The beginning of another beautiful day. We've been so lucky weatherwise, and it looks like our luck will continue today. The little morning exercise group we see every morning was up to four today.

Today's breakfast, my first plate. And here's my second plate. (Did I mention they had great french fries for breakfast?)

Meihui was going to pick us up around 10:00 this morning, so we had a lot of time to go look for a busy morning market that I remembered from a long time ago. I had a limited recall of just where it was, so we headed where I thought we should go, passing various already open early morning businesses (like above) on the way, thinking even if I was wrong, we'd end up with a nice walk. But when we got here, I knew we were close.

We eventually ended up at the morning market^note, and it was just as I had remembered it. Click here to see a bunch of pictures from the market. Eventually, we left the market and headed back to the hotel, walking down a busy 昌平路, then...

...cutting across the park busy with people doing their morning exercises when we got there.

At 10:00, Wenshuang's husband, 阿璋, along with Meihui, picked us up at the hotel to drop us off downtown. Parking is a big problem downtown, so rather than drive, Meihui thought we could do most of what she planned for the day on foot. I was a little worried about walking around all day (Meihui and Wenshuang were aware of what condition my legs are in, so Wenshuang, a master organizer, planned the route with strategic rest stops along the way), but I figured, whatever it took, I'd just do it. In the end, it turned out to be a good plan.

Our first stop was here, at this old long-time vacant office. This was Meihui's husband's office. He was a dentist and died years ago. The building is tied up in a family squabble as to ownership, so it just sits dirty, empty, and deteriorating. We had been there before in nicer times. It was on our way to our next stop, ...

...another old building with 台中市第四信用合作社 (read right to left on the building), the Taichung City Fourth Credit Union, on the front. It is now a restaurant, a branch of the very popular 宫原眼科 ("Miyahara Ophthalmology Clinic"), a similar but much bigger ice cream and chocolates shop in an old Japanese ophthalmology clinic building (hence, the name) not too far away . This store in the credit union building, similar to the ophthalmology clinic store, uses the building's name as its name. (Though both are commonly known as 宫原, pronounced "Miyahara" in Japanese.) They also have to-go boxes that reflect their credit union heritage. We were going to stop in there so...

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