we left taroko today, heading back to taipeh again mainly because of "kai-tak", the latest typhoon, but also for shopping. so after going by hotel shuttle bus to hualien train station, where we got on a pretty crowded train back to taipeh. we were lucky to still get a seat, unlike other passengers, like three guys travelling taiwan on bike. but they also switched to train due to the typhoon. in the afternoon we arrived at the taipeh station, had yummy waffles[02] at "aunt stella"'s cafe, and then headed on to our new hotel called "flowers hotel". so called because they had (plastic) flowers in every window. after a long shower (which actually was pretty useless, because it was raining, and this makes it only more humid and hot), we decided to go to "shimen district", a loud, crowded, and busy shopping district with all kind of fancy stuff. just the right place after the days in taroko. but before we came by the "chenghuangtempel van taiwansheng"[03-09]. in shimen (actually called "ximending") there were really cool shops. some having cats[16,19-20], some having "chi's sweet home" stuff[23]. oh, and i bought another book of "chi's sweet home", this time part five, since it became tradition to buy one book in every japan or china related place. so far i bought book one in tokyo, book two in chicago (in a japanese mall), and book four in hong kong. only four books to go (at the time of writing) - yay! one shop[31-33] was our favourite. it had tons of little plastic figures of manga and movie characters. i bought a little "totoro" figurine from the movie "my neighbor totoro" that is also a calendar. later we had some dinner[34-38], and for the first time we were not pleased with the food. while i considered mine as "almost ok", nina was not happy with hers. amazing, isn't it? after 19 days! track: day 19