Monday, June 13, 2011

Grand Hotel in Taipei

It has been a while since I have posted. I spent the last week in Taipei Taiwan as part of a TRACS visitation team for Christ's College there. It was a very interesting week and I had the opportunity to meet many good people, have some different experiences and, of course, try the local cuisine. One of the most interesting of the new experiences and new sights was the hotel I stayed in: The Grand Hotel Taipei. The hotel, at 285 feet, is the tallest example of classical Chinese architecture in the world. It was built in 1952, at the suggestion of Chiang Kai-Shek's wife as a place to house foreign diplomats and cater luxuriously to VIP guests. The lobby had dozens of pictures of world leaders (Presidents Nixon and Eisenhower stayed there) and famous celebrities that have stayed there in the past. It was a pretty amazing feeling to go in and out of that gate every day.

The hotel was only a few minutes away from Christ's College. The thing that most amazed me was there was the incredible works of art that seemed to cover the floor, ceiling and walls of the entire place. I am really mad at myself that I forgot my camera so that I could post my own pictures but I hope to have a few of my own to post when my colleagues send them to me. The pictures here I collected from other sites. The picture to the left is the lobby. I came down these stairs every morning to go to the restaurant (which is on the right side of the picture) for breakfast. I will make a couple more posts about my time in Taiwan as soon as I get a few pictures.

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