Finally, a day where we didn’t wake up before 5:00am! We woke up and took our lazy time getting ready. WenHo came to our apartment and we walked over to the station to head out to the National Palace Museum. We walked through the market, then on to SunMerry where we got our obligatory breads filled with goodies. Then we got on the metro where we made our way to Shilin station. We found a fun little souvenir store and the kids got a bunch of fun stuff (Madeline made out with some new Tsumtsums). We then hoped the bus to the museum and made our way up the stairs to the entrance. We stored our stuff in a locker and then we spent the next hour and a half looking at old vases, Jade, and scrolls. Once we had our fill of the museum (which occurred rather quickly), we walked through the gardens and then hopped into two cabs back to the station. We didn’t head back to our apartment right away, rather we stopped at Taipei Main Station and explored the endless underground stores. We also got McDonalds, much to Peter’s delight. After looking through stores, we ran into the Funks and their kids again. We popped back over to Dongmen station and got some mango shaved dream ice. We should have been doing that every day we were in Taipei. It was ridiculously good. Its crazy that it hasn’t become a thing other places in the world, but it is really, really good. After enjoying the mango shaved ice, we went to the umbrella store, the Birkenstock store and then the little LDS store by the temple. After that we headed back to the apartment where we started to pack a little. Pretty quickly, however, we headed out and grabbed an Uber to the Peking Duck Restaurant where we were going to have our Thanksgiving Feast. We got there a little early, so we headed to the Daiso and bought a bunch of Japanese stuff and had a good time going through the silly stuff you can buy at a Daiso (Japanese Dollar Store). Then it was time for Thanksgiving dinner! We headed up to the 2nd floor where the restaurant was located. Sara summed it up best when she noted, “This is a Nightmare.” Truly, it was a nightmare of culinary horrors. The Peking Duck was good, and one of the beef platters, but otherwise, stacks and stacks of sea creatures came boiled, cooked whole, or just staring wide eyed at us. It was all the terrible things about South East Asian cooking rolled into one Thanksgiving pile of sadness and served on a rotating table in a fairly dingy restaurant. Many of our children are now vegetarians. We then headed back to Dongmen where we said goodbye to Lorene and then headed directly back to Gusto Pizza where the British guy quickly asked if we wanted our regular margarita pizza and Nutella calzones. We were only in Taipei for 5 days and had a standing order at the local pizza place! After what we had just been through, it made us feel pretty good. We took the pizzas back to the apartment, ate, packed, and wandered around the streets for one last time. There is something amazing about a city of that size, bustling at night with neon lights, scooters, cars, buses, and endless amounts of people hurrying off in various directions. Add in a little rain and it's very surreal and calming to just soak it all in.
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