also well know for its old, narrow alleyways. This one is particularly narrow, and is known as breast touching lane.

Changhua is a larger and more modern city. It is famous for the huge Buddha on top of the local mountain. We watched the sunset from up here - lovely.