06.04 - Day 9 - Taipei, Taiwan

Monday 6th April

Taipei, Taiwan
Temperature - Min 19, Max 24
17,540 steps

Following breakfast at Just Sleep we walk 10 minutes to this snappily named Land Bank Exhibition Hall of National Taiwan Museum. It's actually a secondary building of the main Museum across the street at the top of Peace Park.

Most places seem to close on a Monday but today is a Consecutive Holiday which, with forecasted 40 millimeters of rain, works in our favour. The building is a former bank and is half Natural History Museum, half bank history and restoration (which was part of the appeal). 

A snip at 35/15 TWD ($1.50 /75 cents), we first go into the old vault before perusing an easily laid out selection of genuine and replica fossils / bones. The stairwells leading to imagery and videos of the restoration remind me of school, the smooth bannisters primed for sliding down. A good bite-sized museum.

The rain has not appeared when we emerge and so, with the persuasiveness of grand-parents that parents could not manage, Sienna and Seb want to go to the Museum of Drinking Water. 

It's a few stops south on the metro but as we're walking there, we get sucked into Happy Lemons for some cold drink and waffle combos. They're all good - Oreo and Lemonade, Cinnamon and Honey drink, Salted Butter waffle and Lemon again. 

Energised we walk around (on our own) the old water pumping station the outside of which is a popular wedding photo location.

One installation in the grounds - which we didn't really explore as rain now starts to fall - is a 20 feet long 6 feet wide piece of pipe that had been underground until a 1999 earthquake when it was severely bent. The metal is so thick, it's hard to imagine the force required to bend it.

We're now dodging rain showers, stopping for some fried chicken and pork under an awning on the way back to the Metro - Sienna also sourcing a pair of earrings. It's mid-afternoon now and we split up - Mema and Pawpaw head to a very busy Longshan Temple; so busy they've convinced it must be a special day of some sort for all the believers. Kate, Sienna and Seb pop back to Just Sleep for a brief rest, I fail to buy rail passes at the main train station.

Us four then collect the metro northbound to the Taipei Astronomical Museum arriving it 4pm with a 5pm closure which makes it a bit of a rush when there's four floors. Do you stick or twist at any exhibition or stand? It's an impressive museum though, plenty of hands on activities.

After plenty of waiting walking today, we Uber 10 minutes to Shillin Night Market. Before we can even get to the main street we stop for two steamers of Xiao Long Bao. The narrow streets then of food store selling - on repeat - grilled or fried meats; octopus, stinky tofu, sausages, pork, chicken. Omlettes, sweetcorn.

We abscond from that though to walk through the covered hall filled with funfair type games of hoop throwing, gun shooting, dart throwing stalls. 

Sienna deliberates our keyrings for her friends whilst Seb invests 100 TWD in 300 ball bearings in a repetitive gambling pinball machine. It requires Sienna to sit next to him to help get through them.

A short walk to the Metro whisks us home. All the while Mema and Pawpaw have got the metro to Taipei 101 to look around the area and get dinner of their own.