We are finishing 3.5 pleasant days in Taipei. Our hotel, Les Suites, is small but elegant, perhaps my favorite hotel in the world. (We stayed here 2 years ago with Greg and Lisa.) We have wandered around in a relaxed fashion, taking the very efficient Taipei metro. We went to the National Palace Museum with art and furnishing taken from the Forbidden City in Beijing by the Nationalist Army in 1949 when they fled to Taiwan. We also wandered through several night markets. The night markets offer open air shopping and eating. They are crowded with people shopping for clothes, luggage, tools, and food. The 2 pictures show an actual night market and my impressionistic attempt at drawing one.

The streets in Taipei are on a rectangular grid with very wide avenues, smaller streets branching off, even smaller streets and alleys branching off of these. According to Jerry, there is concern about an aging population with insufficient young people. Should more babies be encouraged, or immigration? It seems to me that the streets are already overcrowded. 

Mary Jo saw a woman pushing a "dog stroller" with a small dog inside, wearing a dog sweater. Unfortunately I did not get a picture.

One of our excursions was to Xin Beitou where there are some sulphurous laden hot waters where one can take a thermal bath. Also lots of hotels and walking trails. It is where the Chinese official Yu Yonghe travelled to Taiwan in the late seventeenth century and established a sulphur mine. One can get there by the metro and from there one could take a bus to Yangmingshan Park, where we were 2 years ago. We did not do it as we had not allotted enough time.