I was also fascinated by our hotel's parking garage. Inside the garage was a ferris wheel for cars, and I had never seen anything like it before! The cars would pull up onto the black circle, which would then rotate to line up exactly with the ferris wheel opening. Then, the car was driven onto the ferris wheel. Then the ferris wheel rotated, moving the car upwards and sideways while another open spot came down to take the next car. I'm guessing the whole ferris wheel would fit about 30 cars. Crazy!
That evening, after our friends Andrew and Tiffany had jet-setted back to Hong Kong, Drew and I went back out to the night markets to try another round of street food. Tonight's menu included an oyster omelette, which was delicious!
On Monday, Drew had to go back into the Taipei office, so I spent the day at the National Palace Museum. Apparently when the National Party fled to Taipei, they took a large assortment of the historical art and artifacts from the Forbidden City in Beijing with them to Taipei. This museum now has the largest collection of Chinese art and artifacts anywhere in the world, including within China itself. There is a standing joke in Taipei that if China ever wanted to bomb Taiwan, the one place they wouldn't touch is the museum due to all the priceless works of art. So, head there for a bomb shelter!
The museum was filled with pieces ranging throughout Chinese history. This is an ivory pillow.
Below is a black clay cup, made in the Neolithic Era, about 3,000 BC. That makes this cup more than 5,000 years old! Unbelievable isn't it! And I can only think back through my family about 6 generations, which is only about 150 years of history. What fascinates me most about this cup is how ornamental it is. The handle has slits in it, it's glazed, and it has an interesting shape! This is way more than just your functional cup for water. What fascinates me most about history itself is it shows us how little and how much we, as a species, have changed over time. Yes our cups now a days might be made out of more precise, advanced materials for durability and heat retention, and yes our cups might have cool logos and designs representing our advanced society with governments, schools, and companies, but I am still just a lady drinking a beverage out of her ceramic, glazed coffee mug, just like my ancestor did 5,000 years ago. Not much has changed; our most basic human needs are still very much the same.
This is a jeweled hair pin in the shape of a peacock, used by ladies in the royal palace.
This carving was the most unique piece of art I have seen in a long time. I think I liked it so much because so much math was involved to make it work. The sculpture was carved from ivory. The top section is a sphere with about 12 smaller spheres inside of it. Each sphere was progressively smaller, allowing it to fit inside the last, like a Russian nesting doll toy. However, each sphere was also carved completely, with its own unique theme, so if you looked through one layer you could see the carving theme of the next sphere, and so on. And, if you theoretically lined up all of the spheres perfectly, there would be a hole that would go though each layer perfectly. I've never seen anything so ornate and complicated, but executed so beautifully.
Another hair pin, this one made with turquoise.
These are jade earings from the Neolithic Age, also known as the Stone Age, the same era as the black cup. I, again, was unaware humans in that age had any free time to do anything other than find food and protect themselves. But, these people had time to make jade earings!
There were also several art pieces whose sole purpose was to show off the mastery of Chinese artists. This is a nature scene carved into an olive pit. Now, I do love a good olive, so I am well aware how large an olive pit can seem when you accidentally bite it. However, this piece made me realize how small an olive pit actually is, and how even more amazing it was for the artist to carve an entire nature scene into it. I actually couldn't see the detail of the piece with my naked eye; I needed a microscope to really see the detail.
On the walk back to the hotel, I passed through a lovely park. You'll notice the weather was beautiful. We had great clear blue skies and the weather had a slight chill, really welcoming autumn. It was a really nice change from Hong Kong.
For dinner, Drew and I stumbled on a noodle shop that specialized in dao xiao mian, or knife cut noodles. Each noodle was cut, or almost peeled, from a large block, forming noodles with inconsistent shape and thickness. They tasted delicious and were really nice to eat texture wise. The hand cut noodles were then put into a traditional beef broth, which is a famous Taiwanese dish.
Also on my walk I saw a few more beautiful buildings around downtown Taipei. This was the national hospital. Apparently Taiwan has one of the best health-care systems in the world. Any resident can go see any specialist for free! And they also have one of the lowest cost systems in the world. Let's go see how Taiwan is doing it!
Taiwan had a really cool energy and culture, and this is one example of the Taiwanese people speaking out politically against China. I'm sure this is just one opinion out of many, but it's nice to see them expressing their opinions freely.
Finally, as I headed to the airport on Tuesday morning, what did I see but my beloved Denver Broncos playing football! It's amazing because football is not popular in Asia, and why the Broncos? The game against the 49ers was played on a Sunday, and this was a Tuesday, so it was definitely a replay of the game. Maybe because of Payton Manning's 509th touchdown pass? Not sure, but I was the only person in the airport lounge who cared.
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