Waiting for the Rain to Stop

Not going to lie. Today was a very slow start. Too much celebrating last night!

After breakfast, at least for me, we took the subway to Taipei 101. We toured around the mall a bit and decided not to go to the top of the building due to weather conditions.

Bill regained his appetite while wandering through the food court on the way back to the Metro, so he ordered from Tendon Kohaku, tempura, rice and miso soup. I had my first bubble tea, Taiwan’s #1- oolong. It was served in a light bulb glass jar with an adorable face sticker and a tag that says “I’m so cute”.

We left the Taipei 101 mall and took the Metro to Yuanshan Station and toured the area to look for soxes. We found a shoe store and bought the biggest soxes we could find for Bill. We then walked across Yuanshan Park, past the food stalls and the kids playing soccer on in something that looked like an outdoor skating rink.

We enjoyed the Taipei Fine Arts Museum displays. It was interesting that on one floor they had a huge collection of Renee Magritte photos and videos and on another floor it was a huge collection of Hsia Yan. Other than that, the only other display was about architecture, that we did not really appreciate.

I really enjoyed the Hsia Yan display of art and sculptures. His work was described as “fuzzy” figures to represent his observations of life. After we spend time in half of the exhibit we started playing a game, “name that painting” and I did surprisingly well at the game.

The Renee Magritte photos and videos shed light on the fact that he may have been a very disturbed individual, but also clearly an artistic genius. I did not realize until we were almost finished the exhibit that we have seen some of his work such as “The Son of Man” and own a print of “Empire of Light”.

From there, we crossed through the Fine Arts Park sculpture gardens and on the way bumped into the German and Austrian couple from last night. Too funny!

We explored the extremely beautiful three story temple - Jingfu Temple. The wooden and stone carvings were incredible. It was really cool.

We then walked the wrong way, then the right way to Hsing Tian Kong. This temple was very different and more like temples that we saw in China, with a large courtyard, and buildings on either side with statues. On one side there were disciples and on the other side there were statues. In the centre people were praying and making offerings. It had a very different vibe and seems almost cult-like to me.

It was then a short walk to Addiction Aquatic Development. How convenient! Once again we ordered too much food, but man was it ever good! Sushi, sashimi, miso soup filled with seafood stock, and a light white wine. Such a nice way to cap off the afternoon!

We arrived a bit late for Tini Hour, but the hotel had not sent out the search party for us yet!