Our last full day in Taipei began with a fancy buffet at the regent hotel. Though it 's more of a mall and hotel got stitched together, including the oversized (and over-branded) Christmas decorations. 

Due to being a little further out of town and not as convenient on public transit, we grabbed a cab towards the National Palace Museum (NPM). (Side note: cabs are relatively expensive and seem highly regulated, drivers insisting we take a receipt with us, they are however, cash only). After passing the air force headquarters and National Ministry of Defense buildings, we arrived at the National Palace Museum. 

An impressively immense building that has at least 200 meters of lead up from the main entrance, we started our visit with a walk through the beautifully curated gardens. 

While it was a large museum, we did manage to visit most of the rooms in our 3.5 hour stay (including a 30 minute coffee break in the middle). Some highlights included: stunning landscapes, rotating vases (vases in vases!!), jade cabbage (and the Mona-Lisa-esque viewing experience of a large crowd around a unexpectedly small treasure), and an almost comically out of place, yet still delightful, Rococo exhibit advertised for children.

After a quick nap and planning session back at the hotel we walked to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA). 

On our way there, we passed through what can only be described as Christmas shop street? We were cutting it close with being able to have enough time at the museum, so only snapped one photo while running by, but in the span of 2 blocks passed at least 5 stores, of which the picture is only the third gaudiest. 

The museum ended up being almost entirely a retrospective on Yang Mao-Lin's "Journey of the HERO WITHIN". This incredibly prolific and multi-multi media artist had easily 100 pieces including: metal and wood sculptures, dot paintings on wood, oil paintings, and animated videos. His work centers his "inner child", incorporating comic book and blockbuster movie characters and imagery with images and media significant to Taiwan. An also deep sea animals. 

We followed up with Hong Kong style dim sum and a quick detour to the train station to buy our tickets for our journey to Hualien the following day.