Taipei is only 600 km far from Okinawa and the flight took around one hour. I set up a meeting with a girl from CS at the Taipei main station at 11am, but I managed to get a bus from the airport very quickly and I arrived there too early. While riding the bus I saw mountains and also old houses which looked quite poor. I waited at the train station for 45 minutes until Theresa and her sister arrived. I put my suitcase in a left-luggage office and we took a metro to the Tamsui district. The weather in Taipei was quite the same as in Okinawa, around 23-24°C, partly sunny, partly cloudy. When we got to Tamsui we bought a milk bubble tea which was very popular in Taipei. Tea was good but I didn't really like the starch balls. Afterwards we went for a lunch in some local restaurant and then we walked to the Fort San Domingo.

My camera was running out of battery because the plugs in Taiwan are different from the ones in Europe and I didn't have an adapter so I could take only a few photos. After visiting the fort we walked on the Tamsui river shore and we went to a shopping district. I tasted an egg which was hard boiled in a black tea. Then we visited a shop with sweets, there was free tasting so I tried many cakes, some of them were delicious while the others I didn't like. Then we returned to the Taipei main station. I found a host on CS and we were supposed to meet at the Ximen station at 7pm and then I scheduled a meeting for my friends in the Modern Toilet restaurant. I waited at the Ximen station for half an hour but my host didn't come. Later I found out that he mistook the date of my arrival, he thought I was going to arrive on 7th November instead of 6th. I tried to call him many times from the public phone but he didn't answer. I left the Ximen station at 7.30pm, but by the time I reached the Modern Toilet restaurant my friends had already left. I wasn't particularly angry that my host didn't arrive but I was very upset about not being able to meet my friends. Then I tried to figure out what to do, I was walking in Taipei and tried to find an internet cafe, it was very difficult because there were not many of them and I had to pull my suitcase. I was passing some hostels on my way, but I decided not to go there before I talk to my host and my friends. Finally I found an internet cafe and my old friend who studied with me at the Wageningen university in Netherlands invited me to stay at her home for one night. I took a taxi to the Neihu district, I reached her home around 10pm. Her husband bought for me a chicken and rice and we had a talk until midnight and then we went to sleep.
In the morning I met Theresa again and we walked in a city, we took a photo of Taipei 101 skyscraper and we went to a Hong Kong restaurant. I ate ice cream with red beans.

Early in the afternoon we travelled to a district with restaurants which offerred turtle and snake meat. We bought a snake soup with ginger flavour. I was surprised that the snake meat tasted like fish and it had also many bones. Then we ate turtle soup but I didn't like the taste because it was dark meat and similar to beef. Afterwards Theresa had to leave and I went to the Beitou hot springs. The entrance was very cheap and the place was crowded, there were mostly local people. They were friendly and I talked to some of them. There were several pools with thermal water, one pool was with a cold water, the other one had around 35-38°C and the last one 42-45°C which was terribly hot, I couldn't stay inside the water. I just sat down and I had to go out immediately. I spent there only one hour, then I had to go to Ximen to meet the guy who was supposed to host me. We went to the Modern Toilet restaurant, I ordered pasta and ice cream, but the food was average. Then we walked to the Main station and I took a bus to the airport to take a flight to Manila.