Taiwan Day One

A vacation never goes seamlessly one can only hope that the snags are unimportant to the overall success of the trip. This trip was no different however the only snag was that our plane was delayed about an hour. Gabriella made a new friend at the airport, his family traveled to Japan and was just heading back to the states via Taiwan. Our arrival in Taiwan was greeted by persimmon head with I heart Taiwan t-shirt on it, he was Gabriella's first friend. Our tour guide Michele picked us up at the airport and our tour started straight away. Our first stop was the Grand Hotel which was something out of a Chinese film. Beautiful marble staircase and ornately carved ceilings and an amazing fountain dragon with an entire village with people carved around the base. Next stop Martyr shrine, we arrived in time to see the changing of the guards which was quite a show. This shrine shows the sacrifice made by the Taiwan people throughout their history. We checked into our hotel aptly named Just Sleep. Our room had 3 twin beds, a serviceable bathroom and a small desk for the laptop. The room was clean and thankfully came with 3 bottles of water, because the water from the sinks in Taiwan is not drinkable. We all loaded back on the bus for dinner at crazy restaurant that celebrated women. It was created by a housewife who loves modern art, there were lots of boob statues. The food was quite good and the atmosphere made the weirdest restaurant pale in comparison. There was another stop on our endless day of touring, the Shinen night market. Gabi and I didn’t go but Greg said we should next time because of the amazing food stalls.