The weather continues to be pretty chilly and a little misty at times. We took the MRT out to Longshan Temple in the morning. This is one of the more famous temples in the Taipei area. It used to seem so far away, but now with the MRT, it's so easy to get to. They were celebrating the birth of Guan Yin (the goddess of mercy) with lots of flowers and lanterns. We walked through the temple, prayed, and took some pictures. Then we walked around the corner, down a street to a little hole in the wall eatery. I guess it had been featured in a Chinese TV show a while back, featuring its food. My parents had come by the try the food because of that, and we had to try it too. However, I don't think they had ever had a tall white guy come in their shop before because one of the servers looked up at hubby and made a "whoa" type sound. Kinda funny. The main dishes there are the noodles with their secret sauce and their pearl wonton soup. They were both really good. We then walked through this very interesting narrow alley way that was the local market. They sold everything from produce to meat and poultry, from clothing to souvenirs. I was too busy looking at everything to see if people were giving hubby any stares, but hubby said he's now immune to all the staring.
After that, we took a taxi to the National Museum of History. They have this exhibit all the way from the Shenyang Palace Museum in China on the Ching Dynasty. A lot of stories and movies have been made based on the emperors of the Ching Dynasty. It's kind of crazy to think of the sword that I was seeing had actually been held by the real emperor. The workmanship of the embroidery was just amazing too. The collection was very nice. We took some pictures with us pretending to be emperors or empresses. Pretty silly, especially I think they were meant for kids. :o)
We then made our way over by the main train station. This part of Taipei (the west side) used to be the center of Taipei when it was smaller. So it's a bit older and had a different feel than the part where we're staying. But now the newest part of Taipei is over by Taipei 101 (the tallest building in the world at one time). The area is full of modern buildings and shopping malls. I'm really not too familiar with that area yet. We stopped by the train station to get a schedule for the high-speed rail for next week when we need to go down to southern Taiwan. Then we hurried home to go visit mom at the hospital. Mom was grumpy about the bland food that they're trying to make her eat (for her health). She's very stubborn, tough nut to crack. Hope she'll be good so that they could do what they need to do and let her come home soon.
In the evening, we went back to the little night market that we went to the first night, hoping to have some more oyster omelet. Unfortunately, that place wasn't open, so we tried another one that also had a long line the other night. But we didn't think it was as good as the other place. I guess this means we have to go back again before we leave to make it up, not that we're complaining.
Sorry I'm not getting these entries posted regularly. I try to write them fairly regularly, but not having Internet access at home makes it more of a hassle to post.
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