Thursday, December 30, 2004
Taiwan
After 2 months in the "red" People's Republic of China, we took the opportunity to visit some of Claudia's friends in Taiwan, whom she met while studying in England, to have a look at the "other" China. We enjoyed a total of 11 days on the island.
Taipei
We stayed most of the time at Mickey's in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan and home of the highest building in the world, the 101 Tower. The recently inaugurated tower can be seen from most places in town.
On the agenda: great food, a new year's party, relaxing at hot springs, sending excess bagage weight home (14 kilos of books, CDs, DVDs, trinkets), and sightseeing.
Despite what its inhabitants seem to think, Taipei is far from being boring. For one, its palace museum has the biggest collection of chinese antiques in the world. The precious items where salvaged from japanese invasion, then shipped to Taiwan by the Kuomintang when their defeat on the mainland became ineluctable. Most objects are stored under the mountain behind the museum, which could present a totally different exhibit everyday for 11 years without showing the same item twice. And it takes more than a day to see everything in the museum...
Here, we show two of the museum's most famous exhibits, the jade pork meat and cabbage, which brilliantly demonstrates one of the chinese's main preoccupation throughout the centuries:
For different reasons, we also enjoyed the pompous Chiang Kai Check memorial, especially the changing of the guard's martial choregraphy featuring the shiniest helmets we've ever seen. Perfectly synchronised, each movement emphasised... a worthy challenger to Mao Zedong's mausoleum in Beijing.
Beside this, Taipei (and Taiwan in general) has some beautiful and lively temples, contrasting with the sterile hastily rebuilt concrete temples of mainland China, and an impressive number of exhuberant night markets.
Guansi, Puli and around
We went to Guansi, south of Taipei near the west coast, to visit Yen. We stayed for the weekend at her family's house. Yen and her brother Paul organised a memorable culinary tour of the region. We started at one of their aunt's excellent restaurant. Then, we went on sampling more Hakka specialities at various locations (tomato plantation, markets, teahouses...).
Beneath, a picture of us preparing Lai Chai, the Hakka tea. Green tea, sesame seeds, herbs and peanuts are ground together in a bowl, then hot water is added. The succulent mixture is consumed with beans and puffed rice.
On Sunday, we drove to Puli, in the centre of Taiwan, for lunch at Mickey's uncle and to visit her cheerful Grandmother, a lady with tiny feet born in China in the last years of the Qing dynasty. After picking up two big bags of starfruit from the tree in their garden, we moved to the paper factory.
Paper, like ink and brushes, play an important role in chinese culture in connection with calligraphy. The paper of Puli is renowned and the factory has a fun section to make your own sheet!
Puli also boasts an unusual building which is the biggest monastery of Taiwan.
Taipei
We stayed most of the time at Mickey's in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan and home of the highest building in the world, the 101 Tower. The recently inaugurated tower can be seen from most places in town.
On the agenda: great food, a new year's party, relaxing at hot springs, sending excess bagage weight home (14 kilos of books, CDs, DVDs, trinkets), and sightseeing.
Despite what its inhabitants seem to think, Taipei is far from being boring. For one, its palace museum has the biggest collection of chinese antiques in the world. The precious items where salvaged from japanese invasion, then shipped to Taiwan by the Kuomintang when their defeat on the mainland became ineluctable. Most objects are stored under the mountain behind the museum, which could present a totally different exhibit everyday for 11 years without showing the same item twice. And it takes more than a day to see everything in the museum...
Here, we show two of the museum's most famous exhibits, the jade pork meat and cabbage, which brilliantly demonstrates one of the chinese's main preoccupation throughout the centuries:
For different reasons, we also enjoyed the pompous Chiang Kai Check memorial, especially the changing of the guard's martial choregraphy featuring the shiniest helmets we've ever seen. Perfectly synchronised, each movement emphasised... a worthy challenger to Mao Zedong's mausoleum in Beijing.
Beside this, Taipei (and Taiwan in general) has some beautiful and lively temples, contrasting with the sterile hastily rebuilt concrete temples of mainland China, and an impressive number of exhuberant night markets.
Guansi, Puli and around
We went to Guansi, south of Taipei near the west coast, to visit Yen. We stayed for the weekend at her family's house. Yen and her brother Paul organised a memorable culinary tour of the region. We started at one of their aunt's excellent restaurant. Then, we went on sampling more Hakka specialities at various locations (tomato plantation, markets, teahouses...).
Beneath, a picture of us preparing Lai Chai, the Hakka tea. Green tea, sesame seeds, herbs and peanuts are ground together in a bowl, then hot water is added. The succulent mixture is consumed with beans and puffed rice.
On Sunday, we drove to Puli, in the centre of Taiwan, for lunch at Mickey's uncle and to visit her cheerful Grandmother, a lady with tiny feet born in China in the last years of the Qing dynasty. After picking up two big bags of starfruit from the tree in their garden, we moved to the paper factory.
Paper, like ink and brushes, play an important role in chinese culture in connection with calligraphy. The paper of Puli is renowned and the factory has a fun section to make your own sheet!
Puli also boasts an unusual building which is the biggest monastery of Taiwan.
