second day taipei

first order of business, unfortunately, is to retract my "good food" remark. i was fooled early on with a pretty tasty boca burger style sandwich and fruit, but havent had much luck since... except the tea and fruit mixes. that stuff blows me away.


anyway, the people and setting more than make up for it. if i had to choose one word to sum up the people here i'd use gentle. everyone is soft spoken, super polite and helpful.


i cant get my pictures going right now but i do have this...

Its a temple in keelung, north of taipei by about an hour. From what i understand (and thats not much) the puppet show is for the entertainment of a god or gods.

Usually the show depicts a story of a particular god for that gods entertainment or sometimes the show is hired by someone to act out a prayer for the god being prayed to. So if a person is robbed or something, and they pray that the thief is caught and their belongings returned, they might pay some puppets to act it out and hopefully earn some points with that god so they can have their prayers answered. I guess the puppets are the ones pulling the strings ...