Day 5 | a Day of Diversity

Now that Patty was with us we started with the more high-brow activity of visiting the National Palace Museum . It is full of amazing treasures from mainland China that were brought to Taiwan mostly at the time Chiang Kai-Shek and his followers migrated from Mainland China to Taiwan starting in 1949. Later in China during the Cultural  Revolution the Communists  purposely destroyed much of the art and scholarly works in China so it is fortune at that these works of art in Taiwan were saved from  that fate.
The collections is vast. Seeing the sophisticated works of art dating as far back as 600 BCE underscores the fact that civilization in China was far advanced compared to that in the rest of the world at the time .
A signature  piece in the collections is a sculpture of Bok Choy in Jade. You have to see it to realize how special it is.
We had lunch at the museum restaurant , wonderful food again . The specialty
was beef noodle soup. An interesting feature is that  several dishes are based on items in the museum's collection. For example, there was a cute baby Bok Choy served in a soup spoon.

Then we did a 180, Shrimp fishing. This is a Taiwanese  thing that Jason does ever time visits . It 's like Trout Haven in Minnesota but completely different . ;-). For a small fee you get a fishing pole and some liver to cut up for bait. You fish for shrimp in a large rectangular pool. During our hour of fishing , or should I say shrimping , our family only caught 4 . Other people there must of felt sorry for us and gave us some of their catch.  You clean the shrimp, roll them in salt , skewer them and grill  them right on site . We saw groups of coworkers and families fishing . In the background , Taiwanese soap operas are on TV for people not too involved in the fishing. I picture doing this with our grandkids someday although I might have to turn away when Jason and Martha let them eat the shrimp.

We finished our day with a tour of Jasons's uncle's new banquets center and restaurant . It's amazing. Very high tech laser light shows and large banquet spaces for weddings . Then he treated us to yet another 10 course feast . The most special  dish was Peking duck. I have never had this before and I know I will never order it anywhere but Taiwan in the future  since I surely would be disappointed .

We returned to the hotel full , went to bed and slept well.