Keelung\Taipei, Taiwan

Arrived in Taipei midday to drizzle, cloudy skies and people at the pier who’d come to see and take pictures of the ship. We’re here overnight so we decided to take a ship tour to take us into the city to see the Chiang Kai-Shek (CKS) Memorial Hall as well as the National Palace Museum. It’s about a half hour drive into the city from the port.

The Memorial Park is vast and the site of its a number of buildings, including the city’s theatre/opera house. CKS was a president of mainland China and Taiwan from 1928 to his death in 1975 – until 1949 in Mainland China and from then in exile in Taiwan. From there, we went to the National Palace Museum which has a permanent collection of nearly 700,000 pieces of Chinese artifacts and artworks, many of which were moved from the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City in Beijing, as well as five other institutions throughout mainland China when the Communist Party took over.

We didn’t return to the ship after touring the museum. Instead, we grabbed an Uber to Chifeng Street, a funky neighbourhood with cafes, vintage clothing shops and artisans. We took a coffee break at Coffee Dumbo and then meandered through the neighbourhood. From there, we hopped on the subway to Taipei 101, the city’s highest building and a major mall, to meetThomas and Geraldine for dinner and experience the city at night.Read more