On Sunday we continued our routine of waking up and slowly puttering our way through the morning. We (Jen and I) set out or Taipei to take in some of the sights. The school is supposed to be taking us on a trip next weekend and the weekend after I may go to a beach house with Josh, a friend of mine the weekend after so we decided to cram as much as possible into the afternoon/evening and cram we did!
We began our adventures by hitting up National Palace Museum as 11-2 is the hottest time of the day (think drenched in sweat and super leg chaffage if you are wearing a dress). Enjoying some time in an air conditioned building was the best way to beat the heat (as we aren’t near West Mabou Beach or the pool on backstreet, of course). The grounds were indescribable. I can only compare them to a majestic palace (think Taj Mahal). There was a grand archway, lions protecting an expansive walkway lined in towering palm trees and shrubbery and three looming, pristine, colourful buildings perched high on grand staircases. Inside housed one of the biggest collections of artifacts in the world. In fact, the collection is so expansive that only 1% can be displayed at once. Sadly, I’m not a history buff and could not fully appreciate the exhibits (although the clothing and jewellery exhibit was magnificent). I did get a kick out of the tour groups (and did get annoyed by them at times) and got a kick out of the dozens of employees silently walking around with “keep your voice down” signs.
The “crown jewel” of the N.P.M. is a jade cabbage. There is historical significance but there is also appeal as it is carved from one piece of jade that naturally fades from white to green. We knew we couldn’t leave without seeing it so we waited in the 20 minute line. Man, was it so not worth it. The “cabbage” (which looks way more like a bok choy than a cabbage) was about 4 inches long and we were only allowed to see it for 15 seconds or so (we were to keep moving). Sadly, we were not allowed to take pictures but you can easily find it online. Luckily, we thought the whole thing was hilarious (is that disrespectful?) especially because the gift shop had every kind of replica you could think of: cabbage key chains, pendants, statues, placemats, pillows, etc. It was pretty amusing!
From the N.P.M. we made our way back to the subway and headed for Chaing Kai-shek Memorial Hall. We had some time to kill before the changing of the guard so we tried to find one of a few restaurants I read about online. We wandered for a while and asked directions but were unable to find anything in time. We headed back to the grounds, also gorgeous, saw the changing of the guards who watch over a giant statue of Chaing Kai-shek (a former president of Taiwan) and strolled the surrounding grounds. The white and blue building that houses the statue also houses a museum underneath and shares it’s grounds with two other incredibly beautiful buildings: the National Concert Hall and National Theatre.
Still with empty bellies (I had an apple and piece of bread for breakfast), we decided to head to Taipei 101 to watch the sunset. Taipei 101 was the world’s tallest building until the opening of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai in 2010. It also holds the Guinness Book of World Records record for the fastest elevator in the world (we maxed at over 1000m/min). We had two hours to sunset but decided to head up anyway as it was quite a wait to get up. Once we did, we took in the views, ate some discounted ice cream (discounted with a ticket purchase), tried some mango ice cream float beer and saw the damper that helps keep the building stable (the engineer in me was pretty excited). The building itself is made to look like a stalk of bamboo, it is over ½ a kilometer tall (!!!!) and it the tallest LEED certified building in the world! Not only is it LEED certified (a certification given to green buildings), but it is Platinum certified (the highest rating)! I was super impressed. We watched the sunset from both inside and outside on the observation deck (where I snuck a picture with some monks). To leave, we had to walk through a huge stone jewellery store (sneaky sneaky) where we shopped around and discovered multiple necklaces worth more than $500,000!!! Aye aye aye! Sorry, Mom. I just couldn’t cut it this year.
Once we descended the tower we FINALLY ate in a restaurant called Din Tai Fung; ranked as one of the top ten restaurants in the world by TIME Magazine! It is now a world-wide chain but originated in Taiwan. Here we tried xiaolongbao for the first time (a very famous kind of local dumping that is filled with pork and broth), had wontons in spicy noodles, fried rice and noodles in a peanut sauce. It was all SO good. We really did get dinner and a show, in a way. The wait staff brought us instructions for how to eat the xiaolongbao and they stirred our wontons and noodles for us as we apparently didn’t stir them fast enough for the sauce to stick. Another noteworthy item is that bags/purses are always covered with a cloth. Sometimes this is a chair cover that goes over the purse and chair and, in our case, it was a folding bin that we put our bags in by the table and the cover went on that. Nifty!
