An early start today–breakfast at 6:45, bags packed and we were loaded on the bus at 7:20 a.m. We had a four-hour bus ride to Taipei; one bright spot at a toll stop was a Starbucks; most folks on the bus were extremely happy, since we had not seen one the entire time we were in Kaohsiung! I have to admit, I was very, very excited!
Another sit-down lunch upon our arrival in Taipei. At least they had a couple non-seafood courses, so Miss Leslie was able to eat a little more than she had at previous meals. We completed lunch ahead of schedule and had to wait about 45 minutes for the bus to come back because the restaurant hadn’t realized we were done eating and hadn’t called him! Fortunately the sun was shining and there was a nice breeze, so it wasn’t too bad.
Our next stop was the Taipei Museum, the Palace treasures exhibit. It was nice, but on the last day after a four hour bus ride, not as interesting as it would have been a few days earlier. We had 2.5 hours there, but really only needed one hour, which meant we could have had longer at our next stop, the 101 building. Before the 101 we stopped for a photo op at a temple. The Chinese guard was in the process of taking the flag down, and we found this very interesting. Seven guards took approximately thirty minutes to take the flag down and roll it up!
In front of the 101 Building
The 101 building was so awesome. When we got off the bus to see it up close, we had to nearly bend over backwards to see all of the way to the top. We only had an hour there, so we quickly entered and started looking at the shops. Wow, they were all designer. We saw Armani, Valentino, Chanel and many other designer stores. As you can imagine, we didn’t make any purchases. However, we went to the food court and had a great dinner. Miss Leslie had a chicken sandwich and I had some noodles and a pineapple smoothie. We also went to a great pastry shop where we bought some goodies for the plane; and for dessert we had some fantastic ice cream. The day was long, and we were about to leave Taiwan on a long airplane ride.
This was truly the trip of a lifetime–what an amazing experience!
