More Touristy Explorations
Trip Start
Nov 17, 2006
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3
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Trip End
May 09, 2007
Taipei,
Taiwan
Sunday, January 28, 2007
So, this weekend's lucky destination for Loui's Taiwan Explorations: Um..... Taipei. Again. But, new bits of Taipei, I promise.
The weekend was rather deja vu - I ended up in the same part of town, Shilin, on Saturday AND Sunday. Shilin is in northern Taipei, kind of where the posh bit of the city starts. The mountains are very close, and the area is much more open and green, but still not far from the centre, hence everyone wants to live there
01 - Anne and I in Danshui
. Even Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek (yes, people really did call him that...) had his main residence up here, and that's what I went to check out bright and early on Saturday. Chiang Kai Shek, or just plain ol' CKS, was the leader of the Kuomintang, the political party that fled here from the Communists in 1949. The Generalissimo then carried on his dictatorship of the island till he died in 1975. And in true dictator style, he needed a grand house to watch over his minions from. The main house isn't open, but you're free to wander the huuuuuuuge gardens. I forgot my camera, so alas, no photos. There's pretty pretty Chinese style gardens, Western style gardens, lots and lots of plants that I don't know the name of, a new 'ecological garden' (basically a walk way with some signs telling you what bugs and plants you can see. In Chinese.), and although sadly I don't think they're a permanent installment, a group of teenagers rehearsing for a traditional play. The costumes were absolutely fabulous - all big sweepy fabric, huge long wigs and amazing make up. I wish I understood what was going on! From the amount of swords and knives they had around, it looked a bit bashy.After a nice afternoon there I headed back into central Taipei - it was sad to say goodbye to the green, but it had to be done at some point. I'd heard rumours of a Russian Literature exhibition at one of the museums, so me being the geek that I am, I went to search it out
02 - The National Palace Museum
. I couldn't let that pass me by! I found it pretty easy - it was in the National Museum, which is in a nice big park. The exhibition was nice - but only in Chinese. The Russian was all old 1800s handwritten manuscripts from Pushkin and Tolstoy, so I had no chance of deciphering any of that! There were lots of portraits and paintings though, which kept me happy. It was a bit sad - I stood there in front of a beautiful portrait of Pushkin (really, this guy was pretty), thinking about Moscow and Petersburg, and everywhere else that I'd seen it, wondering why I was here and not in Russia. Still asking myself that!The actual building was amazing - i walked upstairs onto an old tiled floor. You know where it's so worn with age that everything's a bit wonky? The kind of floor that's in so many buildings at home, but almost none here. It kind of took me by surprise - there just aren't any old buildings in this country! That brought a smile to my face. It's odd, the smallest things will make me happy or silly upset these days.
Sunday brought another old building - the National Palace Museum, up in Shilin as well. The Palace is a huge sprawling, traditional Chinese building up a ton of stairs. The leaflets all claimed it to be one of the '5 most important museums in the world', holding the finest collection of Chinese art in the world
03 - The National Palace Museum Gate
. And granted, it was impressive, but it explains why the Forbidden City was so lacking in exhibits - it's all here. The Kuomintang evacuated the Forbidden City when the Japanese invaded, then shipped it all here from Southern China during the revolution. Most of the exhibits were various bits of pottery, bronze ware, stuff like that. Not too impressive, until you looked at the dates - a lot of this stuff is almost 8 or 9 THOUSAND years old! They even had huge painting scrolls that are about 2 thousand years old. Rather sobering...
One piece that was especially mindblowing, wasn't that old, or that big, but insanely intricate. It's called "concentric ivory balls", and unsurprisingly, consists of...um...concentric ivory balls. 11 of them carved one inside another, inside one piece of ivory. Really, I have no idea how that did this - the carving is beautiful, and it's so intricate. I really don't understand how they managed to separate the balls out of one piece! The balls hang on a chain that was made out of the same piece - really, I'm struggling to explain!
After the museum, my friend Anne and I decided to head out to Danshui. Danshui is about as close as a seaside as I've seen so far here
04 - Lion
. There's nothing in the way of a beach, but there's tat stalls agogo! It's a bit odd though - instead of toffee apples and icecream and hotdogs and stuff, most of the food on offer is barbequed squid on a stick. The whole thing. Another of Taiwan's 'interesting' foods! We got there just in time to see the sunset over the bay, with the mountain in the background. It was pretty, but a bit smoggy, boo. I'd like to go to Danshui during the day - there's a couple of old forts from when the island was occupied by the Spanish or the Dutch, and it seems like a nice place to explore. We managed a wander down the sea front eating the huuuuuuuuugest icecreams you've ever seen, but the cold got the better of us quite soon so we headed back home with fat, content bellies.
