After breakfast we all gathered up to hear the instructions for the day. Find a bank to exchange currency, purchase our EasyCards (for bus and subway travel) and find our way to the National Palace Museum.
The currency exchange at the bank took a while but I think everyone now has NTD for the rest of the trip.
When it came time to find our way to the Museum, Hank stepped up as navigator. He guided us through the subway, then a short bus ride to our destination.
The museum had an impressive array of Chinese artifacts, ranging from 4000 year old stone weaponry, to more contemporary (17th century) landscape ink paintings. The image at the top of this post is “Thatched Hut”, Qing Dynasty (1640ish). All of the artifacts (700,000) were moved from Beijing during the Republic of China’s retreat to Taiwan in the 1930’s and ‘40’s. The Communist army prevented them from moving everything, so some pieces still remain in the Palace Museum of Beijing, and today China wants them back. Taiwan now only loans out exhibits to countries that won’t honor any repatriation demands from mainland China. I just thought that was an interesting aspect of the current tensions between the two countries.
We all ate lunch and now we’re off to Taipei 101.
