Taipei Day Three: Rain Forces Alternate Plans

The wind was blowing so hard I had trouble steadying the camera to take this!

This morning there was light rain but we thought we'd press on and head to Yangmingshan (陽明山) or Mount Yangming, an hour's drive from Taipei. It's the closest cluster of mountains near the city and were formerly created by volcanoes about 2 million years ago.

Heavy fog made it impossible to visit Yuanmingshan

Our guide told us that there's still thermal energy below resulting in hot springs for visitors to soak in.

However when we got there, the wind was so intense, blowing the rain combined with heavy fog we couldn't see much and our guide was worried it wasn't safe. Just waiting for our car to turn around and pick us up, my umbrella flew open the other way, while my mom's trousers were pretty soaked.

Inside the tea house on the fourth floor of the museum

So much for Yuanmingshan. We immediately decided to go back to the National Palace Museum and check out a few more things in detail. While there were some tour groups there it wasn't as busy as when we went on Saturday afternoon.

Armed with audio guides we checked out the jade section, where the Chinese considered jade to have strong spiritual powers and we could see its progression from being a useful tool for cutting things and skinning animals, to objects revered in rituals and for decoration.

Our bowl of delicious Taiwanese beef noodle!

The carvings are so impressive, particularly the relief ones -- how did they do that? And cut perfect circles to create the bi discs?

We also saw the exhibition on snuff bottles. I didn't know that the powder inside these small elaborately decorated containers was actually high quality tobacco ground into a powder, fermented and then sealed.

And because the powder was imported from the west by missionaries, the powder didn't do so well in humidity. As a result the containers were designed with a small opening, large body and spoon-stopper.

The entrance to the National Geographic photo exhibition

Then we had lunch in the tea house on the fourth floor of the museum, an airy place with views of the area. The menu is limited but was good. The highlight was the Taiwanese beef noodle, large chunks of meat that were tender with thick wheat noodles in a flavourful broth that came with pickled vegetables and peanuts.

Perhaps the highlight of the day was checking out the photo exhibition put on by National Geographic to celebrate its 125th anniversary. My cousin recently went to Taipei and told me about it so I'm glad I was able to see it (thanks to the weather).

Looking up at Taipei 101...

National Geographic was founded in Washington DC on January 13, 1888. It describes itself as a "unique scientific educational institution" that "has been a media for the dissemination of information". Its second president Alexander Graham Bell and first full-time editor Gilbert H Grosvenor said that "pictures are the language of the magazine", and Bell gave the order to "use pictures and plenty of them".

We saw 150 stunning images from the Society's back issues, many I have not seen before, others looked a bit familiar. There were the first pictures of Tibet in 1916, the first underwater picture in 1927 and the Society sponsoring people like Jacques-Yves Cousteau, newcomer Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey.

There was a picture of the discovery of the Titanic by Bob Ballard in 1991 and the first American team to trek up Mount Everest in 1963 with 19 climbers and 32 sherpas.

Looking down from Taipei 101... when the fog cleared a bit

Visitors also got to read the back story about the pictures such as one of a wolf jumping from one small ice floe to another in mid air. The dramatic shot was taken by Jim Brandenburg who has taken pictures of wildlife for 20 years but thinks in that time he has only taken seven good ones!

There's a picture of a lion cub who place its paw around the back of the neck of its mother that looked so human-like, that there were a number of inquiries for a copy of the photo when it was published in 1986.

Another amazing one is of a hummingbird in flight in Panama as it collects nectar from a flower. The picture is so sharp that the viewer can clearly see the detail of the features, lots of colour and each feather had edges of gold.

The massive wind damper on the 88th floor

Steve McCurry's haunting photograph of an Afghan girl in 1984 was actually rejected at first and then a photo editor looked at it again and put it on the cover. A few years ago McCurry managed to find the same girl again, now a grown woman.

Before dinner we checked out Taipei 101, that was for six years the tallest building in the world until the Burj Khalifa in Dubai took over in 2010. Every eight floors is one section and there are eight sections that are meant to create the look of bamboo. There are 101 floors in total and it takes only 37 seconds to get up there.

The building is able to withstand earthquakes thanks to the world's largest wind damper, a massive yellow ball held up by pulleys so that if the building sways one way, the ball and pulleys counteract it in the opposite direction. So the mascot of Taipei 101 is called "Damper Baby"...

Staff hard at work making dumplings at Din Tai Fung

We had to go through a massive strange coral museum and showcases of coral jewellery before we could take the elevator to go down. It took us 45 seconds to get down, mostly due to wind resistance.

Dinner was at Din Tai Fung, conveniently located in the basement. We arrived relatively early after 6pm so we were practically able to walk in as they don't take reservations. We ordered a few items we'd never tried before, including xiaolong bao made with black truffle, another with shrimp and loofah vegetable, and a plate of stir-fried Chinese fiddleheads that were fresh and slightly crunchy.

