While we were in Taipei, I had a mission. To find a place that I had seen in a picture. I didn't even know if it was, infact, in Taipei! I just assumed. The reason I wanted to find a particular place from a specific picture is because it was a picture of my grandparents when they visited Taiwan, probably back in the 60's. My mom has always had this picture displayed (it's on decorative round piece of granite...or something!) and I never payed much attention to it, until I knew that I had a child in that country!! I took a copy of the picture with us so we could do some searching while we were there. Here it is...
We asked our translator in Taitung if she knew where this picture took place (she was from Taipei) and she told us it was on the grounds of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. So one of the days we were in Taipei, we ventured out with a "tour-guide". Actually, she was a friend's daughter (from our church) who is a missionary in Taichung, Taiwan! I was so excited to meet her and she was so sweet to come to Taipei and go on our "adventure" with us!
Well, we got to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, only to find (after much searching!) that it wasn't the right place!! We really didn't know where it would be in a city that size. I have to admit, I was pretty sad to have not found it that day. So that night after we put Abi down, I did some further investigating! We noticed in the back ground (on the left side) there was a very tall roof. We found pictures of The Grand Hotel and the roof line looked pretty similar, so we thought we'd try it (what did we have to loose?!). We looked at the map of where The Grand Hotel was located and found that right next to it was the National Revolutionary Martyr's Shrine, and it had two pagoda type buildings on the grounds!
The next morning, we hopped into a taxi and made our way to it! And guess what? It was the right place! Here's a couple of pictures of us in front of the same place that my dear grandparents stood years prior! The surroundings looked a bit different after so many years, but it was definitely the same place!
While I was standing there, I had a hard time not becoming emotional. I know my grandparents would have both been so excited to know that we stood in the same place they did, probably 40 some years later, not to mention the fact that we adopted our youngest from there! They adopted my mother, so adoption runs in the family, so to speak! Yesterday was the anniversary of my grandmother's passing, 28 years ago. I know she's smiling down on us!
Here's to a wonderful weekend!
