Our first stop was the Museum, with over 700,000 pieces of most valuable and exquisite artifacts from China's palace's collection brought over by Chiang, as well as enormous amount of gold and other jewelry in 1949 when he had to flee the mainland and settle on Taiwan island.
The architecture, compared to the palace complex is honestly not impressive at all. When it was laid out, the designer shouldn't have planned for such large number of visitors from other side of the straits. Most local guides would lead groups directly through crowds to three must-sees: a jade cabbage, a meat-like stone and a bronze tripod before some little time for shopping at a gift shop or taking some photograph outside.
I didn't join my group this time but instead, I avoided by staying on the first floor with lesser popular galleries. I like the ancient painting and calligraphy as well as the furniture, where some Japanese groups were around.( I felt a little guilty though for them, because of the noise we created but also unbearable queue time to those must-sees.)
We were privileged to have lunch inside the museum, just steps away from the main building. And we left for the Memorial to Sun Yat-sen, which is located in the center of the city. Many complained about too much time left to them there and also, about the 'commie villains' remarks of our party addressed by the exhibition.
Right out of the memorial we had great view of the 101 tower, one of the tallest in the world. And a recent accident of three mainland visitors' killing by a construction crane around the site didn't prevent us from going there. Around the tower, Xinyi commercial district has lots of the hippest shopping mall, pubs, cafes and book stores. At page one, inside the tower, I got some books for myself, 'war trash', 'wolf totem', 'the kite runner'.
We then were arranged to a bakery store ' Weige' for some cakes souvenirs before we went to a Shanghai style restaurant for a early dinner. After we returned to our hotel, I went out to take a metro and explore a little bit more about here.
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