Category: Taiwan

朱銘美術館 (Juming Museum)

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On September 26, 2009

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朱銘美術館 (Juming Museum)
20842 No. 2 She-Shi-Hu Chin-Shan Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.
886 (2) 24989940

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For 250NT, we’ll be able to see this 15-hectare place built to show the works of æœ±éŠ˜ (Juming), an international sculptor.

朱銘 (Juming) was trained as a woodcarver but later developed his skill and ventured into bronze, styrofoam, ceramics & stainless steel.  All we can see in æœ±éŠ˜ç¾Žè¡“館 (Juming Museum).

The museum opened July 2004 together with the Taiwan Astronomical museum wherein people stayed at the Taichi square to gaze at the stars.  Apparently, Juming’s Taichi series is the most popular from all his works.

Let me show you what we saw in the museum.  I’ll divide it via collection/series:

  • 十年曲藏 (10 Years Collection) – Various Artists
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There is one piece that I find interesting.  They have to put electric fan in front of it for us to see the full effect.  Here’s a video:

  • Taichi Series – æœ±éŠ˜ (Juming) is well-known for this.  It was his mentor Mr. Yang who influenced him to start learning Taichi.  His learnings can be seen through his works as shown below.  I enjoyed looking at the different pieces, they even have Tai Chi shirts & other stuff at the museum souvenir shop.
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  • Living World Series – While æœ±éŠ˜ (Juming) studied in New York, he developed Living World Series which was put to display in New York.  He was able to sold 2 pieces w/c is uncommon for new artists.  He also was able to experiment more while working on this series like using sponges & ropes into his pieces.
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Among all the areas, my favorite is the science area.  You’ll see familiar names like the ff.:

  • Michael Faraday – philosopher contributed to electromagnetism & electrochemistry.
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  • Thomas Edison & 李遠哲 (Dr. Yuan Tseh Lee) – Thomas Edison is inventor of the light bulb & motion picture camera while Dr. æŽé å“² (Dr. Yuan Tseh Lee) is a chemist who won the noble prize for chemistry last 1986.
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  • Benjamin Franklin – 1 of the founding fathers of the United States of America.
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  • 蔡倫 (Cai Lun) – inventor of paper and paper making process.
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  • Sir Isaac Newton – one of the most influential men in history.
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More pictures can be found here.

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金包理老街 (Jin Bao Lane Street)

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On September 26, 2009

金包理老街 (Jin Bao Lane Street) is one of the famous spot in 金山 (Jinshan).

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It’s the oldest street in Town.

My impression of the place is that there are just tooo many people, it’s a busy, busy, busy street.  You’d see a lot of goose there as it is Taiwan’s specialty and you’d see people piling up/lining up just to be able to eat it.  It’s like full of people who hasn’t eaten in their lifetime (ofcourse that’s not the case, it’s the appeal of the place).

It felt like a circus, too many people lining up for food (Street food!).  If you’re used to fine dining, you’ll not dare eat here.  Since my aunt and her friend are both from the states, they asked if we could just eat at a restaurant or place with better ambiance and not on the street.  So we ended up eating at a dining place (also at Jin Bao Lane Street, I’ll blog about it on my next post) coz they didn’t want to go through the chaos.

As for me, I’m quite adventurous, I wouldn’t mind trying that out.  Maybe next time?  🙂

More pictures here.

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陽明山國家公園 (Yangmingshan National Park)

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On September 25, 2009

陽明山國家公園 Yangmingshan National Park
1-20 Chu Tzu Hu Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan
886 (2) 2861-5404

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My mom rented a van that day in order for us to go to Yangmingshan National Park & Jinshan.  We went first to Yangmingshan National Park, 1st impression?  The place is huge!!

We stopped over first at the 小油坑 (Siaoyukeng).  Located at northwestern part of the park, this has the largest sulphur steam vents.

The sulphur vents spew gases and the odor is pungent, very pungent!  Here is a preview of what you can see in the place.



The scenery is really lovely.  And we climbed up to the top where the highway is located, about 800 meters long.  Whew!  We were already very tired after that.  In the picture below, that is a preview of the stairs that we climbed in order to reach the top.

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If you’re planning to go to Yangmingshan National Park, be ready for a hike! 🙂

When we reached the top, it already started raining.  We still went ahead and toured the rest of the tourist spots at the park.  We were already there so might as well continue even if we’d be soaking wet w/c was what happened hehehe 😛

Next stop is the National Park itself.  Since it was September, flower festival has already ended (the event runs from November to April).  Still the park is a beautiful sight.

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To share the history, Yangmingshan was called Grass Mountain during Japanese occupation of Taiwan, since it was covered in grass and seldom visited by the people.  After world war II, 國民黨 (Kuo Min Tang) renamed it to Yangmingshan and created the park.

We walked around and spotted waterfalls, flowers & 辛亥光復樓 (Xinhai Guangfu building).  The building, located at the center of the park, is one of the popular spots in the park where people hang around.  It has a coffee shop & gift shop on the 1st floor & art exhibit on the 2nd floor & coffee shop at the 3rd floor.

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We also found fish ponds surrounding the building.  I took a video of the fish pond and also took a video of the duck that we saw, soooooo cute!!

Other sights to see in the park are the ff.:

  • 陽明山花鐘 (Flower Clock) – large clock that is made of 15,000 flower pots!  Something that we should take a picture of.  Surrounded by Taiwan flowering cherrie, Japanese flowering cherrie, camellia, etc.
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  • Statue of Late President 蔣中正 (Chiang Kai Shek) – Yangmingshan is a summer residence of the late president.  It was he who renamed the place to Yangmingshan in honor of çŽ‹é˜³æ˜Ž Wang Yang Ming.

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  • Statue of 王阳明 (Wang Yang Ming) – is a Ming Dynasty famous chinese scholar & military official of the 17th century

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More pictures from the park here.

P.S. This is where my aunt lost her 1,000USD watch (she removed it and put it in her pocket coz it was raining hard but it fell accidentally) and where I damaged my phone due to heavy rains. We were soaking wet when we went back to the van. Still had a great time, we just didn’t anticipate the heavy rains.

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Roch’s Taiwan Trip Photo Album

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On September 22, 2009

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I’m truly sorry that I wasn’t able to blog while I was on vacation (September 12-21).

I toured Taipei, Taiwan and had a blast.  Went to soooooo many places, took lots of pictures (more than 1k!!!).  Had so much fun with my mom & aunt.  Met up with colleagues during the end of the trip.

Went to temples, museums, amusement park, hot springs, famous parks & memorial halls.  One thing that I really noticed about Taiwan is that people are sooo disciplined & nice.

You’ll definitely see a series of posts about my Taiwan trip.  It’ll take some time to complete all of it so let me give you some idea what’s in store.

Here are the photos that I took while vacationing, enjoy!

 Please stay tuned for the write-ups 😉

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