And so we come to the final installment of my Taiwan trip. Tai may have pei'd too much for breakfast on the second day, but tai more than pei'd the price for drinking all those beers on the third. I finally managed to leave the hostel around midday, and had to find new accomodation as the room I'd been in was booked up for the next two nights. I wandered along to the Happy Family hostel, a grotty tower block in central Taipei with iron bars over every door. Pretty grim, but very cheap. The owner was Mr. Lee, a slightly less crazy Mr.Lee than the one I'd met in Seoul. There 
was no happy family in sight. After dumping stuff I headed up to Danshui, the seaside town at the end of the Taipei MRT metro line. It was a really nice day, and I enjoyed strolling along the waterfront, even in my pained state. I visited Fort San Domingo too, which was very interesting. I had more street food and then went back into Tapei to visit a couple of temples; they were both nice to wander around in the sun, and it was a great way to spend a day (I was really lucky with weather in Taiwan, as most weeks it pisses it down constantly (for non-British readers, 
that means it rains a lot)). In the evening I went to the Beitou Public Baths, an onsen-esque experience without having to get completely naked. I accidentally went to the hottest bath first, and jeeeesus it was hot! I don't know how the old Taiwanese men sitting in it could stand it. I settled for a less hot version, and soaked for a while. In the evening me, Meghan and Tibor met up for some drinks. We had quite a few, and ended up in a pub selling pints of carlsberg- pints!! I hadn't realised how much I'd missed the pint, Britain's greatest export. Anyway I got home around 3 or 
4, I'm not entirely sure which, and fell into a deep sleep.The next morning the Taiwan trio ("JETs on tour") met up to see Taiwan's most famous "sight", the National Palace Museum. It was very impressive- I must admit the fact that it was mostly pieces of pottery worked against it, but even so there were some amazingly intricate, and unbelievable old pieces on display. The
museums contents were all dumped onto a plane and flown to Taiwan in the 1940s, when Chiang Kai-Shek escaped Communist China. Thank god he did, as otherwise most of this stuff would have subsequently been destroyed in Mao's "Cultural Revolution". A particular favourite was an Olive stone carving, with a small boat with about 7 figures in, about 1.5 inches by 1 inch, with an entire poem carved onto the bottom in minute Chinese characters. The oldest stuff was around 4000 years old! There was also a long scroll painting, "Down By The River", which was fantastic- it was 
about 5 metres long. The photo is of Meghan getting interviewed by high school students. The rest of the day, and indeed evening, passed quite quickly; I strolled around a bit and, reverting to hobo-like tendencies, dozed on a park bench. In the evening we went to the Shilin Night Market, where we had the Taiwanese equivalent of nabe, and where it finally truly let loose and pissed it down. I had a couple of beers back at the hostel with a French guy before turning in for the night.
The next day began at the ungodly hour of 4.50am. The flights and train ride home all went without a hitch, and although we had a great time we were all tired and ready to be back home. Taiwan was very interesting; there wasn't quite as much to see as I'd expected, but the dumplings and general street food were excellent, and it was really really nice to be back in a Chinese-speaking country. It renewed thoughts of possibly going to live somewhere in China in the future. Nothing could match the amazing autumn colours nor the DMZ that I'd seen in Seoul. But I like Chinese architecture more than anything else I've seen in Asia, and I managed to remember and speak some of the Chinese I'd learnt two summers back which was very satisfying.
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