Last post? Underground mall, cat cafe, hot springs

The strangest thing happened Thursday morning as I left Taipei. After waking up at the ungodly hour of 5am, Andrew and I set off to catch a 6am bus to the airport. As we walked across the local college campus to the bus stop, one of the local stray dogs started following us. Though it wasn't weird to see stray dogs around (they love hanging out by the college because all of the students feed them), it was definitely strange for it to trail us across an intersection and down an alleyway to the bus stop. It was actually kind of unnerving, because half of me thought it wanted to take a chunk out of my leg. But it turned out to just be a friendly escort dog, probably seeking table scraps.

Anyway, after 24 hours, three plane rides, and two more screenings of this meme-filled airplane safety video, I'm finally home.

My plane got in around dinnertime, and I ended up sleeping for twelve hours once I got in, but other than that, I have no jetlag. This means one of two things: either I'm magically immune, or my genius theory about evening planes is true.

I still have some more pictures to share about my trip to the hot springs, the underground mall, and the cat cafe.

I'll try to be sparing to avoid a giant post.

The underground mall, which we visited twice, is a giant shopping center attached to one of the main metro stations in Taipei. It's a genius idea--why not give people a place to shop and get food along their commute? D.C. needs to take a leaf out of Taipei's book when it comes to public transportation (for this reason, and maybe so that our metro can stop looking like a miserable smelly dungeon)

This vegetarian restaurant had the most realistic fake chicken ever (pictured right)
even Andrew thought it was convincing, and he fake-vomits at tofurky

rum raisin (top) and swiss chocolate (bottom) ice cream

In addition to many stores/stalls for clothes, food, bags, and souvenirs, there was a row of stores that were basically nerd heaven. There was one store devoted to Miyazaki merch (I got a totoro plushie) and a bunch of stores that had anime figurines and trading cards.

just a short mage and his sinister looking friend

Though prominently displayed, these were sadly not for sale.
The giant 3 ft Totoro plushie was also not for sale.
The owners of these things must like to rub them in people's faces

i wish i could say this was all we bought

(If anyone is interested in more pictures of fate zero/fate stay night figurines, I have a bunch)

We also took a second visit to the Cat Cafe. You know, no one ever goes to cat cafes for the food, but this coffe was pretty cute:

The kitten was energetic as usual. When we came in it was busy attacking a fan cord.

We soon spotted our new favorite cat, whose name is Little Obedient.

It is neither little, nor obedient.

It started to drink out of another customer's water glass (so naturally instead of alerting them we took a picture)

it's ok, they noticed.

There was also this guy, a giant white puffball that mostly lazed on a cat bed.

Andrew, sucker for cats as he is, decided that Little Obedient needed another water glass to drink out of, so he gave it his.

We met Box Kitty again, who has moved on from sleeping in boxes to muching boxes.

There was also the 17 year old cat, who meowed loudly until it was given a treat.

And this plump faced cat (I think its name is Egg) with Boss, the fluffy gray one.

Then, a small orange cat came to sit next to us! Oh happy day, I thought (until it immediately bit me).

....we didn't always see eye to eye...

 Luckily other cats were more docile

white puffball let me pet its head

But then the little orange devil started acting like it wanted attention...

And the staff eventually encouraged us to try again (only this time, we should pet his back).

...and it worked! I actually got to pet him without him swatting at me! Then I decided to quit while I was ahead and never interact with him again.

 

As a parting gift, enjoy a video of Little Obedient being really weird

Ah, Cat Cafe. We will miss you.

As for the hot springs, I don't have any pictures of the actual public hot springs for the obvious reason that water + camera = bad (though I did see one German tourist brave enough to take her iphone in on a selfie stick). It's basically like an outdoor pool area, except the water is from hot springs and there are a bunch of different pools made out of rocks.