After dinner, we headed home to cap off another wonderful day of seeing Taiwan and get some shut-eye for our 10 am meeting with our school coordinator!
We began our adventures by hitting up National Palace Museum as 11-2 is the hottest time of the day (think drenched in sweat and super leg chaffage if you are wearing a dress). Enjoying some time in an air conditioned building was the best way to beat the heat (as we aren’t near West Mabou Beach or the pool on backstreet, of course). The grounds were indescribable. I can only compare them to a majestic palace (think Taj Mahal). There was a grand archway, lions protecting an expansive walkway lined in towering palm trees and shrubbery and three looming, pristine, colourful buildings perched high on grand staircases. Inside housed one of the biggest collections of artifacts in the world. In fact, the collection is so expansive that only 1% can be displayed at once. Sadly, I’m not a history buff and could not fully appreciate the exhibits (although the clothing and jewellery exhibit was magnificent). I did get a kick out of the tour groups (and did get annoyed by them at times) and got a kick out of the dozens of employees silently walking around with “keep your voice down” signs.
The “crown jewel” of the N.P.M. is a jade cabbage. There is historical significance but there is also appeal as it is carved from one piece of jade that naturally fades from white to green. We knew we couldn’t leave without seeing it so we waited in the 20 minute line. Man, was it so not worth it. The “cabbage” (which looks way more like a bok choy than a cabbage) was about 4 inches long and we were only allowed to see it for 15 seconds or so (we were to keep moving). Sadly, we were not allowed to take pictures but you can easily find it online. Luckily, we thought the whole thing was hilarious (is that disrespectful?) especially because the gift shop had every kind of replica you could think of: cabbage key chains, pendants, statues, placemats, pillows, etc. It was pretty amusing!
From the N.P.M. we made our way back to the subway and headed for Chaing Kai-shek Memorial Hall. We had some time to kill before the changing of the guard so we tried to find one of a few restaurants I read about online. We wandered for a while and asked directions but were unable to find anything in time. We headed back to the grounds, also gorgeous, saw the changing of the guards who watch over a giant statue of Chaing Kai-shek (a former president of Taiwan) and strolled the surrounding grounds. The white and blue building that houses the statue also houses a museum underneath and shares it’s grounds with two other incredibly beautiful buildings: the National Concert Hall and National Theatre.
Still with empty bellies (I had an apple and piece of bread for breakfast), we decided to head to Taipei 101 to watch the sunset. Taipei 101 was the world’s tallest building until the opening of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai in 2010. It also holds the Guinness Book of World Records record for the fastest elevator in the world (we maxed at over 1000m/min). We had two hours to sunset but decided to head up anyway as it was quite a wait to get up. Once we did, we took in the views, ate some discounted ice cream (discounted with a ticket purchase), tried some mango ice cream float beer and saw the damper that helps keep the building stable (the engineer in me was pretty excited). The building itself is made to look like a stalk of bamboo, it is over ½ a kilometer tall (!!!!) and it the tallest LEED certified building in the world! Not only is it LEED certified (a certification given to green buildings), but it is Platinum certified (the highest rating)! I was super impressed. We watched the sunset from both inside and outside on the observation deck (where I snuck a picture with some monks). To leave, we had to walk through a huge stone jewellery store (sneaky sneaky) where we shopped around and discovered multiple necklaces worth more than $500,000!!! Aye aye aye! Sorry, Mom. I just couldn’t cut it this year.
Once we descended the tower we FINALLY ate in a restaurant called Din Tai Fung; ranked as one of the top ten restaurants in the world by TIME Magazine! It is now a world-wide chain but originated in Taiwan. Here we tried xiaolongbao for the first time (a very famous kind of local dumping that is filled with pork and broth), had wontons in spicy noodles, fried rice and noodles in a peanut sauce. It was all SO good. We really did get dinner and a show, in a way. The wait staff brought us instructions for how to eat the xiaolongbao and they stirred our wontons and noodles for us as we apparently didn’t stir them fast enough for the sauce to stick. Another noteworthy item is that bags/purses are always covered with a cloth. Sometimes this is a chair cover that goes over the purse and chair and, in our case, it was a folding bin that we put our bags in by the table and the cover went on that. Nifty!
After dinner, we headed home to cap off another wonderful day of seeing Taiwan and get some shut-eye for our 10 am meeting with our school coordinator!