Treasures at the Palace

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.

Shilin's Fresh Familiarity

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!

Danshui Day

July 5, 2008

At the end of the Red MRT subway line is Danshui (http://wikitravel.org/en/Danshui), a small city approximately 30 minutes north of Taipei. Da Yi, Grace and I decided to come to stroll along the water, browse the myriad of little trinket shops and boutiques, and taste our way through the day.



Da Yi was worried I'd fall into the water.


Have you ever seen so many tchotchkies in one place???

A store selling separate little plastic figurines that you could place/glue together to create a scene. Da Yi and I decided to fill our pink ride with gold money and an owl for wisdom and an octopus man for....i don't know?

Grace decided that all she needed in her boat was a ton of gold and some fences to keep intruders out.


Quail eggs on a stick. Grace tried four stands in total, each one cheaper and tastier than the last. About 20 eggs total. So much cholesterol!

Adding special sauce and pepper to her eggs at another stand.

Children catching fish

Grace dragged me into a dark two story exhibit that was half animal zoo, half freak show. The animals all looked very bored and not very well cared for. On the walls were pictures of freak incidents as well as many preserved bodies of mutant animals.


This frog was aimlessly swimming back and forth in his tiny tank.

I touched this snake

The end.

School Has Started

Beginning of July...

We're finally back. A familiar welcoming sight is the Miramar Mall and Cinemas' giant ferris wheel within walking distance from our building. One day when I am feeling particularly whimsical I'll ride it.


Classes began July 1st. Monday through Friday, 2:20-5:10. I leave around 1:00 PM for my ~one hour commute to Shida University. This is the subway station, Yuanshan, where I transfer to from the bus.


The class is perfect for my level. My classmates and I are pretty much in the same predicament: being American or Canadian born Chinese who can speak Mandarin and have grown up speaking it, but are less skilled in reading and writing it. Because we learn at such a fast pace and have three hours of class everyday, I feel that my ability to write and recognize characters has already rapidly improved. It doesn't hurt either that our teacher is sweet and affable and my classmates are all very genuine, fun people. :D

Class minus Peter and Shiao-Wei at a hot pot restaurant.

When not studying for the quizzes we have everyday, I eat and shop.

Grace making her custom dipping sauce for some more hot pot.

Celestine decided to order live (!) shrimp for her hot pot. Eeek it was difficult to witness. I think one's blurred because it was twitching.

Besides its famous nightmarkets, Taiwan also has markets in the morning to early afternoon where many people do their grocery shopping or browse for anything from household supplies to random trinkets.

A stall with a man hawking his amazing headband. At this moment he was demonstrating to a gaggle of housewives how convenient it was to have while washing your face so hair doesn't get in the way.

Women even get their hair dyed here!

And naturally, the ubiquitous ice dessert. Always a good way to end some major shopping.

A Trip to China for a Taiwan Visa...Macau: 6/23- 6/25

06.23.2008 - 06.25.2008

The day we left for Macau, Da Yi, Er Yi, Grace and I inexplicably left for the airport around noon for a 4:20 PM flight.

Since we had so much time, we ate free yams and ice cream, and took naps in the massage chairs of the business lounge at the airport.

But being able to eat and drink whatever you want does get old quickly. Finally, it was time to board our plane. I was looking forward to my drink of choice on every plane ride, tomato juice. When it came looking like a cup shaped lump of ketchup, I decided to pass.

After a brief 1.5 hr plane ride, we arrived in Macau and at our hotel. There had been talk of clubbing (mostly just me persuading Da Yi, Er Yi and Grace to go) before our trip so I immediately contacted the concierge for the 411 on this important matter. Turns out Wednesday is Ladies' Night at the Bellini Bar in the Venetian. Perfect. We quickly got ready and boarded the two shuttle buses (transfer at Sands) to the Venetian on Taipa, one of the islands that Macau is composed of.

Er Yi and Da Yi all dressed up. I begged Da Yi to pack a pair of heels (for such occasions) and she delivered.

Grace and me

Even though the drinks were free, neither Da Yi nor Grace worked up the courage/had interest in dancing.

Thus, Er Yi and I tore it up out there.

But overall, the Bellini Bar was pretty lame so we left in an hour to get some much needed sleep.

The next day, we visited the Taiwan consulate in Macau to get my visa. After submitting my materials, we were invited into the office by the friend of my dad's friend and were regaled with tea and tales of poor souls who gambled their lives away in the city and are currently being sought after by Macau gangsters. These people (the ones from Taiwan) often come to the consulate, tail tucked between their legs, to ask for a plane ticket back home. Good thing none of the four of us even touched a slot machine the whole trip (though Da Yi and I did apply for a flashy red Wynn casino card for a souvenir.)

The visa took some time, so we walked to the city centre and did some siteseeing. But just a few hours later, I was legally allowed to re-enter Taiwan and stay for 90 days. Yay!

Grace and I have determined that Macau is not our favorite vacation place (I think the parts we visited were too touristy and gaudy), though we are glad we went. Some highlights of the two days:

Senado Square. Macau was colonized by the Portugese.

At the "Lou Mansion". Mr Lou was a wealthy merchant and philanthropist in Macau during the late 1800s, early 1900s. Coincidentally, his surname written in Chinese is the same character as my "Lu". This is me sitting in my room where I welcome visitors.
For lunch we ate at a touristy (read: horrible!) Portugese restaurant. I don't think it was real Portugese food, just weirdness.

I am cutting into fried rice baked in a pineapple rind topped with a sweet and sour sauce. Blegh.

Good Fortune Tree at the Wynn. That schmancy chandelier came out of the ceiling and the tree came out of the ground. People threw coins in it for good fortune.

Ruins of St. Pauls Church. Quite stunning as only the facade is left. The rest was destroyed by fire.

One of the most disappointing moments of the trip was when we walked half an hour to find "Casa Garden", which according to our guide map, is the beautiful residence of the wealthy Portugese merchant Manuel Pereira from 1770. When we got there, I was not impressed. If you think from the picture that it looks alright, realize that there is nothing more. That was it!

But soonafter, we came across a jewel. Tucked in a street near Casa Garden was a dim sum restaurant that by the looks of it, only locals frequented.

The woman opened each one and we picked what we wanted. At one point a man came straight from the kitchen with metal bowl with four dead fish and asked us which we wanted to eat. We were seated in the backyard of the restaurant on a foldout table and plastic stools. Everything was delicious, especially an eggplant dish.

The rest of the trip was spent doing some more feeble siteseeing, wandering through ostentatious, enormous hallways of casino hotels and reading. Yes, reading. We decided we were all tired so we retired to the hotel lobby around 3:00 PM (we had checked out at noon) and read newspapers until our 8:00 PM flight. I finished three newspapers front to back.

This photo was taken just before we boarded the plane. Goodbye, Macau.