Day 20 - Free Time

Today’s Programme
Morning	To visit the Presidential Palace
Afternoon	Free Time
Evening
Hotel	Armed Forces Hero House, Taipei

I had to wake up early and left everything at the Hero house to visit the Presidential palace. The breakfast they provided was like the day before—bread and milk tea. It was good because we could eat it on the way to the Presidential palace which is a couple of minutes away from the Hero house. The place is not always welcoming. You need the passport to get into the place. No camera, camcorder, mobile, or purse are allowed. Everybody is allowed to get in only with the guide.

The English speaking guide there was great. She described every detail of the history, but I forget a lot already. :-P
There are a lot of national treasures and also the gifts that the government got from other countries. There was also an exhibition showing the history of Taiwan. The Presidential Palace was actually made by the Japanese when they still ruled Taiwan. If you take a look at the building from the bird-view, you will see that the building looks exactly like the word “Ri” (that looks like ‘8’ in square font) which means Japanese. (The Japanese built this kind of building everywhere they ruled. They did this in Seoul too) It was the office of the Japanese government. It was destroyed by the bombing during the war, but the Taiwanese government reconstructed the place and made the Presidential Office. There are more than hundred government officers there. The exhibition theme changes from time to time. The trip of visiting the Presidential Palace is set to be one-way. The security guards were around. There is a souvenir shop and post office there, but I didn’t have much time to drop at the post office, otherwise I would have sent off postcards with the Presidential Palace stamp.

The doorknobs in the Presidential Palace are lower than the normal level. The guide asked if anyone knows why. Someone said that it’s because the Japanese are short (well, I had to laugh.) The low doorknobs were intended to make the visitor bow his head before getting in.

We got free time before lunch time. They didn’t have to provide lunch for us. We had planned to go to a great restaurant before leaving Taiwan. I had read comment from people on the Internet that there are lots of recommendations to go to a famous restaurant called “Din Tai Fung” which has brunches around the world. It’s also recommended by the Travel guide books. We prepared to pay a lot for the meal as the recommendation says. I asked the Fu Dao Yuan for the way to go there. They knew the place and told us that it’s expensive there (but they have never been there)

Pui, Mol, Min, and I bought the MRT’s One-Day Pass then caught the MRT to the “Zhongxiao Dunhua” station. We had to ask for the restaurant and walked a lot till we reached the restaurant with the big red sign.

We were lucky that we arrived exactly at midday. We didn’t wait that long in the queue. (When I was leaving, there were lots of people waiting in the queue.) I checked the menu after we got a table. It was really expensive but a dish was very big. If you go there with friends, you can order various things and share the cost with them and you will find that it’s not that expensive. We ordered Shrimp ShaoMai, steamed pork bun, streamed green vegetable and pork bun, hot-and-sour soup, and fried rice. They were more than enough for four of us. The bill costed only about NTD900 (230 each) which is counted as not expensive at all. The toilet there was the greatest toilet in Taiwan. Every time after the toilet is used, the maid cleaned the toilet bowl. There was also an automatic bidet. It was cold wind from the hand dryer.

After lunch, I didn’t go with the others, but went to the 24/7 bookstore called Eslite which is located a couple of blocks away from the restaurant. I spent 2 hours there because of curiosity but I didn’t buy anything ‘cos I couldn’t read Chinese.

I left the bookstore and went to the “S.Y.S Memorial Hall” MRT station to visit the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. The place is located next to the MRT Exit. There’s everything like Chiang Kai Shek’s Memorial Hall — There were a big statue and guards. The only difference was that it was totally smaller than the Chiang Kai Shek one. I could see the Taipei 101 building from there (but my camera was poor.) I then walked to the Warner Village Cinema Center, the red buildings I often saw in Taiwanese series, just to take pictures.

I then caught the MRT to the “Longshan Temple” just because it seemed to be an important temple and there were the Hua Hsi night market and the Guang Zhoo street close to the temple. I have heard that the market is famous. I arrived at the temple before the sky was getting dark and I saw a nice waterfall. The place was packed with tourists and there was a kind of ceremony. There were lots of Buddha statues inside with a big Kwan Yin statue which survived from the bombing during World War.

I then went to the night market area but it was not ready. There was a kind of Food Street which was full of restaurants selling scary animals as food. I felt disgusted and my throat really hurt. To have dinner, I went to the XinPu station to look for toilet bowl restaurant that I got pictures from a forwarded e-mail, but I couldn’t find it. A girl said it’s moved but I wasn’t sure if she got what I asked. So, I spent more time looking for that toilet restaurant. I had to give up finally. Later I found out from a group mate that the restaurant has been moved to the ShiLin night market.

From Xinpu, I caught the train to the Jiantan station (The station I visited the day before to go to the Shilin night market) and then caught the Shuttle bus of the Miramar mall to visit the world’s second largest Ferris Wheel. (The first place is London Eye in England.) You can catch the free shuttle bus from JianTan by waiting at the pink bus sign on the right of the exit of the MRT station. There is no bus number, only the sign saying “Miramar Mall”. I spent 20 minutes to reach the Mirama Mall. The ticket booth for the Ferris Wheel was located on the fifth floor of the mall where the Miramar Entertainment Park is. The park wasn’t interesting. There was an IMAX theater and the wheel. The admission costed NTD150.

I was alone on the Ferris wheel. I was scared because I was alone and it was very high. When I was at the top level, I thought it’s broken ‘cos I felt like it didn’t move (but it was moving slowly.) The scenario was perfect. I spent about 30 minutes for a round. I then caught the Shuttle bus back to MRT station.

From JianTan, I caught the MRT back to Longshan Temple station because I really wanted to buy the mp3 CDs from the Guang Zhoo street. The VCDs there were cheap, but all of them were porns. I was disappointed and caught the MRT back to the XiMen station. I was ill and extremely tired, but it was my last day. I went to buy 2 albums (one from Guang Liang; another from Chou Hua Jian) and a movie. They weren’t cheap but I couldn’t buy it in Thailand.

After I was happy with the things I bought, my power was all gone. I really wanted to catch a taxi but it was a short route to walk back to the Hero house. I was late for the last bed check, but there was no problem. The Fu Dao Yuan gave us a questionnaire to give comment about hotels and restaurants. I still recalled how each hotel was, but I forgot the restaurants. They then distributed the Year book, the CD-ROM of Taiwan scenery, the OCAC newspaper with our group picture on it, and the picture CDs. (They kept pictures from our memory cards and promised to burn us the CD and give us on the last day. WARNING: If you are going to join this program. You better don’t give your memory card to the Fu Dao Yuan. They didn’t manage it properly. I had to ask XuanXuan to send me another CD after I was back home and found that my pictures were missing)

We had a farewell speech for the Fu Dao Yuan of our group—XuanXuan and MianBao. We sang the favourite song, “Peng You” (= friend) and then separated. I got back to my room and felt too tired to arrange the luggage. I finished handling the luggage around 3am. It was extremely heavy. I dragged it to the weight measurer, but it was broken already because more than 100 people used it to weight their luggage. P’Arm carried it and mearsured the weight for me. He said it was about 30 kg. I thought I should move some stuff to the Jusport bag (the one we got from the program) to carry it onboard, but I was too lazy. I jumped to bed immediately after he left.