Dear Friend,

	Me at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park

Today we stopped at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park. The Taiwanese built it to honor their former president Chiang Kai-shek, who passed away in 1975.

The park contains the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, where honor guards watch over a bronze statue of Chiang Kai-shek. Every hour, the guards perform a ceremony to change their positions. Carved into the walls behind the statue are copies of Chiang Kai-shek’s writings, which outline his ideas about politics, ethics, democracy, and science. The hall is similar to the Lincoln Memorial, which has copies of Abraham Lincoln’s speeches on the walls.

	The Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

The park is also home to the National Concert Hall and the National Theater. Many people exercise and walk in the park, and enjoy its beautiful gardens. Celebrations are held on the plaza in the center of the park. Because of the rain, though, there were very few people gathered here today.

We also went to the Shin Kong Observatory, which is at the top of the tallest building in Taipei. From the forty-sixth floor, I could see the entire Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park. But rain clouded my view of the edges of the city and the mountains beyond. Unfortunately, it rains a lot here!

Your friend,

Carla