360 Degree Presents, Taipei, Taiwan, 1969

Not until we arrived back home, did we realize just how many gifts we had bought for friends and relatives. As the years passed, many of these gifts found their way back to us.

Some we still have, but many items such as lamps and carved figures have long since been discarded.





There were two jewelry boxes bought for our fathers. This one cracked as the teak wood dried out.

Most wooden gifts were bought in the area south of the East Compound where many merchants had galleries of things for sale.



When it came to jewelry, there were so many places to choose from that we eventually decided that buying at the PX would probably insure quality as well as a reasonable price.

We didn't want to mess this up as earrings were bought for our mothers and grandmothers.



One grandmother actually took her set to a jeweler to have it appraised.

After we arrived home, she told us the appraised value and that we shouldn't have spent that much money on her!  

What if we had bought them on Haggler's Row? I don't believe she would have called us cheap.

Eventually, all the pairs of earrings ended up back with us.





These two wall hangings were for another grandmother.

She received many comments and compliments on the variety of jade and other stones.

The black lacquer frames have faded with time.





So, today, you can see one of the jewelry boxes. All the pairs of earrings sent are in it. 

The wall hangings are in our bedroom and the scale of the objects can be easily seen.

Funny how so many gifts, given, made their way back to us.



Update:  After this posting, my wife found this old boy at the end of a closet shelf in a box titled "cups and saucers." 

Update 2012:  Well, we just seem to keep finding these remembrances. My wife bought this apron at the Officers Wives' Shop in the West Compound in 1969.

Always Read The Fine Print

We never fully read our lease. I'm sure our landlord did. We just paid the rent on time, took good care of the place, and vacated on time.

The next renters happened to be a young Air Force couple. He didn't think that working at Shu Linkou Air Station was going to be a problem living so far away.

Apparently a bus collected airmen from the Yangmingshan area and made its way to Linkou.

One last thing---did you guys who were living in Tien Mou or downtown Taipei without the Army's knowledge or blessing still pay your monthly fees to the Grass Mountain barrracks' houseboy?



The Chinese copy we had was in among other files. It was used in a business law class for over 2 decades as a teaching tool.  Reading the details of a contract was the point.



Until this came back to the housing office in the West Compound, we stayed at the King's Hotel.



This was as far as we got when reading the lease.



And so on . . .

Ad Nauseum . . .



I would have signed 50 copies that day. Until our furniture arrived we slept on the floor and listened to the radio.

A cab ride up the mountain to our apartment using the meter was about $1.50 my memory says.





Until found in our scrapbook, the Chinese copy of the lease we thought was gone. Then it popped up among some files.



Any expired contracts are usually not kept around. Fortunately, this one was.



It would have helped if this had been attached.



Our Apartment, Then And Now, Taipei, Taiwan

Thanks to LTC Scott Ellinger, pictures of our old apartment show what a real change took place in our complex over a 40+ year time period.

The area was fairly new back then, but each place was apparently converted into an individually owned apartment.

Photo courtesy of USTDC.blogspot.com  09/15/2010

This declassified 1969 satellite photo shows the DaHeng Road area circled in blue.

Our old apartment on the third floor as it appeared when we moved in during the late summer of 1968.

Photo courtesy of LTC Scott Ellinger

Today, our old place is the apartment on floor three.

The apartment on the first floor would flood at its side door entrance. The owner obviously added a front entrance.



Photo courtesy of LTC Scott Ellinger

At the bottom right is a 1974 satellite picture of our road and apartment location. A current Google Earth photo shows the same area as it appears today.

Left photo courtesy of LTC Scott Ellinger

We all seem to like then and now pictures of buildings and places in Taiwan which are still standing. This is 1968 versus 2011.

1961 Taiwan Telephone Book

LTC Scott Ellinger again has provided some very interesting material. It is the 1961 Taiwan military telephone book, and it is extensive.

NOTE: Drop me an e-mail and you'll be sent the 2 PDF Adobe files containing the 111 page book.





This Taipei map isn't to scale, but it shows locations that may not have been on later maps.

Some of the pages were scanned just to identify the locations covered.

MAAG, USTDC and every branch of the U.S. military and every location on the island where a telephone was located is included.

From the kitchen to the commanding officer, you will find a number where they could be reached.

It's impressive how, in 15 years, the U.S. presence in Taiwan had grown and just how thorough the landline connections were throughout the island.

. . . From here to there . . .

Some are universal military abbreviations, and some are unique to Taiwan.

Following The Tourists

In 1968, there didn't appear to be many tourists coming to Taipei. Not only was a war going on, but Taipei didn't seem to be geared up as a tourist destination.

Then, in 1969, we began to see Mercedes buses making their way up the mountain to the Yangmingshan vicinity. Behind the tinted windows were the faces of tourists. 

So, before our time in Taiwan was over, we decided to follow one of the buses around and see what Taipei was offering. Some of the destinations were new to us, some not. 



Here is the description of what we were to see according to our guide book.



We had seen the National Museum of History from the outside before, but had never gone in.

So, check off museum number one.



Next door to the National Museum were the botanical gardens. From this address, they were literally adjacent.



We could have skipped this part, but we had to stay in line with our fellow tourists.



Neither of us can remember going in here, but the last paragraph on the page above explains why we probably did.

So, now we're in the park area, where we had visited several times before.

We remembered it in our scrapbook as Longevity Park, so one of us had to have been paying attention. 

The sky was actually blue that day, but rubber cement from another album page made its way onto this picture.

It was a very relaxing park as these gentlemen demonstrate.



This is an aerial shot of the museum and Longevity Park today.

It is part of the 228 Peace Park.

This is one of the locomotives described above. My understanding is that it still rests in that park today.

The unofficial bridge-stander surveys the park. Today, this park may be part of 228 Peace Memorial Park, a reference to a dark time in early Taiwanese-ROC relations.

Beneath this picture in our scrapbook, it says "National Library." Nothing can be found to lend any credence to that label.



This is the same building as the picture just above. When we visited the center in 1969, it was the National Taiwan Science Education Center.

The exhibits outgrew the building's size, and the museum was relocated in 2003. Today, it stands vacant as the fence around it would attest.



We had been past this museum hundreds of times, but never visited it until we attached ourselves to the tourists.

Long before this, they had caught onto our ploy, but still accepted us as members of their group.

This is how the National Palace Museum looked in 1969. There were no other buildings around it. The entire area was clearly visible from the road.

After this museum, we were ready to hit the road and go home. How many museums can you visit in one day and still keep your sanity?