Taiwan trip Day 3

So, our "body clocks" have definitely not reset completely yet... we were wide awake at 5AM even though we'd only had 4 hours of sleep. Oh well, such is the plague of world travel, I suppose! We're staying at a very nice Westin hotel - but like a lot of Taipei - there is a mix of the new and the old. Here is our view from the window of our 8th story room.

Duane had one day to recuperate from the travel, so we spent a leisurely few hours doing a little bit of touring.  We got our "Easy Cards" - the Taipei metro/subway system passes.   It's incredibly inexpensive and convenient to travel this way.  About $1US takes you all the way across town.

First stop was to make sure he knew how to get over to the IBM office building he needed to go to.  He's been there before, but it had been several years.  The subway system was not complete at that point, so he'd never ridden the subway to it before.  

We joked about it when we set off walking - "wonder when we'll see the next 7-Eleven" - because they are literally on every street corner!  And not one minute later, there it was to prove us correct!

I wanted to go on and get started on some of the sights - and Duane got drug along for a few hours.

On the list was the Confucius Temple - we've been to a few of these in China - this one was similar and very nicely maintained.  It was apparently a school in recent times but is now just open to the public.

I love these street scenes.  Everything is so "bustling" and chaotic.  Scooters literally buzzing around everywhere, it seems.

We toured an area that was set up in 2010 for a Flora Expo - and there were remnants of the preparations.  These simple coleus caught my eye because they're just like the ones I grown most years.

And then I walked around to the back of this area and saw that they had planted an assortment that most of us would have at home in the US - the coleus, wandering Jew, periwinkle and some ferns that looked just like our Boston ferns.  Just thought it was cool....

And then we were hungry....

So we stopped by a nice looking place - I will tell you that Duane will NOT eat strange street food.  There was no way we could read the menu, but luckily, the waitress knew some English.   We didn't exactly know what we were getting into - but it turned out wonderfully!  The restaurant was what they call a "hot pot" restaurant.  This is sort of like The Melting Pot we have at home - except you have an actual gas fired grill to cook your food on.

They bring you raw meat and veggies on plates.  We got chicken and some seafood.  I was shocked when she brought a whole fish!  I have no idea what kind of fish they were.....

Anyway, you get the idea.  You dip the food in sauces and then place them on this very hot grill embeded in the table in front of you.  Good fun and your food is piping hot!  And no, I didn't manage to peel the shrimp with my chopsticks....

We were totally beat by 3pm....our bodies were saying "it's 3AM"!!!  Back to the subway for the short hop back to the hotel.