We arrived in Taipei on New Year’s Eve. Our first stop was the National Palace Museum. The museum is home to over 650,000 ancient Chinese artifacts and artworks, including the famous jade cabbage and meat-shaped stone. My favorite exhibit may have been “Carvings of the Ming and Qing Dynasties” which includes astonishing ivory and stone fruit carvings (you have to see it to believe it).
Taipei’s streets cluttered with scooters:
Mom and Dad took us to this amazing place for lunch. They served Taiwanese home cooking such as zhua bing and dao shao mian. The food was simply phenomenal.
In the afternoon we shopped around Taipei 101. Up until July 2007, Taipei 101 was the tallest building in the world. It has since been surpassed by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. On New Year’s Eve, the building shows off an impressive fireworks display. The building is completely darkened then fireworks are launched starting from the lower levels all the way to the top.
In the evening we shopped at Ximending:
Since the traffic and crowds were getting too crazy, we decided to head back to our hotel and watch the fireworks on TV instead. We rang in the new year with family, sparkling cider, fresh strawberries and cream, and fireworks on TV. Then we went out for $15 foot massages for the rest of the night. Gotta love Taiwan!
