day two: more food, more heat, more walking...

I woke up around 8am, and we headed out to this 24 hour restuarant just at the bottom of the apartment. i went there last time i was here and loved these burrito-like rolls that are made out of rice and filled with dried pork and pickles. also got lou bo gao (fried rice cake) and this bread thing with egg in it. good breakfast. jason and i then head out to see if we could find him a shaver with a guard so he could trim his beard. we headed in one direction to no avail, then headed in another to the giant shopping mall, SOGO. apparently, to our surprise, nothing really opens till 11am on a friday. so we pretty much just walked around and looked at closed stores. we headed back through the underground shopping mall that connects 3 metro stations. it was nice to just get out of the heat.

we headed back to the apartment and my aunt and uncle walked us to get some lunch. spicy noodles, spicy bamboo, spicy jiao tsi, spicy everything. from there, jumped on the metro and then took a cab to the National Palace Museum. Some pretty amazing stuff to see there, although I think we saw a limited amount due to renovations. Oh well. Some of the bronze pieces are incredibly intricate, dating all the way back to 200 BC and beyond. The wood and ivory carvings are mind blowing, if that's possible. Some pieces look like someone spent years to finish just one piece.

Head back to the Shilin Metro station by taxi, and decided to walk around there since it was still early. Jason had been wanting to also get a haircut, so he did so after we found what seemed to be the right district for it. There were about 7 salons all on one block. started pouring again once we left the salon, and we jumped back on the train to SOGO now that it was open. even purveying all 12 floors of that mall, we could not find jason's shaver. pity.

we're back at the apartment, taking a rest before heading out to snake alley and hopefully a bar or club. i'll let you know how that goes tomorrow...