today was father's day in taiwan - at least that's what the ads told us. but we didn't notice any difference in the behaviour of the people. no idea how they celebrate it. our first stop took us to the "chiang kai shek memory hall" [001-138] (he was a chinese nationalist leader). a huge place with several big buildings like the national concert hall, the national theater and the CKS memory hall itself. while walking the square it was hot, hot, hot, and very hot. we never knew how much sweat a body can produce in a day. after walking the parks[032-052] around the hall, we went inside[053-110] of one of the halls is also a big museum with loads of exhibitions. there we met a nice guide who told us some interesting stuff. also we were watching the changing of the guards[56-062], which takes place every hour. those poor guys were all sweaty too. there was also a dinosaurs[63-64] and a dali exhibition[65], but we did not go there. instead we entered the CKS museum[067-076]. on the first floor there were some more exhibitions. at one the artist was present too. she had really nice paintings, but we did not buy one. then we suddenly heard loud noises from the main hall and we witnessed some promotion show[085-107] for (what we think) local theatre and an opening[101], but we had no idea of what was being opened here. then we took a little break, had some coffee and - once more - absolutely delicious cake[108-109]. after that we left the CKS square and headed on to the nearby "2-28 peace park", housing a pagoda[139-145]. to flee from the heat we headed on to "taipeh 101", a landmark of taipeh. it's - as the name implies - a 101 floor skyscraper with a nice view over taipeh. we've been there on day 02, but there were too many people, so we postponed the visit. and now was the perfect time, as sunset was close. after queuing for about 15 minutes we entered the elevator up the tower. "taipeh 101" has the only damper that is accessible by public. also it has the largest damper in the world. and the fastest elevator (1010 metres per minute), and many more world records i might have forgotten here. fact is, it's quite impressive. unfortunately the outdoor observation deck was limited to only a small area due to heavy winds. nina bought me a little "damper baby"[157,164,184-185] figure, the mascot of "taipeh 101". after that we had an awesome ice cream at "cold stone creamery" [202-203], where the guys selling the ice cream mix the ice cream with the ordered ingredients like banana, nuts, chocolate chunks, etc. very nice, and the ice cream is amazing. when we finally got home to our hostel again we decided to go to a foot massage salon, as a guy gave us a leaflet promoting the salon. while i was totally enjoying it, nina did not like it so much as the lady was pressing too hard so it was painful to her. too bad. i wish i could do that every day... track: day 05