Taipei Day 3

Today we went to the National Palace Museum. The museum itself looked very cool unlike the museums in the states that tend to look like concrete boxes from the outside. The museum has similar ancient cultural items on display as you will find in the Shanghai museum, though I would recommend this one over Shanghai’s. Unfortunately for you, no pictures were allowed. If you were looking for educational or historical pictures please look at our Shanghai Museum entry. Anne (who apparently has already seen everything that I think is cool on previous trips) informed me that the museum has been remodeled since she saw it last.

Right next to the National Palace Museum is a small park that really makes you forget that you are in a city of several million. The best part about the park is that is has a small water fountain that was just too hard to pass up. Anne and I could think of no better way of remembering the experience other than trying to make idiots of ourselves with the scenery. If you are one of our avid reads (thanks!) you will know this is one of our favorite pass time.

The next stop on our agenda is the second tallest building on the planet (the 3rd if you don’t count the spire). It is the Taipei 101. True to its name it has 101 floors and is 509.2 meters tall (that’s roughly 1,527 feet). It was built to withstand typhoons and earthquakes with the help of a 2 story damper that looks like a big gold ball. It is located on the 88th floor along with a large carved coral gallery. The Damper was the inspiration for the Taipei 101’s mascots, the Damper Babies. This building is basically a mall with a food court on the first 5 floors and office buildings on the rest. It also houses the world fastest elevator which has a top ascending speed of 16.83 m (55.22 ft) per second or 37.7 miles per hour. This unfortunate quick change in pressure causes your ears to pop almost every couple seconds on the short ride up. The observatory on the 89th floor offers a great view of Taipei and the surrounding area.

The last stop of the day was the Hua Xi Night Market; better know to the locals as snake alley. It was somewhat similar to the previous night’s market with one major exception. That exception is where the alley got its name. In one alley of the night market you can have the pleasure of drinking snake’s blood and eating its still-beating heat. It sounded a little too much like a scene out of the 2nd Indiana Jones movie – The Temple of Doom. Thankfully Short Round was there to rescue us and Dr. Jones from anything our stomachs might regret. We did walk buy the street shop and listen for a short time to the snake handler who was missing the better part of the fingers on his hands (we are guessing this is the result of working with cobras you whole life). For those of you wondering what snake blood tastes like I am sorry to report that we did not try any of his goods.