On the second day we went to the National Palace Museum in northern Taipei City. Taipei city is surrounded by mountains to this drive to the museum was very cool and our guide Nick told us that many wealth families in Taipei chose this area to live because of the mountainous vibe. The museum itself was very cool and informative. They had a huge collection of jade and porcelain artifacts. The museum was set up so that you started with artifacts from early Taiwanese history and then made your way up to present day which I think is a very clever way to set up a museum like that. This was a very informative tour because the exhibits went into depth about the type of artifacts we were seeing and why they were present in Taiwan at the time. Jade is important to Taiwanese culture because the Chinese believe it has magical powers and they brought that belief over to Taiwan when they immigrated. Taiwanese people believe their ancestors live on as birds so they carve birds out of jade to honor their ancestors everyday. I thought this was cool because it would be nice to be reminded that your ancestors are at peace everytime you see a bird. We then went higher into the mountains to visit Yangming Park which was incredibly beautiful with its waterfalls and flowers.
