Taiwan Day 2 - Museum, Temple, Night Market

We started off our day at 8am and realised that Taiwanese eateries (apart from 24 hours cafes) generally do not open before 10am. There are hardly any stores to break our fast in the morning.

Where is our Taiwanese breakfast?!

As I'm running a tight ship (or at least I try to) when it comes to keeping to the itinerary, we explored QSquare for other alternatives. Suddenly, we found bagels! It is difficult to find a decent bagel in Singapore even with the healthy expat population but yet, there is a 24 hour bagel place in Taipei.

NY Bagels Cafe boasts to have the best breakfast in town. For me, I didn't care whether they were the best or not, they have bagels! To top it off, they had frittatas. I thought this was going to be great before I tasted the potato.

The bagels were soft and warm. They have the option of choosing the type of bagel and cream cheese. How does onion and chives cream cheese sound? The omelet was quite fluffy and the tomato base wasn't too sour. The potato was a whole other story. It was cold.... how could potatoes be served cold?!

I should take a leaf from this motto when faced with my cold potatoes

The rest of the gang needed to get their Taiwan Youth Card before we headed to the National Museum. The location of the nearest Visitor Information Counter was said to be in Taipei Main Station. Getting from QSquare to the Taipei Main Station is a long walk and we kept getting lost as there were no helpful signboards to point the way.

Taipei Main Station

Armed with our Youth Card, we now headed to the National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院). At any time during a visit to Taiwan, this is one of the highlights of the trip. The Museum showcases amazing pieces of Chinese ingenuity, art and skill in turning something a simple as an olive pit into a sculpture which could not be reproduced by hand/machine in this day and age.

Here is a little bit of trivia on the Museum. The Museum gained its artifacts when in 1931, General Chiang Kai Shek ordered the museum in the Forbidden City to move out its most valuable pieces to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army. Thousands of crates moved from place to place eluding the Japanese forces. When WWII was over, the Chinese Civil War erupted leading the collection to be moved to Taiwan. However only a fraction of the collection (22%) could be moved before the Communist Army seized control. Many claimed that the move saved some of the more rare and valuable pieces of Ancient Chinese history from fortune hunters and Mao's army.

By the end of 2011, 693,507 artifacts of significant historical and artistic values were recorded to be within the Museum's collection. Only 1% is exhibited at any time and paintings and calligraphy pieces are rotated once every 3 months. (Statistical figures obtained from www. wikipedia.com)

It seriously boggled my mind as to the vastness of thousands of years of human history, being kept under lock and key. Pieces of amazing detail and design made even before Christ was born, the Romans were still conquering their way through Europe, the world was thought to be flat and wilderness claimed both Americas.

*brain frizzles*

Zhishan Garden's entrance. The Garden is closed on Mondays. Boo...

Lion knockers

Guardians that greet you

National Palace Museum

I could have spent the whole day there and not be able to complete roaming and admiring the exhibits. I was tempted to ask the rest to carry on with the activities for the rest of the day and leave me be with dead artisans and their pride. No photographing activity is allowed once you pass through the Museum doors, so leave your camera in your bag at the storage area. Remember to take your wallet/purse as there are souvenior shops along the floors.

If you don't see what's the big deal about 800 year old black, faded strokes on a piece of paper, you should at least go in to see how precious stones are carved into this.

Source from  http://www.mse.nthu.edu.tw/~mhong/5th_International_Workshop_on_High_k_Trip.htm

The Meat-shaped Stone is a piece of Jasper carved into the likeness of pork belly meat marinated and stewed in soy sauce. The Jadeite Cabbage is a dual coloured jadeite carved into a bok choy with a locust and katydid resting among its leaves. These pieces are hardly bigger than an adult's hand. A true example that not all precious stones need to be flawless to achieve infamy. Art imitating life, or rather dinner.

At the Museum, MY and I started our stamping obsession. At every tourist spot, the Taiwan Tourism Board has started off a movement which encourages visitors to step into a place of interest and get their books stamped. Each stamp is unique. Stay tuned for our collection of stamps at the end of this journey. The guys thought it was cute at first but then I think we just got them irritated towards the end.

