sunny day without any class… I was thinking about a trip to explore something from the ‘30 things not to miss’ list from my guide book…I chose the National palace Museum which has an extraordinary collection of Chinese
art and historical artefacts. It is located a bit outside from Taipei to the north. Andreas - the Swiss guy who I know from the welcome reception also study business courses – was up to go there as well so we took a good old WV Golf what he just got from his volunteer student to use it during his stay in Taiwan …nice, isn’t it?…so I hope this will be ‘Das Auto’ which will help us to explore the island!
The museum is a 4 floors large building among some hills in the Shilin district. The Japanese influence in its architecture is - I think - quite surprising to visitors, although many foreigners realise that the Taiwanese culture is actually a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, Western and aboriginal cultures creating a completely different atmosphere from what visitor can experience in Mainland China. However, the museum’s collection doesn’t really has too much to do with Taiwan as the entire collection was shipped from China (Forbidden City, Beijing) during the retreat of Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan in 1949 and it represents a comprehensive overview about the original and traditional Chinese cultural art back to 5000 years.
We were quite lucky by arriving at 3 as an English guide tour just started than. To be honest, the museum tour would have been quite boring without the piloting of our Chinese-history expert who presented the most famous and impressive pieces form all the dynasties of the Chinese history. Most of them are price less, but there are some Chinese (the material/porcelán) which is measured up to $11.6 million by some experts!
art and historical artefacts. It is located a bit outside from Taipei to the north. Andreas - the Swiss guy who I know from the welcome reception also study business courses – was up to go there as well so we took a good old WV Golf what he just got from his volunteer student to use it during his stay in Taiwan …nice, isn’t it?…so I hope this will be ‘Das Auto’ which will help us to explore the island!The museum is a 4 floors large building among some hills in the Shilin district. The Japanese influence in its architecture is - I think - quite surprising to visitors, although many foreigners realise that the Taiwanese culture is actually a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, Western and aboriginal cultures creating a completely different atmosphere from what visitor can experience in Mainland China. However, the museum’s collection doesn’t really has too much to do with Taiwan as the entire collection was shipped from China (Forbidden City, Beijing) during the retreat of Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan in 1949 and it represents a comprehensive overview about the original and traditional Chinese cultural art back to 5000 years.
We were quite lucky by arriving at 3 as an English guide tour just started than. To be honest, the museum tour would have been quite boring without the piloting of our Chinese-history expert who presented the most famous and impressive pieces form all the dynasties of the Chinese history. Most of them are price less, but there are some Chinese (the material/porcelán) which is measured up to $11.6 million by some experts!
After the long trip in the museum, we were starting to look for some place to have dinner. We were just driving up to the northern part of Taipei fallowing the map towards a nice restaurant (from the guide book), but actually we realised that the map is a piece of s..t and travelling through Taipei is more complicated than we expected. (Roads disappear or just make a curve suddenly when it should be strait according to the map…etc) Finally we found a ‘restaurant’ sign…”ok check it out!” We were so hungry, so it wasn’t really matter what kind of food they have. To reach the building actually we had to hike up on a slope. The restaurant was owned by a nice old couple who welcomed us as some kind of migrants as we were the only customers around the cottage’s stile house. The menu was not a proper one as we (actually Andreas with his ‘almost perfect’ Chinese) just discussed with the lady what and how she is going to prepare for us…But finally we got a very delicious dinner (mushroom and chicken soup with special vegetables, rice and excellent Chinese tea) and the view for Taipei from our table was simply amazing!
pictures in the museum's folder:
http://picasaweb.google.com/tamasintaiwan
No comments:
Post a Comment