Day Three: Accepting Defeat

By day three, we had given up all pretenses of roommately togetherness and were making our plans with no concern for others. We left our hotel at the very leisurely hour of 11 am and made our way to the Shilin district. After a quick metro trip, we found ourselves in a land of pleasant, cheap restaurants with names like "i like cake" and "Rosie's Sushi and Noodles." We rode a bus for some time into the mountains, which were very pretty, until we reached the National Palace Museum. The Museum claims to be the largest collection of Chinese art in the world. It's probably true. It's also surprisingly boring. With the world's best stuff, you'd think there would be some really nice things. At the risk of causing an international incident, the highlight was a visiting exhibit of Islamic jades. Personally, I was underwhelmed because the majority of the stuff was Yuan or later (1279-1911). Most of that too was porcelains, which are pretty, but montaneous. Only four items currently on display are from the T'ang. If you're really into porcelains or bronze ritual vessels, though, it's worth your time. (There were so many bronzes that at one point we jokingly theorized as the Nationalist government was fleeing China, everyone was given a ticket to Taiwan and an ancient bronze.) The Museum gift shop was also a letdown--although not a surprising one after the exhibits themselves. Still, I found a nice image of a buddha, which I pratically snatched out of the hands of an older woman. Oh sure, I was playing in cool, loitering in the background as she and a female companion hemmed and hawed over it. Then her husband lost all interest and the women put the picture back and moved away. I zeroed in and snatched it for the kill. It's a good thing I did. Turns out there was only one, plus the display. I learned this as I was waiting for the clerk to bring it to me and the other woman intercepted her. But I asked first and I got new picture. On the way back, we stopped at a food stall and bought some Nam bread (like a soft, freshly made pita) with sauce. It was incredibly tasty. Later that evening, we went back to the 101 and refreshed our Milano and Dr. Pepper supplies, having consumed them in the course of one day. We bought High-Speed Rail tickets home because we decided we'd rather spend $40 and be home in an hour than spend $18 and 3 hours on a bus. This also meant we could leave Taipei later. Unfortunately, we arrived in Taizhong so late that the buses (which are irregular at best) were no longer running (okay, and it was 10:30 pm). A kindly security guard "rescued" us and personally escorted us to the standard train station (conveniently located in the same building as the HSR station) because taking a taxi (for all of maybe 5 miles) would be too expensive. (For the record, it would not have been.) Nevertheless, no one was going to spend NT$110 on a taxi when they could take the train for NT$30. The train station was very fun. It was so small and we were the only passengers for our train. We just waited until a man came out with a flashlight and flashed the conductor. We got on and rode the maybe ten minutes to Changhua. I was most disappointed to see how really out in the boonies our city is. Chengqing, which has a train station, a restaurant that's only open for breakfast and nothing more, has a far nicer train station than us. Just to round out the evening, we picked our bikes up and went over to McDonalds for a midnight snack and then biked home. For those keeping tally, we used 1)the Metro, 2) our legs, 3) our bikes, 4) a taxi, 5) a bus, 6) a HSR train, and 7) a train. That's every form of transportation available except boat and airplane and six out of the seven in one day. If only we had gone out to Danshui, we could have added boat to the list.