Mini Staycation

The kids didn't have school on Thursday (for the dragon boat festival) so we gave them a little surprise on Wednesday. As soon as they got home from school we loaded everyone up in the car and took off for a long 20 minute drive to the Grand Hotel Taipei. We had stayed at the Grand Hotel in Kaohsiung 2 years ago, but hadn't stayed at the one in Taipei yet, so we figured now was as good a time as any. After we checked in, we toured the grounds, had a fabulous dinner in their lounge, then hung out in our room for the rest of the night watching "Friends" re-runs on TV.


The next morning we had a fabulous buffet breakfast that was included with our stay. We brought our swim suits, but the pool is only open in July & August, so we hiked for a couple of hours around Yuan Shan Mountain and finished up at Jian Tan Park. It was a fun little get-away and I took almost 150 pictures. Here's a few of my favorites.


The huge orchid bouquet in the lobby (yes they're real!)

The big kids posing in front of the Golden Dragon Fountain which commemorates the original Japanese shrine that survived WWII.

I have to include a shot of my little one too!

The pretty fish pond in the back.

The Grand Hotel also has 2 annex buildings. This was part of one of them and it looked like a cool hideaway to me.

I love the attention to detail in traditional Chinese architecture. This is one of the ornate posts on the stair case that leads up to the Grand Hotel. The tree behind it is one of my favorite species, but it is originally from Australia.

A cute little ting.

This is the kind of mountain hiking I like to do with kids- stairs, hand rails, and they even had street lights with electric cables strung through the canopy of trees for night hiking. Don't let Gavin fool you though, most of the time he was on Daddy's back during the hike (cute little stink!)

Kaleb and Noe were our scouts leading the way. Of course, sometimes they got too far ahead and we had to rein them in.

Gavin was exactly where he wanted to be- in Daddy's arms.

I carried little Teague again, but I prefer it in the snug sack- tee hee!

We saw a few crazy flowers we had never seen before. This one looks orange, but up close you can see the petals are actually yellow, but the huge red veins give it the orange tint. We also saw old stone arches, several temples, a tree growing out of an old moss covered wall (very Indiana Jonesish), lizards, and even a huge horned beetle being eaten alive by an ant army. There were also tons of butterflies everywhere.

The final leg of our hike commenced at this circle arch. Our path was right next to Zhong Shan Road and I've wanted a picture of this arch for the past 4 years. I've finally got it. We had a fun 21 hour vacation and were able to put another check mark on our list of Taiwan's To-Do's before we move!