Day 3 (31/12/06): National Palace Museum this morning for breakfast, we tried the fan4 tuan2 from the same roadside stall that we went yesterday. it was veyr nice and full of ingredients - there was some meat, you2 tiao2, egg, pork floss and was nice and warm, perfect to eat in this cold weather! after that we set off for the national palace museum (or gu4 gong1), taking bus 304. it was the first time we taking a bus since we came here. their buses are quite interesting, there are a lot of funny messages on the bus, such as asking u to give up ur seat to the needy, and some other stuff. the journey was quite long.
at the museum, i ran into Diana and Stephanie from DBoat. so qiao3! anyway, we entered the museum at around 11.30 and only emerged at 5 pm (the closing time). actually similar to my experiences in Europe's museums, there are so many things to
see that after a while everything looks similar. and cuz it was a weekend and new year eve somemore, it was very very crowded and moving abt was quite a problem. my sis made a very funny comment when we entered one of the exhibition halls. she exclaimed "what? more bowls?!" we have been seeing bowls, jugs, vases, plates, in general containers of all shapes and sizes and a comment like this from my sis was so candid yet it voiced out exactly what was in our minds. we saw bowls with bluish-green glaze, bluish-white glaze with brown spots, with tinge of purple, bowls with flower patterns... it seems a lot of these works came from the sung dynasty. also saw jade and ivory carvings, some of which are really quite incredible. u have to look thru a magnifying glass to see the intricacies. and if u consider that in those tdays tools are not that sophisticated, kudos to them.. my dad was looking for the famous jade carving of a cabbage with a grasshopper and another insect on it. when we found it, there was already a big crowd surrounding the showcase. presumably everyone must be trying to identify the grasshopper and the other insect. by the time we came out from the museum it was already 5 pm. we managed to squeeze onto a bus which goes to taipei main station.
that night the four of us wanted to go and experience the countdown at the Taipei city hall, maybe not to stay all the way till the end but to see and experience the
feeling of new year in Taipei. i've not been to any countdown in singapore so i can't really make a fair comparison, but i have never seen a more scary crowd before in my life. there was a concert gg on at Taipei city hall and as early as 8 something, there was already a crowd building up and pple were sitting in the streets. by the time we came out of Shinkong Mitsukoshi at 10.30 pm, it was already impossible to cross over to the other side cuz apparently they blocked off an area for someone's autograph session (none of us could hear whose autograph session it was, my sisters heard mian4 xian4 (Vermicelli?!)), then we had to detour. when we saw the way the crowd was building up, we decided we'll go back before it gets impossible to squeeze our way out. the feeling i got was >99% of the pple were gg towards city hall and <1% were trying to squeeze out to get to the MRT station. if u belong to the minority, too bad... u have to fight ur way thru and be agressive abt it. in fact we were not even sure if we were gg the correct way. i was praying with all my heart that we were on the right path otherwise i really cannot imagine squeezing back into the crowd. when we finally got to city hall station, they had already closed it cuz there were too many pple coming out, so they did not allow anyone to enter. we had to walk down to the SYS memorial station. even one station away, the crowd was still swarming out and we had to go down to the next exit which was goodness knows where. and there was no order on the streets at all, pedestrians were crossing at will and the traffic police were trying their best to control the traffic, blowing whistles, pushing pple back, but they were severly outnumbered. in fact i heard someone commenting in chinese "the traffic police is gg mad soon" whcih i totally agreed. it took us ~1h to squeeze from city hall to get into the SYS station safely. ximen station was almost deserted when we got off there, probably everyone has swarmed to the Taipei city hall. I've never appreciated an empty station more than now.
i think to go for a countdown like this, be prepared to stay there the whole night. if u intend to go back, better start making ur way home earlier if u dun wanna drown in the crowd.
at the museum, i ran into Diana and Stephanie from DBoat. so qiao3! anyway, we entered the museum at around 11.30 and only emerged at 5 pm (the closing time). actually similar to my experiences in Europe's museums, there are so many things to
see that after a while everything looks similar. and cuz it was a weekend and new year eve somemore, it was very very crowded and moving abt was quite a problem. my sis made a very funny comment when we entered one of the exhibition halls. she exclaimed "what? more bowls?!" we have been seeing bowls, jugs, vases, plates, in general containers of all shapes and sizes and a comment like this from my sis was so candid yet it voiced out exactly what was in our minds. we saw bowls with bluish-green glaze, bluish-white glaze with brown spots, with tinge of purple, bowls with flower patterns... it seems a lot of these works came from the sung dynasty. also saw jade and ivory carvings, some of which are really quite incredible. u have to look thru a magnifying glass to see the intricacies. and if u consider that in those tdays tools are not that sophisticated, kudos to them.. my dad was looking for the famous jade carving of a cabbage with a grasshopper and another insect on it. when we found it, there was already a big crowd surrounding the showcase. presumably everyone must be trying to identify the grasshopper and the other insect. by the time we came out from the museum it was already 5 pm. we managed to squeeze onto a bus which goes to taipei main station.
that night the four of us wanted to go and experience the countdown at the Taipei city hall, maybe not to stay all the way till the end but to see and experience the
feeling of new year in Taipei. i've not been to any countdown in singapore so i can't really make a fair comparison, but i have never seen a more scary crowd before in my life. there was a concert gg on at Taipei city hall and as early as 8 something, there was already a crowd building up and pple were sitting in the streets. by the time we came out of Shinkong Mitsukoshi at 10.30 pm, it was already impossible to cross over to the other side cuz apparently they blocked off an area for someone's autograph session (none of us could hear whose autograph session it was, my sisters heard mian4 xian4 (Vermicelli?!)), then we had to detour. when we saw the way the crowd was building up, we decided we'll go back before it gets impossible to squeeze our way out. the feeling i got was >99% of the pple were gg towards city hall and <1% were trying to squeeze out to get to the MRT station. if u belong to the minority, too bad... u have to fight ur way thru and be agressive abt it. in fact we were not even sure if we were gg the correct way. i was praying with all my heart that we were on the right path otherwise i really cannot imagine squeezing back into the crowd. when we finally got to city hall station, they had already closed it cuz there were too many pple coming out, so they did not allow anyone to enter. we had to walk down to the SYS memorial station. even one station away, the crowd was still swarming out and we had to go down to the next exit which was goodness knows where. and there was no order on the streets at all, pedestrians were crossing at will and the traffic police were trying their best to control the traffic, blowing whistles, pushing pple back, but they were severly outnumbered. in fact i heard someone commenting in chinese "the traffic police is gg mad soon" whcih i totally agreed. it took us ~1h to squeeze from city hall to get into the SYS station safely. ximen station was almost deserted when we got off there, probably everyone has swarmed to the Taipei city hall. I've never appreciated an empty station more than now.
i think to go for a countdown like this, be prepared to stay there the whole night. if u intend to go back, better start making ur way home earlier if u dun wanna drown in the crowd.
posted by WeiYun at 8:38 AM
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