I had a terrible sleep, coughing and spluttering through the night. I finally got up at 8 and wandered down for breakfast. I didn’t take the happy lift, it was too much for me (I’ll explain later)

The breakfast lounge was busy and I had no sooner sat down to begin breakfast when this old dear that had sat next to me the day before sat down and she was still fucking sniffing, even me with my leaking snout was no where near as noisy as her.

Today’s mission was to go to the bus company and get my lost hat. The young girl on reception managed to understand my broken Chinese and after a few false starts I had an address and a time to pick up my hat……. Marvellous.

But first I was going to the National Museum of Taipei which has an amazing collection of artifacts saved from the crazy Chairman Mao days . Of course Mao is a hero to many but they seem to forget and forgive him for the destruction he brought to China. Thankfully Chiang Kai Shek and his boys managed to bring many items to Taiwan where they have been kept safe ever since.

I really enjoyed it and spent maybe two hours wandering around….. I could have stayed longer but the hoards of Chinese tourists can be a bit overwhelming at times. So many young princess’s and prince’s with no respect following the ways of their parents. They try to push between me and the exhibit instead of going around me, of course me being me, I just look at them and if they don’t move I point to which way they can go.

Photos are snapped and uploaded to wechat before you can say “Ming Dynasty” Some exhibits are over 2000 years old and they are lucky if they can command five seconds of reality before they are swyped right. I only saw a handful of parents taking the time to explain to their kids what amazing things were behind the glass.

I stand in awe at some of the pieces on offer because the skills needed to produce such quality are indeed out of this world and even more so when you look at the dates that lie beside some objects. Even today with all our marvellous technology we would be hard pushed to replicate many of them.

My advice is don’t go here at the weekend because it was so busy and I would have stayed longer if it had been quieter.

Later in the day I got my hat.