On the way back to Taipei, we explored a Taiwanese snack shop near Shilin MRT selling Chinese Pizza and 'snowflake'! I don't know what do you call the snowflake dessert in Chinese but generally it is a dessert made out of shaved ice, fresh cream milk, black grass jelly and taro balls. There is a hot version where shaved ice is replaced with sweetened ginger water or liquefied grass jelly.

Shilin Station  "Onion Grab Biscuit" O_o  English translation doesn't always work for  Chinese

Photo courtesy of KL of his Chinese Pizza

With the Chinese roti canai in our stomachs, we headed off to our next destination - Taipei 101.

The weather was great. The balmy weather greatly helped our 20 minutes walk from Taipei City Hall station to Taipei 101. The night view was much raved about on many blogs so we wanted to take a look ourselves.

On the way to 101 before thwarted by the tour groups

 On the way there we saw many people riding similiar bikes where they seem to jsut pick off a rack and deposit elsewhere. Riding though Taipei could be a splendid idea! We saw an officer strolling amongst the bike rakes and hurried over to ask how to rent one. He answered that the bikes were only available for Taiwanese citizens as they have to record their Taiwanese ID number in order to get a bike.

So if there is blog which says you can rent a bike in Taipei, check with the officer in charge!

Rented bikes for Taiwanese

On reaching the ticket booth for the observatory, we saw a line of PRC Chinese tourists. Like a 2 hour queue of Chinese tourists ~ Nooooo!!!! I want my dinner!!!

After weighing in the fact that we have to stand in line for 2 hours, we decided that Taipei 101 will be something to look forward to the next time around.

We headed back to the station, wishing that we could ride instead and headed to the oldest temple in Taipei to pray for good tidings during our stay - Long Shan Temple (龍山寺). It's open until quite late and honestly, you only see hordes of people at a temple the night of Chinese New Year's eve. When we reached at 8.30pm, the monks were still chanting in the main hall, people jostling around with precarious incense held high over their heads (normal etiquette if you are holding joss sticks and don't want to blind someone) and tables laden with offerings. Who is in residence? Guanyin and Mazu (媽祖), or Tien Hau (天后), as we know her.



We made our offerings and felt really at peace in the temple. It wasn't hot, stuffy or smokey like what you would expect in temples in KL.


After praying, it is time to go to our first Taiwanese Night Market! Guangzhou Night Market should be named Long Shan Night Market. It is on the left of the temple (if you are facing temple front gates). I realized that not many tourist comes here compared to the other night markets in Taipei. A pity really, as there were really good food along the street (cheapest meal ever here!) but without the crowds of the normal tourist promoted night markets.

Some tong yuen sorta dessert

Pork parks caramelized in soy sauce and vinegar

Wild boar sausages

Buffalo horns and peanuts

Freshly made fried fish cake with wasabi sauce

It was at Guangzhou Night Market that we had our first authentic lu rou fan (滷肉飯)! Plus, pork blood cubes! It's been ages since we had this. 

This meal was only RM54 for 5 people

 
At the end of Guangzhou Night Market, we reached Hwahsi Night Market. This is where you get your exotic meats. Snake bile and meat is in ready supply as we walked past cages advertising their wares. Huge slittering coils of muscle sits next to foot reflexology centers and medicinal shops.

No one wanted to try out the snakes so we headed home after reaching the end.

National Palace Museum
Address: No.221, Sec. 2, Zhishan Rd., Shilin Dist., Taipei City 11143, Taiwan 
Tel: 886-2-28812021
Opening Hours: 8.30am -6.30pm
Opening Hours for Zhishan Garden: Tues - Sunday 7am - 7pm
Ticket Price: TWD160 (50% if present Taiwan Youth Card)
Getting there: Taipei Main Station MRT ► Shilin Station MRT ► Exit 2 ► turn right after exit station ►head towards main road junction (you can see a Pizza Hut a shop away from junction) ► Bus R30, 255 (TWD15)

Taipei 101 Observatory
Ticketing Booth and Entrace located on 5th floor of Taipei 101 Shopping Mall
Address : 89th Floor, No.7 Hsinyi Road Section 5, Taipei City
Tel: (02) 81018899
Opening Hours: 10am- 10pm
Getting there:  Taipei Main Station ► change to Blue Line heading to Taipei Nangang Exhibition Centre ► Taipei City Hall station ► Exit 3 ► follow the pedestrian sidewalk and head towards Taipei 101