Taipei reminds me a lot of Tokyo, due to it being a part of the Empire of Japan for 50 years. There are Japanese restaurants everywhere, sushi in 7 ELEVEN, and it is clean and modern. The official name of the country is the Republic of China and Mandarin is the official language, just like in Beijing. Everything here is fairly expensive. Food and accommodation is at least twice as much as I’ve been used to the past few weeks.
I have no travel guide for Taiwan, and I’m not sure I want to buy one and carry it around. I headed to the National Library to try to read and photograph some pages. You do need to get a temporary library card to use the library, which required my passport, but it was still free. They didn’t have the latest editions, but I got some ideas.
I visited the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall across the street from the library, a major landmark here. Next to the hall are two huge buildings: National Theater Hall and National Concert Hall. Later I walked to National Taiwan Museum and look a look. Nothing too special there, I thought, but it was free since it was 100 years old this year.
In the evening, I went to Keelung and visited a night market to try some Taiwanese food, including chou doufu, soup, dessert, and milk tea.