woke up and got on the road with a goal of making it to Jioufen. The traffic up the east coast was horrible, but it more than made up for it by how beautiful it was. we ended up dropping jioufen and heading straight to Taipei because of time, though.
Once we arrived, we dropped our stuff at the Airbnb, a sweet little loft in the XXX district, and took a shower to wash the road off. Then, we took a cab to Christmasland to check out the spectacle. It was right outside the Mega City mall (evidently Christmas and capitalism have a long history) so we popped inside for some ramen. Tasty tasty ramen. Then we took a cab back home and passed out.
Just before I got in bed, my mom texted to wish me a happy birthday, just after midnight. It was super sweet.