Part 3 of 3. Taipei, 9 July. History Museum, CKS Memorial, Ximengding, Longshan Temple, Transformers
For my second last day in Taipei, I went to check out the nearby 24 Hour Bookshop called 誠品.
I passed a strange banking promotion. I'm not sure how many people would want to be seen banking at an ATM that looks like this :D
I then decided to go to the Museum of History. It was incredibly hot - even hotter than the earlier day but I walked from the MRT station, passing an anti-drug ad
There was a special exhibition of the Terracotta Warriors from Xi'an but the crowds were absolutely massive and I could not cope. Besides ... I have been to Xi'an and seen the warriors at their original excavation location as it were ... so decided not to endure heatstroke to see a handful :D
I spent quite a lot of time in the Exhibition of Koxinga for a couple of reasons:
1. I knew nothing about the topic and it was quite interesting
2. There was no English and it took me absolutely ages to read all of the information
3. A lot of the names were Japanese and so I was struggling to decipher the kanji characters names from the Chinese etxt :D
4. The Chinese was in complex characters so that made my reading even slower :D
The remainder of the museum wasn't really anything special and unfortunately it was quite old, dark and musty and there was an almost overwhelming smell of body odour which I don't think came from people. I think it was just mouldy building smell :D
Being a bit oversensitive to smell, I was a bit overcome and had to go back to my hotel to rest for an hour :D I was also feeling mildly heat-strokey but I recovered quickly and then made my way to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Once there, I got lost and wandered around the music theatre and the playhouse before a helpful man pointed me in the direction of this giant structure that I'm not quite sure how I missed the first time ;)
I wonder why memorials have to always be such big, ugly honking concrete buildings? :D
By the time I walked there, I was almost completely overcome by the heat and red as a tomato. There was a small exhibition there of Taiwanese education so I took the opportunity to sit down at an old fashioned classroom desk and recover from the heat.
Just like a real classroom, the faux students were asleep at their desk :D
The building had very high ceilings.
Flying Tigers, woohoo! :) Ahem. Yes, its Chiang Kai Shek with Claire Lee Chennault the man who set up the Flying Tigers who were cooler than cool and neater than neat.
I then went to 西門町 Hsimenting (in pinyin it is Xīméndīng) which is is a neighbourhood in the Wanhua District of Taipei. The character 町 is interesting because it is not really a Chinese character, it is a Japanese character. Most Japanese kanji comes from Chinese but 町 is a uniquely Japanese character.
西門町 Hsimenting is called the “Harajuku” in Taipei. It sells Japanese magazines, Japanese books, CD albums and clothing. It is incredibly crowded. Words cannot describe how squishy it was there and I lasted for an hour there - after buying a strawberry ice thingy. Photo here and an interesting article here.
Small clip of one part of 西門町 Hsimenting is here.
I like the Coke ad you can hear. Does anyone know where I can download it??? :)
After I escaped from the hordes of people at 西門町 Hsimenting, I decided to hope on the MRT and go to Longshan Temple 龍山寺. When I emerged from the MRT station, an old man saw me blinking in confusion at a map and pointed me in the right direction. I walked through a park full of old people playing dominos, mahjong and Chinese checkers, walked past a dubiously named 'Long Shan Temple Shopping Mall' and found the temple itself.
It worships a mixture of Buddhist, Taoist, and folk deities such as Matsu and was built in 1738 by settlers from Fujian, China. The temple has been destroyed either in full or in part on numerous earthquakes and fires. In the spring of 1945, it was even hit by American bombers who claimed the Japanese were hiding armaments inside.
It's a very tiny little temple but I thought it was really very pretty and it was so nice to have a peaceful place to rest.
Offerings
Prayer candles
Auntie M phoned and wanted to know where I was because they wanted to take me to dinner so I scampered back to the MRT station and pondered this strange sign that makes it look as though it is banning people with one leg.
We had a nice dinner in a trendy Taiwanese restaurant and then I mentioned that I wanted to see The Transformers. Unfortunately Auntie and Uncle M had to work on the Monday so they drove me to the cinema and dropped me off. I forgot to mention that Auntie M bought me a HUGE quantity of munchies to take back to Beijing to share with my colleagues and also gave me a box of The Best Pineapple Cakes In The World, which really were extremely delicious. Mmmm.
