Millennium pulled into Taipei harbor and we headed to the theater to wait for our excursion for today, "Destination Highlight: Temples and Treasures of Taipei with Dim Sum Lunch". We boarded a bus and drove to the center of town to take photos outside Taipei 101. The 508 meter tower was the tallest building in the world from 2004 to 2010.

Our next stop was Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, built in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, the first president of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Designed by C.C. Yang, The memorial hall is white with a blue roof, representing the dominant colors in the ROC flag, while the emblem of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) adorns the vaulted ceiling. A bronze statue of Chiang looks west symbolically to the Presidential Office Building and mainland China. We exited just in time to catch the last part of the Changing of the Guard ceremony.

We climbed back on the bus to go the Lin An Tai Historical House and Museum. Lin Chin-Neng built a house at where No. 141 Siwei Rd in the 48th to 50th Years of the Qianlong Period in Qing Dynasty (1783-1785). It is one the oldest houses in Taipei. In 1978, as the house was located within the project to expand Dunhua S. Road, Lin An Tai Historical House was moved and reconstructed. And in May 2000, the Lin An Tai Historical House and Museum was opened to the public. We were disappointed in our tour guide here as she would go into rooms and explain them, but there was not enough room for all of us so if you were in the back, you could not hear what she said. Several other guests complained about the lack of a microphone or whisper devices.

Our next stop was lunch at "Amazing Hall". We met there with other groups from other Celebrity excursions for a dim sum lunch. We really had no idea what the waiters kept bringing out except it was a lot of pork dishes, much to the chagrin of two of our tablemates who did not eat pork. It was all quite good although way too much food.

After lunch, we visited the Taipei Confucius Temple which honors one of the greatest philosophers and teachers of all time, Confucius, as well as other philosophers. Confucius valued simplicity, and simplicity is the dominant characteristic of his temple. Here there were none of the densely rich decor of many other temples. Even the usual stone lions are missing from the entrance. Standing outside of the main hall, there are a pair of upright cylinders in the center of the roof. These are called book-hiding barrels. In ancient times, the first Emperor of the Qin dynasty wanted to keep his people illiterate so that they would not challenge his rule. He had books burned and scholars killed. To save their beloved books, students hid them in rooftop containers built to look like chimneys.

Our final stop was across the street at Paoan Temple, the temple of Ta Tao Kung, the great Taoist master, built in 1805. The temple is considered one of the most representative of Taiwanese temples, and holds an important place in Taiwanese architectural history. The temple complex enshrines 39 deities spanning the whole range of Taiwanese folk religions. The temple's main deity is Paoshen Taiti, the god of medicine, said to have been given human form by a skilled medical practitioner in China's Fujian province in 979. Worship of the deity was first introduced to Taiwan by large numbers of Tungan immigrants from Fujian.

After the temples, we were driven to a shopping mall, Everrich. The way the mall was designed, we had to go all the way to the top first and make our way back down past all the high-end stores to reach the area at the bottom that sold local souvenirs. We all agreed we would have preferred to go to a local market and most of us were on the bus 15 minutes early but we had to wait for a couple who were late because they stopped to have tea at the cafe.

We returned to the ship right around all aboard time. The evening show was a singer named Isabel Olofsson who promised to sing Elvis, Olivia Newton-John and ABBA. J. R. was not interested so we decided to hang out in the Martini Bar and Rendezvous. We opted to go the buffet tonight for dinner since we didn't want to wait until 8:15 to eat.

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