National Palace Museum, etc.

For my last full day in Taipei, I tried to bite off quite a lot more than I could chew. Had I not woken up and left the hostel in my usual leisurely way, and had I not been hesitant to take a foreign bus, I might have gotten more done than I managed, but oh well. My plan was to go to the National Palace Museum, then to the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines, which is on the same block, then to the science museum. Right. It took me about forever to walk to the first museum, and I think it was around lunchtime before I got there, at least. On the way, I saw this park. All these pictures are from the way back, but Blogger put my uploads on here backwards, so I'll start with that.

This isn't actually part of the park; I just thought it was a cute little building outside the park.

Entrance:

There was a river/pond (rivond, piver, pover, pondiver, etc.) all throughout the park. It was cool.

Hobbit door:

I love this kind of bridge.

This was totally suite. You go up these rock stairs and it's all cavey inside. I took a video, but ended up having to delete it for lack of card space. BOOOO-urns.

This thing reminds me of the kiddie pool mushroom waterfall at Aquaboggan.

I think this sign either means that you can't pray in the water, or that Excalibur cannot be found here.

Entrance at the other end:

Then I got to the National Palace Museum. There wasn't a lot of literature about the actual palace available, so I didn't learn anything about the history, just looked at a bunch of exhibits.

 Here are the steps up to it:

And some other exterior shots. There were a couple buildings, once of which had some sort of archival library, as well as some other exhibits, but it was all kind of expensive to get into, and I couldn't afford to do both buildings, money- or time-wise.

The environs. How'd you like to live up there? I'd be especially interested in that little red-topped castle-like place.

I exchanged taking-photo services with a young Asian couple, so I got these of myself:

Some old guys:

Photography wasn't allowed in the museum, so I didn't take any pictures, but it was pretty standard museum stuff. I saw a furniture exhibit, a bunch of paintings and pottery, and this really awesome room with curio cabinets and boxes and stuff. They had all these secret buttons and catches and stuff to get compartments to open, and you had to put it all together just right, or it wouldn't close. I wanted to play with them. There was also this amazing animated video that showed an apartment that was set up in the same style to save space. It showed furniture like the bed being folded up into the wall, display shelves opening up in multiple layers from wall panels, counters and tables unfolding, drawers under raised floor levels, etc. It was the kind of stuff they probably do a lot in highly populated areas like Taipei and Tokyo. It was cool. I watched it two or three times.

By the end of my couple hours at the museum, I was getting starving, so I went up to the teahouse on the top floor for a snack. I got some cumquat "tea" that was really delicious, and some dumplings, which were kind of meh. They looked cool, though. I like really smooth, cartoony food.

I think it was after four when I left the National Palace Museum, but I walked over to the aboriginal museum just in case. It was closed, or about to close. I took a couple pictures of the outside:

This building that looks like a castle is a kindergarten. I would have killed to go to a kindergarten that looked like a castle, man. Wow.

Next I walked back to the Taipei Science Museum, but it wasn't open for much longer by the time I got there. I got to see this really cool IMAX movie about the Hubble Space Telescope, but other than that, only this balloon in the lobby, which was on a timer. I think it released into the air every twenty minutes or something, then was pulled back by its strings to get ready for the next time. I didn't see it release, so this is only conjecture. 

I do recall having to wait like a half hour for my movie, and spending much of that time trying to wash myself in the public restroom with handsoap and paper towels... actually, there might not even have been paper towels. I think I was just using my hands to wash myself, and the hand dryer to dry myself. I figured it'd be wicked rude to walk for hours in that heat and sweat up a storm, then put myself in a confined space with dozens of other people, many sitting very close to me.

By The Way

I'm not sure if people who subscribe to this get notified if I edit posts, but anyway, I finally got the pictures for my canyoning trip in the Philippines, and I added them to the post, and changed the content a bit in light of that. Czech it out if you're interested.

http://aliainkorea.blogspot.com/2010/09/canyoning.html

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but I really only have time to do three or four a month now, and I'm trying  to even it out between this one and Pughnited Kingdom. I have maybe two or three more posts here before I'm out of material, so I'm thinking I'll try to get it done sometime in December, and then focus solely on the new blog.

Taipei Night Tour

After rushing home earlier than I wanted from the Taipei Zoo, I went on my scheduled Taipei Night Tour. I was the only tourist, so I had the driver and his regular car instead of a van. First we went to a Mongolian barbecue. Here, there was a big food and salad bar with lots of stuff that I don't remember, but which was good. The barbecue part is where you go to a different food bar, which has a bunch of thinly sliced raw meats, vegetables, and sauces. You take a bowl, put a bunch of stuff in it that seems like it would taste good together, and give it to one of the cooks. Then he barbecues it for you, like so, and you eat it with relish (the feeling, not the sauce).

A giant group of Koreans came to the restaurant, as they tend to do, and it was kind of like being at home again for a little while. 

I think our first stop was a famous night market, but it was pretty small; seemed to just be one long block on one street:

The guide couldn't park right there, so he told me (after a few tries) to just go through, not taking too long, and meet him at the other side. On the way through, I saw what he had specifically told me about, which was a displaymonstration of a giant python, and some other big snakes, which was at a restaurant where you can eat them. No pictures were allowed. Having owned a snake previously, I think I might feel bad about eating one. I'm sure it was also very expensive.

I bought one souvenir, a wall scroll of a tiger, to add to my collection of wall scrolls across Asia.

Next was the major stop to the Taipei 101. It was extra to go up to the observation tower, and I was on a time budget because of the parking time limit. Normally for tours they let you stay as long as you want, but normally tours are quite a bit bigger than one person, so there would be no leniency for me. BOOOOO-urns.

This is the line I had to wait in for like 15-20 minutes.

On the way, they took your picture and you could take your ticket to get it superimposed onto a Taipei 101 background, either at night or in the day. They showed a bunch of examples on screens, but I don't think you could ever see yourself or anyone currently in line up there. Would that be unethical, or at least rude, in case someone wasn't down with it?

The DLI63 building in Seoul took about 30 seconds to get to the top, but in the Taipei 101, the elevator ride was longer. You actually only got to go up to the 89th floor, which disappointed me greatly.

Here are some views from the 89th floor:

 I don't remember what the hell this is doing there.

On the 88th floor, you can see the tuned mass damper, which helps keep the building from becoming damaged from strong winds. It's suspended from a high floor, and is a huge pendulum that sways in reaction to the movement of the building. This one is the biggest damper sphere in the world, according to Wikipedia.

Finally, we saw the Lungshan Temple, which was very beautiful, but as always, temples are not my cup of tea. I have nothing further to say about this place, so here are some pictures:

The End.