But I do have pictures of the trip and the hot spring valley, which is where the water comes from.

this is the train that took us there. no really.

it's a forest

There were a couple local hot spring museums we visited that explained the history of hot springs. One used to be a hot spring and the other was the house of a rich political figure.

and had nice views of public parks!

Interestingly, this museum had both Western and Japanese architecture

do not try to take a soak in this tub

trust me to find the museum that talks about the patriarchy

no diving

we spent half an hour playing fire emblem in here while waiting for the hot spring to open

Then we visited Hot Spring Valley, which is the source of the water.

You could feel it getting hot even from ten feet above.

The large pool at the end of the valley was incredible. It was probably about 175 degrees Fahrenheit, and had a pH level of 1. So we didn't swim here.

 

You could see the steam rising off of it, and when the wind blew just right... the heat was unbearable

We decided to go on a whim to the hot springs, and I was a little hesitant about going in the summer. But it was fantastic. There were a couple cold pools in addition to warm and hot ones, and so you could alternate without dying. Plus, once you leave, the 85 degree weather suddenly seems incredibly reasonable.

This probably will be my last post; thank you all for reading! I've had the time of my life these past five weeks, and I'm glad I've chronicled it here.

Chiang Kai-Shek memorial

The other day, we visited the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial. It's considered one of the top few places to visit as a tourist, and I’m glad I got to see it. 

Chiang Kai-Shek was Taiwan's leader for several decades, and was also the head of the Kuomintang (KMT), one of Taiwan’s two major political parties.  He and a lot of other Nationalists fled from China to Taiwan in 1949 following the victory of the Communists in China’s civil war. 

The memorial itself is part pavilion, part garden, part museum. On the pavilion, there were two large buildings besides the museum (see above--they looked like concert halls) and a gate (see below).

We got there around 5pm, and people were already staking out seats on the pavilion for a dance performance that was happening at 7:30.

The museum/memorial

The white building is a combination memorial/museum. The memorial, which you can get to through the giant door hole, has a large statue of Chiang Kai-Shek. The lower floors are a museum.

Andrew took the stairs.... I took the elevator.

Inside the memorial hall, there's a pretty ceiling with Taiwan's flag in the center.

We got to watch the changing of the guard. The man in white to the right of the statue is one of the two guards stationed there. The other is on an identical pedestal on Chiang's left. The one on the right is the lucky one, because he gets to be in the shade.

I have no idea how I would survive standing still on a pedestal in full army dress in the sunlight for an hour at 30 degrees celsius.

In walk three more guards. Normally, two of them would switch places with the existing guards, but we got there at 5pm so they all just did the changing of the guard ceremony and left.

Here is a minute-long clip of some of the ceremony.

The museum was about 50% tribute to Chiang Kai-Shek and 50% Taiwanese military history.

a map of battles

different paintings of moments in Taiwanese military history

A replication of Chiang Kai-Shek's office, complete with mannequin

it is very realistic. the first time i saw it i got freaked out
thinking they paid someone to sit there and pretend to be him all day

The museum also had some information about Madame Chiang Kai-Shek.

There were many missed opportunities to discuss her alma mater.

There was.... a lot of his stuff displayed. (Clothes, cars, writings, even replications of his wedding invitations.)

how famous do i have to get before there is a museum with
my old soup bowl in it?

Despite what this may imply, Chiang Kai-Shek did not eat plastic food

My favorite part of the memorial, though, was outside.

This was partially due to the beautiful gardens....

...but mostly because we found another koi pond!

(Mak/others, do a control + f for *** if you want to skip past the fish)

turtle and mini turtle

it's dinnertime

you put money into this large fish to get food for
the small fish

cylindrical fish food

***

We stuck around to watch some of the dancing concert and take some more pictures of buildings.

This is the Taiwanese equivalent of the White House

I only have one and a half more days in Taipei, but probably around three blog posts to write. As you may be able to tell, they're a little backlogged. We went back to the cat cafe yesterday, and today we visited the hot springs. I also want to write a bit about the underground metro mall.