Taiwan - Day 6 (Palace Museum and Night Market)

Outside of the National Palace Museum

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

A second day in a row of good sleep put me in a good mood to start my day.  But I was in an even better mood after our deep fried egg-pancake breakfast from a street vendor right next door to the apartment.  At only around 1 U.S. dollar, it was both a bargain and one of my favorite meals of the trip.  I haven't been able to find an actual English name for it, so trying to re-create it in my own kitchen might be difficult.

It was a lazy early morning at the apartment followed by some quick errands around town.  Unfortunately the weather had gotten worse, as this was the coldest day of the trip, and there was heavy rain throughout the day.  At noon Steph and I met up with three of her former co-workers from UBS at "Very Thai Restaurant" near their office.  A friendly, fun group and they also spoke decent English, which is always a plus.

After lunch we headed over to the National Palace Museum.  Taiwan's national museum featured a collection of over 600,000 pieces of ancient art and artifacts, most of which had been collected by former Chinese emperors.  The most famous pieces of art, oddly enough, were two jade carvings in the shape of a piece of pork and a Chinese cabbage.  It attracted quite the crowd.  There were also a giant, detailed mural drawing of an old palace town that was particularly interesting, as well as many old pots and pans, some of which looked like they could have come from Ikea.

Outside the Shilin Night Market in Taipei

Steph had a dentist appointment at 5 pm, so I went home and took a nap.  We met up later in the evening to go to one of the well known Taiwanese night markets.  These are a collection of booths and vendors that serve prepared foods and sell merchandise. They usually open up at 4 pm, reaching their peak crowds from 8-11, and then close up sometime after midnight.  It basically looks a lot like a carnival, but with much better food and with much better prices.  We helped ourselves to some sausage, delicious fried chicken steak, an oyster omelet, some soupy product, and some bubble tea.  As is the case with a lot of Taiwanese food vendors, the deliciousness-to-cost ratio was off the charts, with the fried chicken and soda combo costing about $1.25.  We walked around some of the vendors, and then called it a night.