[Taipei, Taiwan] - 艋舺龍山寺/Lungshan Temple of Manka {Travelogue}
One of the reasons why I enjoy watching Bourdain travel the world and eating things is the cultural background he also provides. As a traveler, I feel that it's important to not only physically go places, but to also learn and gain a greater appreciation of what makes people who they are. Temples, churches, places of worship are a great way to do that. It's an extra step above the food (and really, doesn't the extra walking and learning just make you extra hungry so you can eat even more?). That said, whenever I'm in Taipei, I always try to make time to go to Lungshan Temple at least once. Lungshan Temple is one of my favorite temples to visit (my favorite is actually Xuanzang Temple at Sun Moon Lake). Said to be one of the luckiest temples, it survived a bombing by the Americans during World War II (weird, right? Taiwanese people aren't Japanese, but colonialism blah blah can of worms blah blah please refer to my sources at the end of this post to read more)....