Long Shan Yuan Shan & More Food

Kinda losing track of the days here but we've had a few outings in the cold rain over the holiday week. We headed over to the Long Shan Temple in the old part of Taipei to have a look around and we headed up the Yuan Shan Hotel for a bit of brunch.

Long Shan (龍山寺)
Long Shan Temple is an older temple located in the Wan Hwa section of town. It's an older part of town with lots of narrow streets. It used to have a night market and lots of food vendors outside the front door. It has it's own subay stop so it's not surpising that the shopping and market had seriously expanded since I was last there in 1988. Instead of just food stalls crowding the streets around the temple (which is still the case), there is an underground mall connecting it to the subway line. The park above the subway line is also filled with vendors. It was also packed with people when we went.

Inside the temple is was even crazier. It was packed shoulder to shoulder with people but now they were holding buring insense and trying to get a good spot to say a few prayers.

While I-Chwen and her sister went in to do the same, Meg and I hung out outside under the umbrella. Here's our view:

...and it wouldn't be a trip to the temple without a few squid balls on a stick. 3 for NT$10. Meg loved these.

The Grand Hotel (圓山大飯店)
We headed up to the The Grand (Yuan Shan) Hotel for brunch. The Grand Hotel was built in the 1950 by Chiang Kai-Shek in the 1950s for visiting foreign dignitaries. According to I-Chwen's Dad, it was pretty much off limits to the general public for years. It had fallen into direpair over the years and where it once had a reputation asa world class hotel, it was not really a destination for the locals anymore. I-Chwen's Mom commented that we'd be disappointed if we were heading there for the food.

I think there's been some effort to build it back up as it was a pretty good meal. The food was pretty good. They made a great "guo bing" (red bean paste pastry that Megan loves).
I-Chwen's dad (a man with a lot of opinions about food) really tucked into brunch. The facilites showed a bit of age and the huge red carpet in the lobby was stained but I heard later that there is about NT$500 million (about US$30 million) going towards its restoration. My theory is that restoring it imight be a matter of "face" - the place was packed with mainlanders....
Some interior shots:

Meg also liked the train ride there. She loves the subway system here.

OK - I was going to put something about going out with friends but it's getting late. I'll try and get something up here tomorrow.