Kinda dark but here is a glimpse of the cinema. It was very large with a very big food court as well.
Subway poster for the Transformers :D
I passed a strange banking promotion. I'm not sure how many people would want to be seen banking at an ATM that looks like this :D
I then decided to go to the Museum of History. It was incredibly hot - even hotter than the earlier day but I walked from the MRT station, passing an anti-drug ad
There was a special exhibition of the Terracotta Warriors from Xi'an but the crowds were absolutely massive and I could not cope. Besides ... I have been to Xi'an and seen the warriors at their original excavation location as it were ... so decided not to endure heatstroke to see a handful :D
I spent quite a lot of time in the Exhibition of Koxinga for a couple of reasons:
1. I knew nothing about the topic and it was quite interesting
2. There was no English and it took me absolutely ages to read all of the information
3. A lot of the names were Japanese and so I was struggling to decipher the kanji characters names from the Chinese etxt :D
4. The Chinese was in complex characters so that made my reading even slower :D
The remainder of the museum wasn't really anything special and unfortunately it was quite old, dark and musty and there was an almost overwhelming smell of body odour which I don't think came from people. I think it was just mouldy building smell :D
Being a bit oversensitive to smell, I was a bit overcome and had to go back to my hotel to rest for an hour :D I was also feeling mildly heat-strokey but I recovered quickly and then made my way to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Once there, I got lost and wandered around the music theatre and the playhouse before a helpful man pointed me in the direction of this giant structure that I'm not quite sure how I missed the first time ;)
I wonder why memorials have to always be such big, ugly honking concrete buildings? :D
By the time I walked there, I was almost completely overcome by the heat and red as a tomato. There was a small exhibition there of Taiwanese education so I took the opportunity to sit down at an old fashioned classroom desk and recover from the heat.
Just like a real classroom, the faux students were asleep at their desk :D
The building had very high ceilings.
Flying Tigers, woohoo! :) Ahem. Yes, its Chiang Kai Shek with Claire Lee Chennault the man who set up the Flying Tigers who were cooler than cool and neater than neat.
I then went to 西門町 Hsimenting (in pinyin it is Xīméndīng) which is is a neighbourhood in the Wanhua District of Taipei. The character 町 is interesting because it is not really a Chinese character, it is a Japanese character. Most Japanese kanji comes from Chinese but 町 is a uniquely Japanese character.
西門町 Hsimenting is called the “Harajuku” in Taipei. It sells Japanese magazines, Japanese books, CD albums and clothing. It is incredibly crowded. Words cannot describe how squishy it was there and I lasted for an hour there - after buying a strawberry ice thingy. Photo here and an interesting article here.
Small clip of one part of 西門町 Hsimenting is here.
I like the Coke ad you can hear. Does anyone know where I can download it??? :)
After I escaped from the hordes of people at 西門町 Hsimenting, I decided to hope on the MRT and go to Longshan Temple 龍山寺. When I emerged from the MRT station, an old man saw me blinking in confusion at a map and pointed me in the right direction. I walked through a park full of old people playing dominos, mahjong and Chinese checkers, walked past a dubiously named 'Long Shan Temple Shopping Mall' and found the temple itself.
It worships a mixture of Buddhist, Taoist, and folk deities such as Matsu and was built in 1738 by settlers from Fujian, China. The temple has been destroyed either in full or in part on numerous earthquakes and fires. In the spring of 1945, it was even hit by American bombers who claimed the Japanese were hiding armaments inside.
It's a very tiny little temple but I thought it was really very pretty and it was so nice to have a peaceful place to rest.
Offerings
Prayer candles
Auntie M phoned and wanted to know where I was because they wanted to take me to dinner so I scampered back to the MRT station and pondered this strange sign that makes it look as though it is banning people with one leg.
We had a nice dinner in a trendy Taiwanese restaurant and then I mentioned that I wanted to see The Transformers. Unfortunately Auntie and Uncle M had to work on the Monday so they drove me to the cinema and dropped me off. I forgot to mention that Auntie M bought me a HUGE quantity of munchies to take back to Beijing to share with my colleagues and also gave me a box of The Best Pineapple Cakes In The World, which really were extremely delicious. Mmmm.
Kinda dark but here is a glimpse of the cinema. It was very large with a very big food court as well.
Subway poster for the Transformers :D