Taiwan's National Day

Today was Taiwan's national day, as it falls on october 10th it's commonly known here as Double Ten Day. As a show of Taiwan's ability to defend itself against a Chinese attack there was a big military parade as part of the celebrations, the first of it's kind to be held in 16 years. I've always associated these big parades with dictatorships and communist countries, so thought it would be a rare oppotunity to witness such a spectical. Upon arriving at the area near the presidential palace I found the road blocked by riot police and barricades, where me and many Taiwanese were dissapointed to learn that the performances were for invited guests only. I decided to hang around all the same, and my patience didn't go unrewarded. There was an amazing flyover of columns of choppers and attack helecopters, jet fighters, spyplanes, transport aircraft. A little later a large variety of military vehicles drove out from the parade area in columns, including many amphibious vehicles, tanks, rocket and missile launch vehicles, large missiles, frogmen, unmanned drone aircraft, etc. I'm not normally into this kind of thing but it really was impressive.