Day 18 - I'm in Town Again!

Today’s Programme
Morning	To craft bamboos
Afternoon	National Palace Museum / Martyrs' Shrine
Evening	Ximenting market place
Hotel	Armed Forces Hero House, Taipei

I woke up at the farm, had breakfast and then joined the Bamboo workshops. The first craft was the bamboo fan, then making a bamboo flute. I didn’t do a great job :(
The thing I did great job was the puppy made from towel. It looked so cute, but I put it on the table to take picture and forgot to collect it home. ;-(

There were lots of activities there. Besides the bamboo stuff, they also provided t-shirts and bags to paint. I got the bag but it had a pattern on it already, so I decided not to paint anything on it to make it dirty. I spent times taking pictures of the place while the others were painting.

Leaving Ilan, we took some times to reach TaiPei (yippppppppppppppy!!!)

The first place we visisted was “Gu Gong” which is also known as the National Palace Museum. It was still under construction, so I didn’t get a chace to take pictures close to the palace. However, we were able to visit the museum inside by using the side door. Taking pictures was forbidden there.

We were told that there are lots of stuff, especially painting pictures, with high value there. (Chiang Kai Shek carried lots of things from main land once he migrated to Taiwan.) Xuan Xuan said that if we arrange the stuff in the museum along the coast of the island, it could cover the whole island. The museum changes the display every 3 months in order to conserve the pictures. Xuan Xuan also said that we couldn’t see everything even if we visit the museum every 3 months for years.

The three treasures that are worth to take a look are: the

1. The Jade Cabbage -- If I am not mistaken, it’s named ChingChingBaiBai. It’s the gift that a king gave to his sister when she got married and had to go to another city. The jade refers to the virginity of the princess.
2. The Pork Belly -- I forget the importance of it
3. The picture named “City of Cathay” -- It’s a long picture with the size of 35.6 x 1152.8 cm. The picture shows the Chinese culture along the river during the Qing dynasty, drawn by 5 painters which are Chen Mei, Sun Hu, Chin Kun, Tai Hung,และ Chen Chih-tao. This picture wasn’t on the display at the time I visited, but I bought the postcard set of the picture. I had to arrange the 24 pictures in line in order to see the whole picture.

I had to be in hurry to get onto the bus before we missed another program at the Martyrs' Shrine to see the guard changing ceremony at 5.30 pm.

The Martys' Shire was built from the architecture of Ming dynasty in order to dedicate to the 330,000 fallen heroes of China’s wars who sacrificed their lives to the revolution before the establishment of the Republic of China and who fell during the Sino-Japanese war and the Chinese Civil war. After the 30 minutes Guard Changing ceremony ended, they were in hurry and asked us to leave as soon as possible.

Leaving the Martys’s Shire, they took us for dinner around the YuanShan MRT station. They brought us their ‘cos it was only a restaurant in Taipei that provides Chinese style food set. It was dirty, slow and no yummy food. I wasn’t full ‘cos I didn’t feel like eating there.

We then moved to the place we were going to stay at night. From its name, I thought that it’s in the army area but I was wrong. It was actually like a normal hotel. Only the difference is that the rooms were like dormitories. There can be 5-7 people in a room with 2 toilets each. It was a little bit dusty, but overall was okay. It’s also located close to the Presidential Palace by 2-3 minutes walk. It’s also close to the XiMen night market by 5 minutes walk too.

Getting into the room, we had to wait for our luggage that we left in TaiChung. The luggage came by the truck. It was a great idea that Fu Dao Yuan carried the luggage for us. Our group got highest priority. Our luggage came first. I guess I had to thank XuanXuan for that. We practiced our show for some time, then I went to the XiMen Night Market. Ooh lala, it was like Bangkok’s Siam Square. I was very happy there because I wasn’t in town for weeks. I had dinner first ‘cos I wasn’t full from the poor restaurant, then started shopping. I found an umbrella seller. He was the most handsome Taiwanese I found. I couldn’t resist buying one from him eieiei