Taipei Zoo
The National Palace Museum, the pride of Taiwan, ranks as one of the four best museums in the world, in a class
with the Louvre, the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The museum is built in traditional Chinese palace style with white walls and green-tiled roofs.
The museum holds the largest collection of Chinese artifacts in the world, around 700,000 items in all.
Some of the oldest artifacts in the collection are pieces of prehistoric pottery over 5,000 years old.
The vast majority of these art objects are from the private collection of China's emperors.
Because the museum only has space to display around 15,000 pieces at any given time,
the majority of the treasures are kept well protected in air-conditioned vaults buried deep in the mountainside.
The displays are rotated once every three months. In other words, around 60,000 pieces can be viewed in a year
and it would take nearly 12 years to see all collections.
For more information, please check the Web site of NPM by
http://www.npm.gov.tw/en/home.htm
Please refer to
Mr. Chuang's photo albumfor more pictures.
The Yangmingshan National Park is located in the north of Taipei City.
During the Japanese occupation of Taiwan (1895-1945), Yangming Mountain was called Tsaoshan (Grass Mountain)
because it was covered with grass and seldom visited.
After the World War II, the area was renamed as Yang Ming Shan in honor of the Ming Dynasty philosopher Wang Yang-ming (1472-1529).
The Yangmingshan National Park is the only national park in Taiwan that has volcanic geography and hot springs.
It is next to Shamao Mountain and Chihsing Mountain, with Datun Mountain on the right and Kuanyin Mountain in its front.
The magnificent mountainous scenery and comfortable weather have made the Yangmingshan National Park a perfect summer resort.
Mt. Yangming Hot Springs Area is separated into front and rear mountain hot spring areas.
The front mountain hot spring area is open to the public, while the rear mountain area is a restricted area by the Army.
Please refer to
http://www.ymsnp.gov.tw/html/eng/index.asp for more information.
For more pictures, please check
Mr. Chuang's photo album.
Taipei
Fine Arts Museum is the largest modern art
museum in all of Asia. It is also the only
museum in Taiwan devoted to the promotion and
display of modern art. The museum building is
magnificent and unique. It creates an
environment composed of both artistic
architecture and a natural courtyard,
corresponding to the aim and feature of the
building project. The architecture is infused
with elements borrowed from traditional Chinese
architecture, presented through the structure of
piled brackets and the form of suspended
corridors, altogether assembled under the
tube-shape composition. The tube-shape is
identical to the Chinese character which means
fountain; hence the museum's analogue to a live
source of culture. Symmetrical and suspended
gallery spaces spread on each floor to form a
new space for viewing art.
To the museum's left extends Zhong-Shan N. Road, generally titled as "national road",
for it is the indispensable route taken by all the foreign leaders who visit the country.
The museum's location is easily accessible and can be reached by way of metro or bus.
The official Web site of Taipei Fine Arts Museum:
http://www.tfam.museum/Index.aspx.
Please refer to
Mr. Chuang's photo album for more pictures.
Lin An-Tai Historical Home is located on the opposite side of Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
To think of his origin, a great trader, Lin, Hui-kung decided to name his house as "An Tai".
It has been one of the oldest house existed in Taipei City now.
It was built about more than 200 years ago,
which had been a very refined 2-partitioned and 5-annex old house with a square situated in the north facing the south.
Once facing with a destiny of being taken apart, the historical house, after the successful reconstruction,
was opened to the public in the year 2000.
For more pictures, please check
Mr. Chuang's photo album.
Confucius has been honored as "Supreme Sage and Teacher" in Chinese history and culture for the past 2500 years.
The temple for worshipping Confucius served as both a site for ceremonial rituals and educational endeavors.
In Taiwan, the first Confucius Temple was built in Tainan in the year 1665.
From here, Confucianism was gradually disseminated islandwide. Now, more than 300 years old, the beautiful ancient architecture,
which used to play a key role in education and national rites, has been transformed into a venue for cultural activities,
as well as a famous tourist destination.
Talking about the Yi dance for the Confucius ceremonial rituals in Taiwan, it is the musical dance conducted in the Qing Dynasty.
In Taipei, when the Confucius Ritual Ceremonies Commission was established as part of the Chinese Culture Renaissance Movement institutionalized,
advocated by the late President JIANG Kaishek between 1968 and 1970, the musical script of Nanyung Records of the early Ming Dynasty was selected for the ceremony
(later the dancing script of Ban Palace of Rituals and Music of the late Ming Dynasty became the replacement), it is the dancing script of the Ming
Dynasty. Owning to the reduced space, only a 6-fold-formation Yi dance is conducted by students from the Dalong Elementary School.
For VR tour, please check
http://confucius.cca.gov.tw/english/index_en01.htm
Please refer to
Mr. Chuang's photo album for more pictures.
Taipei 101 (also known as the Taipei Financial Center) is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper located in Taipei City and reaches 1,667 ft
(508 m) high. Taipei 101, open to the public on December 31, 2004, is currently the official world's tallest building in
the categories of highest structurally, highest roof, and highest occupied floor. This multiuse steel-and-glass skyscraper echoes a
traditional Chinese pagoda with its soaring podium base, eight tiers of eight stories (a number that is a homophone for prosperous
growth in Chinese), and narrow pinnacle tower and spire. Designing a building this large presented unique challenges
because Taiwan is subject to typhoons and earthquakes. To counter movement, a tuned mass damper system has been incorporated into
the structure. The 800-metric ton (1,764,000 lbs), spherical steel mass is located on level 88 and will be visible from the
restaurant and observation decks. The system transfers the energy from the building to the swinging sphere, providing a stabilizing force.
Please refer to
http://www.taipei-101.com.tw/ for details.
For more pictures, please check
Mr. Chuang's photo album.
Taipei Zoo is considered to be the largest zoo in Asia. It
has a total area of 182 hectares, with both indoor and
outdoor exhibits. Taipei Zoo has endeavored to keep up with
global standards and to provide an educational environment
for wildlife conservation in Taiwan. The zoo is divided into
different sections according to the characteristics of the
animals. For example, in the contact section, people can pat
and hold lovely and harmless animals and poultry. In the
bird section, there are 135 species and 1200 birds. The
African section has some of the largest animals in the zoo.
The Australian section has koalas and kangaroos. The desert
section has different species of desert animals.
For opening hours and ticket information, please refer to
http://english.taipei.gov.tw/zoo/index.jsp.
There are more attractions spanning across nature, history, recreation, culture and gourmet in Taipei.
Please follow the links below for the discovery of Taipei.
http://www.taipeitravel.net/
http://eng.taiwan.net.tw/
