What a week! At long last, I got some visitors from back home. Jesse, Dan, and Lindsay completed their Tokyo - Taipei tour just yesterday, and I hope they had a good time. It was fortunate for me that they began their trip in Tokyo, as I'd imagine they would be far less jetlagged. I had the Sunday they were to arrive off of work, which Tiffany and I spent together. Their plane was to arrive around 10 o'clock, which definitely did not happen.

There was talk about me checking at the BnB for them in advance, as to not make the owner wait around all night. That idea was scrapped, and then seemed to rise from the ashes after their plane got delayed. I had already set out before knowing that, around 9:00 - for a 30 minute trip. I knew I had some time to kill, so I wandered around Taipei Main enjoying a coffee. Around 11 o'clock I headed over and met the owner, Tom. Turns out Tom is a pro kickboxer, originally trained in Thailand and the Philippines. Pretty crazy! He also has a pretty ballin place right next to Taipower. And a stray roof cat. Seeing as how he is black and white, I named him Panda. Tom wanted to leave before the MRT closed, so I checked to see where the guys were. It turns out they were still at the airport. Tom basically said "Well forget that", gave me the keys, and got out of there. Meanwhile I got to sit around for 2 hours at a free hotel and watch Youtube.

We started day 1 with some Xiao Long Bao on our street corner, and headed to see the CKS Memorial. I've been there several times, it's pretty cool. People seem to have mixed feelings about CKS though. On the one hand he did kind of establish modern Taiwan. On the other he killed a lot of people that didn't need to be killed. Anyway the weather on the first day was not that bad, so we didn't die from heat exhaustion immediately. After the overly elaborate changing of the guard ceremony at CKS, we continued up the red line to visit Tanshui. Tanshui was a bit quiet on a Monday morning, but they still had their regular staples lined up - we paid a visit to the Fisherman's Wharf, checked out Fort Santa Domingo, and I got my garlic corn. A new sight this time was to the oddities museum, which I didn't know they had up there. We got to see a 2 headed turtle, a uhh... thing, and another weird thing? Anyway all the pics are on Facebook. After all the walking around, we stopped at Beitou for some hot springs action, which I am always a fan of. I am pleased to learn the Beitou hot springs are open much later than I thought. Jesse was originally a bit apprehensive about the super hot water, but it turns out he was the one that seemed to enjoy it the most. The temperature that day was a little shy of 120 degrees F. You have not lived until you go from 120 degree water to half that in mere seconds. Brisk! We followed up the temperature differential (which would be a good band name) with a trip to Shilin Night Market. We enjoyed a very Taiwanese meal complete with oyster omelette, spring rolls, shrimp, and noodles. I was pretty excited to play the shrimping game, and Dan and I each managed to get a shrimp to munch on. Later we tried to play the fishing game, which Dan and I failed miserably at. However, Jesse and Lindsay took up the task and each caught a few fish like it was no big thang. Like, what the hell guys? Being goldfish that were near death anyway, we (read: I) decided Panda may eat them. Spoiler alert: He did not.

The next day, we were joined by Tiffany to begin our Maokong excursion. Maokong is the best place on earth, and we began the trip by stopping at the Tea Appreciation center, the tea trail, and... wow, I just did the exact same thing with Boggs two weeks ago, so read that. But I don't mind, Maokong is awesome. It was a bit hot that day, but we still managed to pick up some tea and feed some definitely overfed koi. Back on the Neihu line it turns out the air intake on the roof of the train is really good at sucking up hair, which is just another reason why the Neihu line is the best one. We had one more stop for the day though, the world famous Taipei 101 for some beer floats, as well as the overpriced jade stuff. We got a bit lucky in that the sun set while we were up there, and got both a day and night view. Quite famished at this point, we stopped off for dinner at a place Jesse was quite interested in eating at - Jolly's. Jolly's is an odd sort, in that it is a Thai fusion restaurant / microbrewery. Their beer selection was pretty good, but I was not a huge fan of the Pilsner I got. Their special Rye Ale was much more appealing, but I only got a sip from Jesse's sampler. Their green curry though - oh wow! I was quite stuffed, but we kept the beer thing going, this time at Shida Night Market. The crew picked up some dirt cheap T-shirts, and surprisingly we drank more beer. There was also a giant dog guarding the 7-11, so that's new.

Day 3 was a bit more relaxed, out to the town of Pingxi and Houtong. Pingxi is the home of the sky lanterns, which we got to do. I was a bit disappointed we didn't get to eat their famous chicken butt, but that opportunity would present itself later. We also stopped by Houtong, aka the cat village. There are lots of cats there. It's kind of fun. On the way back we went to Ximen to eat at a restaurant Lindsay was craving (and me as well), the Modern Toilet! Only to discover they are renovating the exact days they were visiting! Balls! Instead we got conveyor belt sushi and beer flavored ice cream at Snow King. Which yeah, is pretty great, but it just doesn't match eating chocolate pudding out of a plate shaped like a toilet. On the way back we tried to fit inbetween the bars of the MRT, with varying levels of success.

After a chill day 3 it was full steam ahead on day 4. A very ambitious schedule, we started with the National Taiwan and 2/28 Museum. The NTM has greatly expanded since last I went, with both the basement and loft areas open. Their travelling exhibit was about dresses, which was... oh so fascinating. They had a terminal where you could design your own dresses and post to Facebook, which I was really excited about seeing the guys do. Unfortunately it produced an error when you went to do it - balls! The 2/28 Museum was as expected, and we all took the time to write them encouraging notes for the time capsule. Next was lunch at the all you can eat BBQ restaurant (awesome!) which, really, has this circle bacon I am a huge fan of. We popped up to the Lin An Tai Homestead, but our enjoyment was a bit dampened by the extreme heat. Not wanting to go back to the MRT, we hailed a cab to visit the next place, the Martyrs Shrine. On the way I was thinking "Where in the world is this cab driver going?" It turns out he also did not really know where, and after getting lost I told him where to go. He was quite nice, and gave us a really nice deal on the cab fare in exchange. Unfortunately most of the Martyrs Shrine was closed, but we did meet a really nice guy who just started his 1 year tour in the military. He chatted with us for a bit about the country's history, and bid as adieu. On the way back we stopped at Huashan Park for our kitchy artisty things, and Gonghua Plaza for electronics we can't afford. We also made a pit stop at the Taiwan Beer brewery, which I am quite unimpressed by. Their tap wasn't working, so it basically was just a 7-11 with fresher beer. Lame. The final destination was Longshan Temple and the surrounding market. Jesse found his massage parlor, which actually was a pretty good deal. We let him be for the 40 minutes while we walked around. The guys ate pig blood cake, chicken butt, and pork fat rice, so scratch all those delicacies off the list. Heading back to pick up Jesse, it had been closer to an hour than the allotted 40 minutes. We wandered around in some of the alleys when a lady approached Dan, who was at the front of our line. All dressed up, she first tried to be subtle about what her intentions were. After a polite decline, she maybe thought "Oh, they are not understanding me" and whipped out some very blunt gestures, much to my amusement. On the way out we met an old man who spoke very good English, who was quite drunk and took it upon himself to give his opinion on world events, CKS, Taiwan, and showed us his drivers license for really no reason.

Whew! It was a whirlwind of a tour, and although we didn't get to everything, I think we gave Taipei quite a run for the money. Unfortunately this will be my last stretch of holiday for a bit, because if you can believe it, I only have 4 months left here. How the time has flown! Speaking of which, I need to begin to organize my next trip to who knows where. Thanks for visiting, everyone!