Da-An (Big Peace) Forest Park

This park is about a 7 minute walk from my apartment and it's right on the route to the University. It's the largest park in Taipei, similar in that respect to Central Park (except that there's no lake).





Some of the trees are really amazing:



And there are weekend markets in the park, including this one, with various food vendors:



One of the stands sold a juice made out of this...



...they told me it was bamboo, but I later found out that it's raw sugar cane.

Other weekend markets near the park are the (very, very popular!) Flower and Jade markets:

(It was hard to capture the beauty of the flower market...but, really, there were amazing flowers everywhere including fields of lillies and orchids...)




It's very difficult to tell the difference between real and fake jade, so I was advised not to buy anything at the jade market:



Mom and Dad, I thought you would like this picture...it reminds me of the piece of redwood that was always the centerpiece of our living room: