Taipei International Airport looked as if it had been a major airport in Japan. Signs looked almost as same as those in a Japanese airport, except that they were written in traditional Chinese characters.
If you go to the bus stop on the first floor of the airport you can catch a route 705 bus to HSR Taoyuan Station, costing just NT$30 (almost 1USD). It’s too cheap!
There were no other passengers but me in the big double-decked bus.
No sooner had the bus left the airport than it ran on a highway for about five minutes.
I saw a new MRT line was under construction to be connected from HSR Taoyuan Station to the airport. If complete, you can get to downtown Taipei from the airport much more easily.
It’s HSR Taoyuan Station, within a 15-minute bus riding distance from the airport. You can see nothing but a bus terminal and a taxi stand around the station.
The HSR train is almost the same as Japan’s Shinkansen train, because HSR is based on the technique of Shinkansen. For me, HSR trembles a little more than Shinkansen when running, though.
About 15 minutes later it arrived at Banciao Station. It costed NT$110 from Taoyuan to Banciao. It’s much cheaper than Shinkansen!
At Banciao I changed the train to MRT Bannan Line to get to Longshan Temple Station, where I got off train and went up, seeing the Longshan Temple, which was one of Taiwan’s famous Buddhist temples.
I saw the people worshipping the deities of the temple, holding a dozen of long brown incenses put on fire on their tops and bowing a few times in front of the sanctuary with the incenses. I guess it’s a Chinese-style worshipping manner.
The below picture is one of what impressed me.
The old woman in the picture knelt in front of the temple, lay down on her stomach, prayed, and got up. Then she walked a few steps forward and knelt down, lay on her stomach to pray, got up, walked a few steps forward, knelt down, and so on.
How different the decorations of the Buddhist temple was from those of a Japanese temple!