Double Ten Day Centennial - 雙十節百年周年 (#1)

I was a little tykester back when the U.S. had its bicentennial celebration in 1976. I do remember quickly learning how to spell that big word (at that time of my life I was mostly using 3 syllables or less) and all the events around D.C. that were attached to the date. Our family always saw fireworks on Fourth of July every year, so seeing them on the bicentennial never made a big impression on my small memory bank as to whether they were bigger or louder than normal.

With it being the 100th anniversary of the R.O.C.'s founding, I knew I had to take a peak around at some of the military hardware this nation has to offer, as well as take along the kid for his first impression of a street parade. The whole week the helicopters had been "thump-thump-thump-thump-thumping" over our apartment complex, practicing their 3-helicopter per group formation, followed by jets, cargo planes, and the tail group of planes streaming red, white and blue smoke across the sky.

Got off at 228 Peace Memorial Park MRT station, and they had already had the northwest exit gate closed. Tons of policiemen/women out on the streets. And I mean tons! I have been in Taiwan for an extremely long time and have never seen so many cops out on the streets except for the multiple street protests in Taipei after the Rubber Bullet Incident helped secure CSB's second term. The cops were quite friendly in fact, as I asked many of them where the parade route was and other relevant directional questions. Most of them waved at my kid after I told him to say 你好 to the "警察叔叔" or "警察阿姨". They had cordoned off the whole 228 park except a small part of the north part running west-to-east towards the 2 old steam train engines inside the glass building if you have ever been there. I guess you could call them Taiwan's Peace trains. (Click on the "Watch on YouTube" inside the video box if it doesn't play.)

I've seen fireworks up close on the river to the west of Hsimenting 西門町 a few times in the many moons that I've lived in Taipei. So, for the second event of the day in the evening I decided to ride the bike as far up the Riverside Park 河賓公園 as I could, bringing the kid along for another first impression, this time of fireworks celebrating a nation's birthday. Tons of people had the same idea. Funnily enough, after the fireworks ended there was a traffic jam when everyone wanted to go home in a southward direction on the narrow bike path. First time I've seen a bicycle jam on a bike path. 

Without further ado, here's some pics.

Excuse me officer, what does this button do?

Lost a lot of water weight, sweating it out before the helicopters came

That line of military hardware runs straight towards the Presidential Palace

First time these tanks started their big engines, everyone got faked out of their underwear thinking the parade was about to begin. Alas, more sweating was in the manuscript.

Finally, they started rolling. I guess others had the same idea as myself.

These are usually used to bury dead pigs during hoof 'n mouth disease outbreaks on the island.

Only 1 drone airplane. Either that or one of the biggest frigging model airplanes I've ever seen. 

Trying to figure this one out. Maybe it's for the practice of receiving very hard tennis serves. 

Another strange contraption for the military.

Cool. Missiles.

Cool. Really big frigging missiles.

Whatever you do, do not smile for the cameras. 

Closest thing to a G.I. Joe action figure I once had. 

More pics to come.....