The National Palace Museum

April 14, 2015 by kawaiitraveling 1 Comment

Hello again! :)

So today the weather wasn’t too nice (It was pretty cold and looked like it was going to rain) plus I woke up at 11 am (I don’t know how… Normally I woke up at 8 am everyday…), so I decided to go to a museum. My friend recommended the National Palace Museum so it was a fast choice. ;)

In the museum they have ancient Chinese imperial artefacts and artworks (quoting Wikipedia ;)).

So if you at least a little interested in art: pay the museum a visit!!! I really liked it a lot!

So in order to go there you can go by Metro to Shilin Station and take a bus directly to the Museum (it’s the last Station). First I thought I could walk form Shilin but it is a really long distance, so I wouldn’t do that… Plus I didn’t have a proper map. In the bus you can pay cash or with your EasyCard. (It’s one fare for one ride.)

The museum building itself is quite beautiful. They also be the only pictures of the museum since inside it’s prohibited to take pictures…

So… Where to begin ;)

The entry costs 250 NTD for one person (if you have an international student card it’s only 150). The museum is quite big, so you can spend a lot of time there… I think I spent like 4-5 hours for the Main building 1. And then I was tired and couldn’t look at art any more :P (And it was getting late) So I went back to the city to meet Alex for dinner.

The first floor had the “Garland of Treasures” Exhibit which showed masterpieces of precious crafts in the museum collection. This one was one of my favourite exhibits. It’s astonishing how intricate some of the pieces were and how detailed. Unfortunately, because it was one of the more famous exhibits there were many tourist groups which can be a little noisy/crowded. They had many pieces made out of rhinoceros horn, wood, ivory and jade.

One thing I noticed at the very beginning: in all the exhibit halls it’s quite dark… And I don’t know why? Can someone explain maybe? I always get sleepy when it’s so dark inside… ;)

There were also many temporary exhibits (like the religious sculptural arts, the rare books, I think, so on). As I said, the museum is big.

So I won’t talk about every exhibit, but only the ones I really really liked and the famous ones.

The rare books exhibit for example could be very interesting for some, but since I don’t speak Chinese it’s only semi-interesting for me. ;) Calligraphy on the other hand is also beautiful if you don’t understand the words.

The museum is most famous for it’s jade artefacts. Especially the “smart carvings” with the jadeite cabbage. I really liked seeing it, but it’s a pity, that you had to queue up in order to see it. And don’t linger too long… They will shoo you away… So be prepared ;)

The jade exhibits in general were one of my favourites. The also show you how the usage of jade through the Ages developed (from only being used as tools, to being used for rituals and finally for art). Also explaining what jade is and so on.

Another exhibit where you have to queue is the one with the bell and the cauldron with Chinese Inscriptions. For me this one wasn’t too interesting, since I couldn’t read the inscription either. But I could read about it ;)

What I really liked was that at every start of an exhibit there was a big wall with English (Chinese and Japanese) text about what we were going to see. And they had free pamphlets that you could take with you with the most important information. (Now I have like 20 pamphlets ;P)

The next two important exhibits were Clay and Bronze. To be honest I’m not a big fan of neither, but it’s interesting non the less! So don’t miss it!

What I really REALLY liked was the exhibit of the world of birds and flowers in painting, tapestry and embroidery. When it comes to art I’m more a fan of “2D” stuff (aka paintings), so this was my section. It was very interesting to see the differences between tapestry, embroidery and painting. They always displayed similar motives of all three arts next to each other for comparison.

So all in all: check out the museum if you like art (even if it’s just a bit)!

I always thought I didn’t like Chinese Art, but the visit really changed my perspective! In European museums, if they have a “Asian section” I always think it’s the same old stuff… But the National Palace Museum shows you otherwise!

So after 5h in the Museum I went back to meet Alex and we had Japanese Curry with breaded chicken for dinner. And for desert we had shaved ice with milk tea flavour, sweet tofu and bubble tea from Ice Monster (a very famous shaved ice brand here) :)

Sooo good!

Japanese Curry

sooo good

Thank you for reading!

Have a nice day!

Pia