Long Last Day

MONDAY, 5 NOVEMBER 2102 We started the day at the fabulous Palace Museum and managed to see its most famous holding, a small chunk of jade carved to look like a cabbage, an auspicious vegetable in Taiwan. (We also saw another jade piece resembling a hunk of meat. With these came a lesson about the Chinese affinity with nature.) After another sumptuous lunch and tea sampling, we headed to a small town to see a museum dedicated to an artist and the local temple he supported. We arrived back in the city in time for an extended dinner hosted by a gallery owner. I was exhausted by the time I got back to the hotel--shortly before midnight--and I still had to finish my packing. I already had an impossible load of stuff, and then I noticed the new gift bags delivered to my room. Yikes! Fortunately, I had a scale in my bathroom and managed to come in at the 50# limit. I dropped in to bed, satiated but dreading the alarm for my early flight.