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.