Martyr's Shrine

Our weekend in Taipei and Hualien was awesome, but this memory in particular I think deserves its own post.  It was a pretty special experience, and I hope you'll see why soon!


Traveling with a military man (our instructor) gives you some peculiar experiences, especially when it comes to a selection of tourist sites.  When we arrived at The Martyr's Shrine - a shrine dedicated to fallen Taiwanese soldiers - I wasn't surprised that Jim seemed very excited.  I realized why pretty fast!  In part, it's because of these guys, who are essentially the Taiwanese equivalent of the guards at Buckingham Palace.  We had the opportunity to watch their changing of the guard ceremony, which was performed without a single mistake.

 

I'm pretty sure this bro-hah did not blink once. 

This is the inside of this beautiful place! 

As if the sight of this shrine, set just at the base of the stunning Taiwanese mountains and dedicated to war heroes, wasn't enough to get me a little choked up, My lovely friend Jane explained to me the significance of this shrine to our field trip. 

When I initially found out that this room (see picture above) contained plaques dedicated to individuals who died for their country, I assumed that they contained only names of soldiers.  I was wrong.  Somewhere in this midst of Mandarin characters is a plaque dedicated to the Taiwanese Physicians and Nurses who died trying to save their patients during the SARS epidemic in Asia.  Being a nursing student, I got pretty emotional after hearing that.  What an amazing way to memorialize the sacrifice of those healthcare providers; by placing their names in a shrine that honors people who made the ultimate sacrifice for what they believed.


Good side-trip choice, Jim! 


And, it didn't hurt my sense of adopted Taiwanese pride either. :)