A plate of Chinese fiddleheads that were tasty and crunchy

To end off the evening we checked out Eslite, the 24-hour bookstore and it was relatively quiet, people wandering around or sitting on the floor reading books and magazines. We are expecting more light rain tomorrow...

Taipei Day One: Past and Present

Dramatic clouds gathering over the National Palace Museum at sunset

The last time I was in Taipei was in the early 90s when the government sponsored young overseas Chinese from North America to go to Taiwan to experience Chinese culture in the hopes they would come back later and work and/or invest in the country.

The entrance to the museum, home to 650,000 treasures

We were given VIP treatment with police escorts wherever we visited, taught "bo po mo fo", the special symbols Taiwanese use to verbally spell out characters and inducted into the world of karaoke.

I still remember going to the National Palace Museum and being annoyed that no one showed any particular attention to the fantastic treasures from the Forbidden City that Chiang Kai-shek had carefully whisked away from the communists.

These trips were nicknamed "The Love Boat" because it was the perfect platform for teenagers to hook up with members of the opposite sex and sneak out of the dorms at night to go drinking and clubbing.

However after several incidents involving inebriated students, the government decided to close down the program, but also probably they weren't getting their return on investment...

A computer scans you to create a vase design

Other than that I don't remember much about Taipei except for hanging out with my Taiwanese cousins on the weekends.

So some 20 years later it's interesting to return and see how things have changed.

While the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport looks impressive with its slanted roof and granite floors in the immigration area, the baggage area is quite small.

The drive into the city is a nice sight, as it's quite hilly, but completely covered in trees with verdant leaves. They are not planted there like those that line the highway in Beijing, but have been there naturally for who knows how long.

We passed by The Grand Hotel, which I stayed in on my first trip to Taiwan when I was a kid. My second reference to it was watching Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman, where the main character is the top chef in the hotel. My mouth still waters whenever I think of the opening scene...

Our tour guide told us that Chiang and his wife Soong Mei-ling loved to stay in The Grand Hotel not only for its panoramic views of the city, but also because its location had very good feng shui. She also told us there were secret tunnels that were for Chiang to escape in case of danger. She said the tunnels end up at the river, but Wikipedia says they end at nearby parks and can accommodate up to 10,000 people.

Animated portraits of people. Can you spot me in the picture?

Soon after we arrived at the National Palace Museum. Apparently it's crowded with Japanese and mainland tourists on the weekends, but it's hardly anything like elbowing your way through Sogo in Causeway Bay. There were lots of people, but line ups went fast.

There are 650,000 items in the museum. The Taiwanese are very proud of Chiang for protecting the imperial treasures and perhaps he thought that by bringing these priceless items that represented power from the Forbidden City, it would give him the moral authority to rule China.

To save time our guide took us to see the prized possessions of the museum: the bai cai or jadeite cabbage. It's not the highest quality jade, the guide says, but the carver has done an excellent job with it.

The famous jadeite bai cai with two katydids

It was meant to be a dowry for the emperor's consort and the whiteness of the jade represents the consort's purity, while the two katydids, one small and one large symbolizing the imperial couple, mean that they love each other profoundly for eternity.

Next to it is a piece of natural rock that looks like dong po rou, or a piece of braised pork belly. Only the top was manipulated with an artisan's hand to make it look like pork skin.

I remembered seeing these pieces and feeling so impressed by them, but seeing them again I was surprised I was blinded by my memories. I remembered the dong po rou glistening and a large piece, but in reality it was a small triangular "slice" and the colours were such that it looked like it was going mouldy! The cabbage just wasn't as appealing as I thought it was many years ago.

A slice of braised pork belly from natural stone

Nevertheless we were still amazed by the intricate carvings on ivory, rhinoceros horn, even walnut shells. No one knows how the artisans carved 17 layers within one ivory ball and the magnifying glasses revealed amazing artistry, thanks to the patronage of the Emperor Qianlong.

We also saw a large bronze cauldron called Mao Gong Ding. In it there are 500 Chinese characters carved, where King Xuan declares his need to depend on the Duke of Mao to help him bring stability in the late Zhou period.

What was also neat about the museum was an interactive multimedia area. People who were depicted in paintings came to life in animation, greeting us in various languages. In one area there was a large white vase. Each person stands on a special platform and moves the arms and body while the computer scans them and creates a new design on the vase. Another took a picture of us and made us into an animated character in what looked like a computer game.

A culinary interpretation of the jadeite bai cai at Silks Palace

Next to the museum is a restaurant called Silks Palace run by The Regent hotel. It's a beautiful setting inside with lots of dark wood that looks traditional but simultaneously modern too. We had a private room where we ate a set lunch of braised shredded sea cucumber with fish maw soup, stir-fried pork ribs, Cantonese dim sum and stir-fried shrimp balls with sea whelk.

One of the highlights was the jadeite cabbage with dried shrimps and was presented much like the one in the museum. To eat it we had to place the cabbage on the plate, pour the conpoy sauce on top of it and then eat it with a fork and knife. An artistic treat.