TAIPEI (4)

14 June 2009
東埔→(台北)國立故宮博物館→台北101→士林夜市
Ton-pu→(Taipei)National Palace Museum→Taipei 101→Shihlin Night Market

heart-shaped and flower-shaped nuggets!
but tastes @^&^$?!#
so much for cuteness. i prefer Yuhua LUGGETS.
HAHAHAHA

this morning, i had a shock of my life - i got to know that the "長老" in the group uses facebook.
who are the "長老"? let me refresh your memory..

she is one of the six "長老" in the group.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
they use FB..

THEY USE FB!!

one of them Lye Soon (it's weird calling them by name...) can even edit videos and post on FB..
damn zai la, 武當派and峨嵋派..
(3 pairs of elder couples)

most of them are retired teachers and are related in some ways..
friends, colleagues, sisters...

有讀書的人就是不同....

**
on 1/7/09 i received an email from Mr Lye Soon and he asked for my address to send me a CD with all the videos he took...
the next day 2/7/09, his wife called me and told he was near my house and dropped it into my mailbox...

DAMN EFFICIENT!!!! best partners..haha

when you have the passion, it's really different....

i want to be like them :)
actively involved even when i am old and wrinkly...

outside view of hot spring resort

lunch - mongolian food

choose your meat and veggies..

they cook..

and we eat! notice the meat really shrunk? haha.
imagine we only took a bit of meat.. we will be left with nothing...

it was yummy yummy ;)
oily though.... but that's because I added too much.. haha


The National Palace Museum

The history of the Taiwan/the museum is very fascinating, if you have the time, read about it..

The National Palace Museum was originally established as the Palace Museum in Beijing's Forbidden City on 10 October 1925, shortly after the expulsion of Puyi,^[4] the last emperor of China, from the Forbidden City by warlord Feng Yü-hsiang. The articles in the museum consisted of the valuables of the former Imperial family.^[5]

In 1931, shortly after the Mukden Incident Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Government ordered the museum to quickly move its most valuable pieces out of the city to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army. As a result, on 6 February 1933, 13,491 boxes were moved in two trains from the plaza in front of the Gate of Divine Might to the South.^{[citation needed]} The collection was moved to several places, including Shanghai, Anshun, Yibin until in the 1940s most of it ended up in Nanjing.^{[citation needed]}

During the final years of the Chinese Civil War, from 1948 to 1949 Hang Li-wu, later director of the museum, supervised the transport of some of the collection in three parts to the harbor in Keelung, Taiwan.

With the victory of the Communists, the remainder of the collection was moved back to Beijing and the National Palace Museum was split into two (the part in mainland China, like all other such institutions, lost its "National" designation). The part in mainland China is centered on the Forbidden City.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the National Palace Museum was used by the Kuomintang to support its claim that the Republic of China was the sole legitimate government of all of China, in that it was the sole preserver of traditional Chinese culture amid the social change and Cultural Revolution in mainland China, and tended to emphasize Chinese nationalism. In recent years, the museum has focused more on local and minority cultures and has included some materials on loan from the People's Republic of China.

In English, the institution in Taipei is distinguished from the one in Beijing by the additional "National" designation. In common usage in Chinese, the institution in Taipei is known as the "Taipei Gugong", while that in Beijing is known as the "Beijing Gugong".

The National Palace Museum building in Taipei was constructed from March 1964 and was completed in August 1965. Due to the insufficient space to put on display over 655,707^[6] artifacts, the museum underwent renovations in 1967, 1970, and 1996. The museum reopened on Christmas Day 2006, after a long ten years renovation. It was accelerated in 2002, during this renovation period about two-thirds of the museum section was closed. The displays are rotated once every three months, which means 60,000 pieces can be viewed in a year and it would take nearly 12 years to see them all.

http://www.npm.gov.tw/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Palace_Museum
http://www.ghl.com.cn/tourmall/line/2609.htm

翠玉白菜
The famous cabbage in the museum..

徐純美Xu Chun Mei's residence. just opposite the National Palace Museum.
It was on the news that day, very expensive apartments but i thought it looked a bit... old.

self-shot.

Pictures of the historical pieces were prohibited so there was really no evidence that we came to the museum before. in the end we resorted to taking picture with this poster because it was the only thing we could find that bears the name "National Palace Museum" (did they do it on purpose?).. later i found the same poster in the MRT station -_-" so not that symbolic anymore..

當young people遇上故宮..
they go crazy hahahha

There are five free entrance days of this museum:
New Year day (Jan. 1), the Lantern Festival, International Museum Day (May 18), World Tourism Day (Sept. 27), and National Day (Oct. 10), and has extended hours into the evening, it's free admission! how about a Night at the Museum? 8)

it's supposed to be Aero la...
But Ero=pervert, so we were just trying to be funny...


Left the Museum for Taipei 101..

cutesy mouse in a toy shop in New York New York <3

Taipei 101.
We did not go up the observatory tower cos we thought all views from above are well, almost the same..

Mingxin! cute!
don't you just love kids....



at Shihlin Night Market!
finally here, after 5 long years..

chicken's size is twice my palm for NT$50

cheaper, nicer, bigger than Singapore's

see the queue and you know..



大餅包小餅

can't really describe what this is, but not too bad..

oyster egg. taiwanese version has gravy..

Bubble Tea, I love Bubble Tea..

The shopping area.. so crowded... but that is what makes it interesting..

i bought clothes within 10 mins there XD

on the way back, i suggested trying the UFO catch machine..

and we got it!!!!!!!! all for NT$10.. selling price is NT$160!
we screamed and jumped when we got it..
cos we have been trying since the start of the trip (the machines are everywhere)

The Shihlin Xiaojiji

KAWAII~

we <3 Shihlin!

Famous pineapple tart store.
i made the same mistake i did in Japan. I bought the tarts too earlier... lucky i distributed them away before the expiry date..



on that night we called the hotel reception because the internet got disconnected but they did not pick up. after some time, the phone in the toilet rang. it was really creepy, because we did not register that it may have been a call-back from the reception. imagine a sudden ring from the toilet, u hesitate to pick it up, then when u picked it up no one said anything...

brr..

the next morning before checking out, we asked the reception if they know anything about it..
they gave us a puzzled look and said they will check on it.....

double brr...

view from our hotel for the last day of tour..
Riverview Hotel..

we will be on our own soon!