Taipei 2

After having a couple of bagels, cream cheese, and coffee in the shopping centre it was time for retail therapy. Taiwan is the home of a several well-known computer manufacturers. Online forums mentioned Guanghua, a 5 storey building full of computer shops, but also said that most of the stuff you could get over the Internet and bargains were few. But I was curious so I went.

The ground floor held shops selling laptops and tablets. Higher floors had PC assemblers and parts shops. Pretty much what you'd expect in an Asian computer mart. Rather devoid of customers for a Saturday.

A friend of mine had asked me to look for cement for gluing the rubber onto table tennis bats. I happened upon a small sports store where a stream of customers flowed through to have their bat rubber replaced. As you might guess, table tennis is widely played in Taiwan.

The surrounding streets had computer stores too. I didn't buy anything there either. But I had seen a stall selling radish cake before entering the mart. But when I emerged, there were no more radish cakes. Must have been a breakfast thing. In Taiwan you have to grab the food when it's on offer. I consoled myself with a red bean paste waffle.

The top rated shopping attraction of Taipei on Tripadvisor was the City Hall branch of the Eslite book store. Imagine that, a book store at number 1. This I had to see.

It was indeed extraordinary; it had a large selection of books spread across 2 or 3 floors, mostly in Chinese, many of them translations. Lots of esoteric stuff. Psychobabble best sellers mingled with scholarly works like Piketty's Capital. This was evidence of a very literate populace.

And it was very civilised of Eslite to provide not just a few sofas but a whole room full of chairs for sampling the books before buying. This is what a bookshop should be, I thought. I came away with a couple of CDs.

Besides books they also sold stationery and upmarket items such as leather goods.

I didn't want to go up Taipei 101. It was expensive, $20 to go up the super-fast elevator, squirming in crowds at every stage. But I did get a glimpse of Taipei 101 from the back of the City Hall. A bit hazy due to the moisture in the air.

By this time it was way past lunchtime, so I headed for Wufenpu where there is a clothing market. I didn't need to worry about food stalls; in Taiwan where there's a market, there's bound to be food.

The shops in Wufenpu are wholesalers and traders from other markets come here to stock up. You can see bags and bags full of shirts or pants imported from China or Korea. They will sell retail but probably would like to see you buy a few.

Let's get the food out of the way first. I had a chives pancake with egg, then watermelon juice. Later on I encountered a hawker selling ice cream rice rolls. She put three balls of ice cream topped with crushed peanuts in a rice paper sheet and rolled it up. The interesting thing was you could have coriander as garnish if you wanted. Quite tasty.

I had hoped to get some jeans and shirts but practically all the clothing on offer was women's fashion. I found nothing, which meant I had more cash left to burn up before leaving.

I was glad to get out of the crowds. By this time it was nearly evening. I went back to the upmarket food court above Taipei train station and had a pork chop rice meal. There were lots of elderly tourists in the food court. Were they in Taipei for a weekend jaunt from the country?

I explored some of the octopus like underground passages radiating from the station and eventually called it a night. I packed before turning in as I was moving to a room in a hotel for my last night to finish the holiday in a bit of luxury.