Sunday, March 8, 2009

March 8th - International Orchid Show in Taiwan

So today is Sunday and we are headed to the International Orchid show.  I have no idea what to expect, except alot of orchids???
Indeed I was right, but before the orchids, let me tell you a little about crowd control.  So we left early because we knew it started at 9am and we wanted to get there at the beginning.  Note: I am with a couple of expats that have been here for 5 year, so they have some experience with this. What they know from experience is that the Taiwanese like to stay out late at night, so they dont get up and going too early in the morning.  So us being at the show by 9am would make us beat the crowd.

so apon arrive to the show, you travel down these roads that literally have an orchid show sign posted on every single electric pole along the road.  So these electric poles and about 10 - 15 feet apart, so there are hundreds down this long road and there is an orchid show sign on each and every pole.  Not kidding!  There were a ridiculas amount of signs...it was crazy.

So we get to the show and are looking for a place to park the car.  we drive past the show buildings and they keep directing us past the parking fields to the way way back....so by now we have driven at least a half mile past the buildings and still noone is parking ....and we keep going. so they are parking people from the back to the front, so the first people in have to park the farthest away...seems a little backwards....after we figure this out we take a quick left and head down the road to exit the event.  We drive all the way back down to the main buildings
 and park in the very first row.  

So the show was very beautiful!  the first building had scenes set up where they were just filled with flowers like the image here.
There were several scenes and hundreds and hundreds of orchids.....
the entire show was a great opportunity to work with my camera and practice my photography skills.  I learned lots from Dan and Thanks Dan! 
Some more photos:
I thought this one looked like something i have seen in the lion king or some disney movie...not sure...but pretty.
I took around 400 photos so here are some more individual shots:












so after we were finished at the show, we headed to the car and all the parking lots for as far as the eye could see were full.  There were thousands of people here. as we were driving out, there were cars backed up on the roads leading up to the event for miles.  There were so many people, it was unbelievable!  Great experience.

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