Taiwan

Nov 9 Friday

After leaving Okinawa we sailed to Keelung, Taiwan. From there a bus took us to Taipei City which was about an hour ride. Taipei City is home to the worlds tallest building.

Taipei Tower (not a good picture, it was very misty that day)

Our first stop in Taipei City was "Chiang Kai Chek Memorial Hall" For those who don't know, China does not recognize the country Taiwan. They claim that Taiwan is part of Chinese Territory and only recognize it as "Chinese Taipei" Most of the population (80%) don't consider themselves Chinese. The other 20% would like to be claimed as Chinese. Chiang Kai Chek was President of Taiwan in the middle 70's who wanted bring Taiwan closer to China. This was a very turblent time for the country because many protested against this policy.

Portriat of Chiang Kai Chek
Photo of Riot Police ready to combat protesters (Just like in '68 at the DNC in Chicago)

From there we visited "The National Palace Museum" which is recognized worldwide as the museum which houses the world's largest collection of Chinese art treasures which span China's 5000 year history.

5000 give or take a couple of thousand.

We weren't suppose to be taking pictures and I took the above three before the guard politely reminded me.

Above three pictures are the museum grounds

Some adorable faces (These teenagers were on a school field trip)

The museum contains many beautifully crafted Chinese artifacts such as the Jadite Cabbage ( piece of jade carved to look like a cabbage).

Jadiete Cabbage( This is a picture from a book I bought at the museum since we could not take pictures).

Many items are carved from ivory, which is why elephants became non existent in China. One ivory artifact consists of 17 concentric spheres (within each other) each one smaller than the next, that took three generations of one family to do. Another item was basket or box carved of ivory but to the naked eye it looks like its made of satin or silk fabric.

A few years ago there was an exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago that featured many items similar to these. They were from the Forbbiden City in China. Chiang Kai Chek brought about 1/4 of the items with help from others during the Chinese Revolution where they reside in Taiwan today. Maybe thats why the Chinese claim Tawian is part of China. Our tour guide says that China has many nuclear missles aimed at Taiwan. Taiwan also want to join the United Nations with a vote coming up in the near future.

After leaving the museum our last stop was at "The Martyr's Shrine" which is dedicated to the war heroes of the Revolution of the Republic of China and the War of Resistance against Japan.

Every hour during the day there is a changing of the guard which we watch similar to the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace in England.

Our ship left Keelung and headed for Hong Kong, another of China's once disputed territories. 5 people failed to make it back to boat before 9:30 PM and it sailed without them. They had to hire a pilot boat to bring them out which was probably very expensive.