Returned from Kinmen and went a little to the nightmarket. I was craving some cheesy potato and a glass of kumquat juice.

Spent the night in Howard Plaza Hotel. In the picture, you can see the view from my room. The hotel was very good, except for one minor detail: the internet was 7 euros a day. Now.. I don’t care how much it is, but since the actual cost for it is neglectable, I find it stingy to ask for money.. since those in the hotel already payed around 100 euros per room. Same thing as charging for bread in a restaurant.

In the morning we had the press conference. Everybody (or most of us) came in some traditional costume and there were some guys from Africa singing. We also took a photo with the vice-president of Taiwan (the photo was then printed and handed to us in the evening).

In the evening we had the farewell banquet, held at gorgeous Grand Hotel (tallest building in Taiwan until 1981). When we arrived, a marching band of women greeted us.

The banquet was very nice, with good food and interesting performances: Taiwanese aborigines, a band of guys in weird suits dancing on Japanese pop songs, the African guys from the press conference, with a lot of the African guests dancing with them on stage or some guys joggling with spinning things.

The next morning I left Taiwan. Left the hotel at 6 am, flew from Taipei at 9 am, flew from Hong Kong at 1 pm, flew from Frankfurt at 8 pm, arrived home at 1 am. In total, 24 hours of travel time (considering the 5 hours of time difference. And how was Romania waiting for me? With a broken door – I could not get into the building… Tried calling the apartments where the light was on, but nobody answered. Thought of waiting until somebody leaves the building, but this works during the day, not at 1 am. I was pretty short on options (rephrase: I was screwed) when he came: the friendly neighborhood bum. As usual, he asks “Hey, boss, have a smoke?”. As usual, I answer: “No, I don’t smoke”. I see him staring at my bags, so I think that a little brainstorming might be good and I ask him “The door is not working. Know any way of getting in?” He said he can take me in if I give him 1 Ron. So I give him 1 Ron and he takes me to the backdoor.. which was wide open. I feel stupid.