So more than half of our trip in taiwan has passed and it is day 5 today. This morning we woke up later than usual as there was no rush to anywhere. We took the mrt to C.K.S memorial station and had a delicious breakfast of meatballs with vermicelli/noodles/bee hoon. It was filled with locals looking for a cheap and good eat. The broth was tasty and the meat paired with the vermicelli went down well. It was called “jin feng eating house”.
Next, we visited chiang kai shek memorial hall which was a palace located on a vast plot of land. It was built to commemorate chiang kai shek. We saw another changing of guards ceremony, except that this time there were fewer china tourists around and we could enjoy the whole ceremony in peace, without the need to worry about people barging in and squeezing to the front. The c.k.s memorial hall is so enormous that we look like tiny people against the backdrop of the whole hall. In the area which looked like two temples flanking the sides of the memorial hall, there was the national theatre and national concert hall. We saw some people busy rehearsing for a musical concert in the vest open square.

For lunch we went to a popular beef noodles house, we did not know that “hong shao niu rou tang mian” did not include the beef and ordered that. I was quite disappointed with the noodles as they were hard and chewy, not to my liking. Luckily the lady boss allowed us to add in the beed cubes to top up to “hong shao niu rou mian”. I only liked the tender beef cubes and the stock. We also ordered a bowl of wanton as side dish, and the wanton was totally delicious.

In the late afternoon, we went to ximen station, home of the ximending shopping district. There I bumped into weijie who was on a tour and he was frantically looking for clothes as he needed to return to the tour bus by a certain time. ximenting is like the harajuku of taiwan, it has many shops offering japanese, korean fashion and accessory shops that carry many fashionable, trendy products for the youth. The girls bought playboy shoes which were limited edition and reasonable priced. As usual I did not find anything suitable, so I did not buy any clothes or shoes. I only had snsd stickers and a mousepad which was bought from a korean fan club shop. They had all sorts of posters, mugs, memorabilia of the korean boybands and girl groups, any kpop fan’s paradise.
And now it is time for luxy…updates tomorrow! (: