I want to be a Civil Engineer when I grow up. Just so I can go to all these conferences in awesome locations.

After a brief hiccup with my flight, I made it from Hong Kong to Taiwan, (passport pages 3 and 4 are done for!) and discovered that my hotel is actually a palace . Well, designed like a palace. It's amazing. AND, it’s got a Japanese toilet, for those of you in the know. ;)

After the madding rush that was Sunday, I was simply exhausted, so after breakfast on Monday I wandered around the hotel shops and grounds for a while, then went to bed for most of the rest of the day. I would like my own personal jet next time I go on a crazy tour of Asia, please. No more of this "crack of dawn", “dark of night” malarkey for me, thanks. For some reason, my father thought it would be nice to check out the Night Market for our evening meal. I questioned his sanity first, and his supposed loyalty to my blog second, then went along to see what on earth he was thinking. Luckily for his sanity, he had been thinking along the lines of KFC, but unfortunately for his stomach, it was a Night Market. And all that that implies. There were no scorpions or seahorses, but it was pretty gross anyway. When I get back, I’m going to invent a device that can capture smell and attach it to a blog . Asian night markets are rarely anything like the picturesque Bavarian Christmas Markets. By the way – yay Germany! 20 years of no Berlin wall and perfectly organised queues. You’re my hero.

Let’s go back a minute to Sunday, I forgot to tell ye a little anecdote. I was flying with China Airlines from Hong Kong to Taipei, and they’re much nicer than China Eastern or China Southern, just so you’ll know. I had little TV screen and a choice of movies (Harry Potter 6 and The Time Traveller’s Wife included!) and everything. I happened to be in the second row from the back of the plane, which was fine, but also meant that I was about the only white person around. There were two little Chinese womeneen beside me, who clearly weren’t used to flying. Once the air hostess had stopped them and their friends from milling around the back of the plane, they sat down and started pointing out the fact that I was sitting beside them and they all had a good look. Then they spent a while hammering the TV screen with their long nails, since they couldn’t get it to work like lil’ ol’ me had . I figured that that was why my touchscreen was a little iffy and unresponsive. Then, since she had nothing else to do, the one beside me spent the next ten minutes cleaning out her left ear. After that, she spent a while picking her nose, and then, to clean up, she licked all her fingers and started hammering the screen again. I didn’t touch much after that.

Poor Daddy is going to have an awful lot to carry home with him when he leaves Hong Kong. Wang gave him some Chinese white wine, which is something like 53% proof, some posh Chinese red wine in a wooden box, and a disc of tea, as well as another scroll that’s about 1.2m in length. We’ve left those at the Harbour Grand in Hong Kong until we get back, but he hasn’t yet factored in my Disneyland junk, or whatever I pick up here. Mwahahaha! Sorry Daddy.

Since Daddy was at the conference and I’m not really all that great at Wind Engineering, I decided to take the MTR into Taipei and have a look around . I went to Zhongshan due to the promising amount of shopping bag icons on my map, but it turned out to be a big fat lie. I ended up walking and walking and walking and not having much to show for it (besides a slightly fuller stomach due to a McDonald's stop along the way – which had HOT chips. Take note, KFC...). The most interesting things I saw ended up being a large number of monks and nuns, who were also wandering the streets. I hadn’t actually seen any nuns before now, since they’re not as common on the mainland and probably not recommended to be out of doors anyway.

I admired some more electronics, had a Starbucks, and persuaded my feet to bring me to the MTR so I could throw them onto a bed. They were far more disagreeable than you’d imagine, and this account doesn’t do any justice to the amount of walking they had to endure. Or maybe it’s all just beginning to add up. I forgot to mention that I had a “foot reflection” and pedicure after the night market, for a whopping €8. It was a reflexology massage, and a rather brutal one at that, but it didn’t seem to benefit my walking much. Or maybe my feet were just like “What the hell, Mary? Massage one day, enforced slavery the next?! We quit!”

All three of us made it back to the hotel anyway, though the fate of my left foot was a bit doubtful while we were standing on the MTR. I’ve just been lying here, unable to move, so I think it’s time to call it a night.