cks memorial main entrance

cks theatre hall

theatre hall detail

cks memorial interior

chiang kai-shek

calligraphy
(my name is on the far right)

tropical tree trunks

cks memorial window

i arrived in taipei safe and sound monday night. yesterday was a day spent visiting relatives and family friends, from my ailing grandfather at the retirement home, to liuo-ayi who took my 2nd aunt and i out to lunch at a beef restaurant (irony: my aunt is afraid of cow meat), to visiting my dagougou (hadn't seen her in 8 years) where i had dinner with their family. yesterday i ate so much i didn't have anymore room for smelly tofu, which marks this as the second day i've been back without partaking in the smelly. don't worry, i plan to rectify this situation immediately, tonight.

now that i'm back in taipei, away from the traveler ghettos of southeast asia, internet access, surprisingly, has been very hard to find. good internet access that is. today i'm here at colanet (listening to loud chinese/japanese pop music, the whiff of cigarette smoke prevalent in the air-conditioned floor), where the young men with the stylish hairdos told me that most internet cafes here in taiwan only run windows 98 (windows xp is too expensive), which isn't compatible with my portable photo storage device, which might mean no photos until i return to boston monday night. i'll keep on trying to find a place though, not like i stopped taking photos because i can't put them online!

today, i already visited the chiang kai-shek memorial, and now i'm in ximending, and later i'm going to guonhua market, followed by a visit to taipei IKEA, before returning to shingdien to have dinner with one of my father's friends.

tomorrow another free day. originally i planned on taking a bus to keelung, but i heard it's a hassle to find the good beach spot once i'm there, and taipei weather has been hazy at best, so my dreams of further tanning might be cut short.

ikea taipei

smelly tofu & apple cider soda