Taiwan: Day 2

After a good night sleep on a uber comfortable bed and excellent hot shower, the day became dark and we equipped with an umbrella each. Sadly, the day was bright and windy the whole day so we were carrying a redundant umbrella the whole day.

Breakfast at the hotel was not that great. Firstly, there isn't much of a variety and secondly majority of the variety are with pork. Not that it matters but it was not that appetizing hence we had breakfast elsewhere.

First stop on the itinerary was Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. It's just 2 stops away from Ximending and upon exiting the station, we're blown by the chilling wind till my hair was messed up. And as we walked through the garden, we were greeted by a square in view of a concert hall and a theater by the sides, and the CKS memorial hall up ahead.

The view up ahead - Chiang Kai-Shek

View from CKS

The Guard of Honor stationed at the CKS hall will conduct a changing of guards ceremony every hour. With an hourly ceremony, I won't expect it to be like those in Singapore which is only conducted every first Sunday of the month. The ceremony was quite simple but the precision marching would put some shame to Singaporean GOH. I know because I was one of them.

After checking out the exhibits, we made our way toward Taipei 101by MRT to Taipei City Hall. There is a shuttle to Taipei 101 but as a traveller, we walked towards the tower. But it was a wrong thing to do because we were greeted by great shopping mall. Eslite was one of them which was on my itinerary too. The main objective was the tower so we continued onwards but keeping our mind to return to Eslite.

Taipei 101 is a shopping centre with a tower observation deck on the 89th floor. Entry is SGD17. The queue on weekend are crazy but they had a queue timing, every 100 visitors for every 20 minutes.

There are 4 levels to the observation deck. First is the main observation floor on 89th floor which has the 360 views of the city. On the higher floor is the outdoor observation deck. Still the same windy day, my hair messed up in another direction.

Moving lower to 88th floor is the world largest and heaviest wind dampener. The dampener was coated in yellow which look like a huge luxurious golden ball. Moving along towards the exit, you'll go through the souvenir store which sell jewelries made of coral reefs and attractions souvenir shops. That was the best opportunity to get stuffs for back home and work.

As it was past lunchtime, we went down to the shopping centre in search of food. Majority of the food stores are located at the basement floor and compact in one huge dining area. There were many variety of stalls including 2 halal stall which were either Indian or Mediterranean.

We made our way back towards Taipei City Hall MRT station and visited the malls that we past. Still succumbing our desire to shop, we took note of all the items that we aimed to get.

With Hakimbo's passion of analogue photography, we decided to visit the Lomography store in Taipei at Dunhua. Without any research of Dunhua except the location of the Lomography store, we were amazed with what Dunhua has to offer.

Dunhua is a much more trendier place than Ximending and Shihlin, housing many well known brands such as Lomography, ABC Mart, and Porter International to name a few. More window shopping and an extending shopping list.

Due to a very long event the day after, we headed back to the hotel for a well deserving rest.

A mix of Day 1 and 2