After a short ride we arrived at the train station. Purchased our tickets for $310 or $10.20 for the high speed train. I love countries where things are so inexpensive.
Hopefully we got on the right train, headed express to the center of Taipei. We were right, we got on the right train headed for the city. The total trip from landing to getting to the hotel took about 3 hrs. The main train station was right across from our hotel. The outside of the hotel is nothing to brag about. It is white with rainbow colored levels on the outside. I began to worry about what our room would look like...oh well too late it was paid for.
It was only 11am when we were checking in so our room was not ready. We left our luggage and headed for lunch. We had walked through an underground mall near the metro and thought we would try there for lunch. We ate at Magic Curry. It was not bad but not wonderful. Most importantly our bellies were full. We headed off on some sight seeing. First we headed to Chiang Kai- Shek memorial plaza. It was a beautiful park. The buildings were quite ornate. The main building with his giant statue was under construction and we could not climb up. It was nice walking around.
We hopped back on the metro and got off to go to the National Botanical Gardens. Another well kept beautiful park. It was a nice stroll. It was interesting watching all the bird watching enthusiasts. Many were decked out in all camouflage.
We walked around the entire park to get to the front, there on the outside was the National Museum of History. We paid $250 or $8 US dollars to go into the most crowded museum exhibit I have ever been too. The main exhibit was about Michelangelo's work. I was too claustrophobic to even care about the exhibit. There were replicas in with some real sketches, but nothing that awesome. I just wanted out of the pushy people with no space respect. It was awful. Then we went into the main part of the museum. There were a whole lot less people and the art was very interesting. They had a glass exhibit that was beautiful. I enjoyed that part of the museum.
When we were done we walked back to the metro and headed to the Red House Market. When we exited the metro it was like we had walked up to Times Square. It was an intersection with 6 streets all meeting together with a ton of people. One street was lined with crafty vendors selling artsy stuff. It was neat to walk through. We went into the red house to find more unique art work. It was a cool place.
We walked across the street to find a snack and we walked in to a huge mob. Personal space is not recognized here. I was pushed and shoved and stepped on. Finally we found a French fry place called Ireland's potatoes. We ordered honey mustard fries. And next door we orders an orange tea. Both snacks were really good. I could have done without all the people.
We hopped back onto the metro one more time and headed out to Longshan Temple. We ha heard that there were some excellent New Years celebrations.
When we got off the metro we had to walk through a deserted mall...it gave me the heebeegeebees. I was not comfortable there. It smelled, there were creepy men sitting and watching people and like living rooms set up where people were watching 8 TVs. I wanted out fast. We came to the top of the metro exit and it was lined with homeless people and their junk. I was ready to leave. Bill had to persuade me to cross the street and see the temple. And I am glad I did. It is beautiful. Such intricate carvings and painting. This is the most elaborate temple I have ever seen. And there was a huge Chinese New Year celebration going on. We jumped in line with all the parishioners. We did not so much pray but take pictures. It was a grand site. We walked all the way through. The tricky part was making sure you didn't get burned by someone's incense. It was a nice way to end the Looooong day.
Finally we were headed bak to our hotel. The plan was to take a short nap and go out for the night. I had a migraine and need to recover a little.
We checked in, collected out luggage and were told we had been upgraded to a premium hotel room.
We were on the top floor. We walked into the most exquisite room I have ever stayed in in Asia. It even has a fire place. I immediately crawled into bed. When they clean our place up and make the bed, I'll post pictures. The neat part is the bathroom. It is a glass room with partitions for the shower room/ tub room and then the toilet room. We got upgraded alright!
We did not make it out later that night. My migraine took over and by the time I felt better it was almost midnight. We always have the next night!
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