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National Palace Museum: Taipei, Taiwan
July 7, 2008
(photo: Google Images, National Palace Museum)
Similar to the Smithsonian in D.C., or the Met in New York, the National Palace Museum is a must-see for visitors to Taipei. I enjoyed the exhibits, but did find it a bit small and sometimes underwhelming. It's not as if their permanent collection itself is lacking, but the museum's space for art is much too limited for their vast collection of paintings and such. For example, the National Palace Museum owns the famous Chinese painting which contains 100 horses (could not find photo online, does anyone know which one I'm talking about?) but rotates it, only exhibiting it every few months. Of course, the majority of museums own works far more numerous than the space they have to show them, but I believe that a main responsibility of a government funded museum is not only to provide the public access to classic works but to respect the art itself, by allowing it to be widely appreciated.
A few highlights (pictures courtesy of NPC wesbite):
White jade branch of elegant lychee, Agate finger citron
Amazing meat shaped stone. The artist used the natural different layers of hues in this stone to make it look exactly like a hunk of stewed pork.
The brilliant green and sparkling white of this cabbage carved out of jade are actually the jade's original coloring. Like with the meat shaped stone, the artist rendered this cabbage using the natural characteristics of the jade, complete with an exquisite katydid insect on the green part. Look closely and you'll see it!
On the steps by the entrance.
Painted fan. The NPM houses many large and beautiful Chinese landscape paintings as well as scrolls of Chinese calligraphy, which I always love, due to my appreciation of these two traditional art forms from my lessons growing up with my paternal grandmother as teacher.
No visit to a museum is complete without looting the postcard section of the gift shop. (Usually everything else is overpriced or a cheap imitation of the art that really can't be duplicated.) Here I am outside of it, where I bought 8 jadeite cabbage shaped and 2 meat shaped stone shaped postcards. They look good enough to eat.
July 6, 2008
During preschool, elementary and middle school, my family would visit Taiwan just about every summer for a month a time. Besides games of bi-yen-jing/closed eyes (essentially a more hazardous version of blindman's buff with furniture obstacles) with Celestine and Grace, one of my fondest memories of these trips was marveling at the delicious array of food and sights at Taiwan's unique nightmarkets. I hadn't been to an large nightmarket since my last trip to Taiwan as a sophomore in high school.
So when Celestine and I made our way to Shilin Night Market, one of Taiwan's largest and more famous nightmarkets, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shilin_Night_Market) on Sunday, the experience was a curious mix of memories and feelings, resulting in a fresh familiarity. The perpetual 10 year olds/tomboys in us immediately stopped at the first balloon shooting stall. Wielding our guns with a gravitas inappropriate for the activity, Celestine popped 8/10 balloons while I managed 7/10.
We each earned three points in return. But six points is only enough to redeem a prize in the first row, a sad selection of cheap plastic figurines and Slinkies. We decided that we deserved more after 100 NTD and some serious effort. I petitioned the guy for mercy, complaining that the prizes in the first row were purposely crappy and not worth choosing from. Play some more, he told us. A few steadfast refusals on our part later, he relented and asked us which prize we had set our sights on. As we pointed to the Chinese chess set (8 points!) in the second row, he quickly glanced over at his boss, swiftly plucked it from the gallery and set it in my hands. :D Yay.
Normally unexpected, spontaneous and often random sights, smells, sounds and occurrences are in fact quite common and usual at Taiwan nightmarkets. It's incredible that such a variety of things are present in one place.
Below is a medley of images from Shilin. 
Grace's favorite: quail eggs.
Puppies for sale; this one resembles an old man...I love it.
This one makes me miss my Matthew.
An observation worth noting: Virtually all the guys I have seen here with girlfriends carry their purses for them. This man's hands are folded so protectively and obediently over his girl's pink, satin ribboned tote. An endearing habit!
Cousin Grace being swallowed by a wave at Yilan Beach, northern Taiwan (couple hours outside of Taipei)
Before the happenings of the previous picture. 
"Honeymoon Bay", Yilan
Picnic before swim. Er Yi prepared lots of dishes and rice.
Cheers for being in a country that doesn't vilify drinking in public!
Kites. Grace bought one and flew it that day. When we got home we planned on flying it off the balcony but the day she tried there was no wind. Then we promptly forgot about it :[ 
I wanted this; Er Yi generously bought it for me. 
It's a BUBBLE PIG!!!
favorite pastime, Chinese chess
Healing massage a la Bali beach masseuses provided by Da Yi for Seligna's (aka Celestine) aching body. 
Playing with a someone's dog that wandered over. After being furiously petted for 10 minutes and covered in black sand, it silently let out a lethal fart that caused us all to disperse and freed her to peacefully return to her owner. Dogs are so clever these days. 
people everywhereeeee
Peace Out
