Five hours to kill in Taipei

Hi! My BF and I are going to go on a quick trip to Thailand on Tuesday night, but before we can, we have to go to the AIT and get some more pages in my passport. That means we have to be there before 3:30, but our flight doesn’t leave until 11:00. We’re coming up from Taichung and I can’t think of anything to do for 4 or 5 hours until we have to leave for the airport. Suggestions??? We’ll have our backpacks, and the weather will probably be crappy, so I don’t want to walk around outside much. Suggestions???

Thanks!

Karen :slight_smile:

There are tons of love hotels you can rent for 3 hours :slight_smile:

Okay, so that’s 15 minutes taken care of :slight_smile: 4 more hours to kill? Hmmm, maybe you can rent a movie to watch in your hotel.

Seriously though, if you only have a few hours in Taipei and want to see something you can’t see anywhere else in the world? You can go to pubs and restaurants and movie theaters and shopping centers anywhere in the world. So, take the bus to the National Museum and spend a couple of hours inside looking at ancient Chinese paintings and artifacts. If you’ve never been to it, it’s one of those places you have to go to at least once during your stay in Taiwan. I forget the bus you have to catch - maybe the Taipei residents here can help.

Unfortunately (unless they’ve changed their open hours since May 2002) the National Palace Museum closes at 5pm daily. If I understand Karen’s post correctly, she’ll be done at AIT by, oh, let’s say 4pm; it’ll take her 45 minutes to get to the NPM by bus, and they’ll have maybe 15 minutes to look at the miniatures.

I’d say it’s worth coming up to Taipei earlier in the day to make time to see it, though. They have tours that run you through the general collections in about an hour, if you can get there by 2pm-ish, and you’d have a couple more hours to go back and see what you liked most.

Plenty of good places for dinner, though. I’d suggest hiking up a hill to see the view, but if the weather’s going to be bad. . . .

Restaurants forum:
forumosa.com/3/viewforum.php?f=39

One good place:
forumosa.com/3/viewtopic.php?t=8631

Map (and phone number) to it:
eskimo.com/~liberty/TMP2.jpg

there are lockers below ground at the train station. You could stash your bags there and later vatch an airport bus from the bus station next door. Convenientissima.

If it’s a clear and gorgeous day like today, and you don’t feel like being in the heat outside, go up to the observation deck of the Shinkong Mitsukoshi building across from Taipei main station. It affords spectacular mountain views and even a bit of the ocean outside of Danshui, if you go on a clear day like today, that is.