The National Palace Museum

I didn't sleep well the night after the earthquake. I decided to have a laid-back day and called a taxi to drive me to the National Palace Museum.

Established inside the Forbidden City in Beijing in 1925 after the eviction of Puyi, the last Emperor of China, the museum housed an impressive collection of artifacts mainly from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) Dynasties.

Some of the treasures and artifacts were taken to Taiwan by the government of the Republic of China after their defeat in the Civil War (an act, which you can imagine, remains politically sensitive in China to this day). A new museum, the Taipei National Palace Museum (not actually built in a palace, but rather in a beautiful building resembling one) was built in 1965 in the green hills of Shilin, just north of downtown where the remnants of empire now reside in careful exile.

Approximately 20% of the museum's collections - although carefully selected to be some of the finest pieces - made their way to Taipei under the watchful eye of Chiang Kai Shek, who's statue sits at the entrance to the museum.

I wandered through the permanent and rotating exhibits. The museum is huge, and there are halls dedicated to statues, porcelain, carvings, and even scrolls and books. These are some of the most important treasures in Chinese history, and it's pretty amazing that Taiwan was able to keep ahold of them.

One especially impressive room was dedicated to displaying Qing-era furniture, replicating an entire office from the late Qing era (19th and early 20th centuries).

Unfortunately, the artifact that I had most wanted to see, the legendary ròuxíngshí, or "Meat Shaped Stone", was not on display.

The Meat Shaped Stone is a legendary piece of brown jasper carved into the shape of a piece of Dongpo pork belly. It is one of the Three Treasures of the National Palace Museum alongside the Jadeite Cabbage (which is exactly what it sounds like) and the Mao Gong Ding (a sort of tripod vessel of some importance that I do not fully understand).

The stone is immensely popular and was voted on by the public as the most important item in the entire collection. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's just kind of silly, and proof that people even hundreds of years ago, had a sense of humor and enjoyed finding cool rocks that look funny.

I exited the museum and climbed down the steps to its surrounding gardens.

The Zhishan Garden is a small garden, covering nearly 2 hectares and designed to evoke the traditional Song and Ming styles. It features a winding path, a small pond, and a traditional curved bridge and is planted with various fragrant flowers and trees. In the springtime, it's supposed to smell amazing, but since it was winter, not much was in bloom.

I enjoyed a nice walk around the pond before calling another taxi to take me on the 20-mintue ride back into Taipei.

That evening, I decided to set out on a food adventure to try one of Taipei's Michelin-recommended restaurants. Halal Chinese Beef Noodles Da'an is small and very popular and can get extremely busy.

I arrived just a bit after they opened their doors for the evening and was lucky to get a seat at a shared table before they got too crowded.

The main course was rich and filling - a meaty broth loaded with huge, tender chunks of beef, green onion, and chewy wheat noodles. The restaurant uses only Halal-certified Taiwanese short ribs, shank and neck, and has been serving delicious noodles in Taipei for more than 60 years.

The noodles were served with a sort of flatbread made from noodle dough rolled out flat and fried on a griddle. I'm not entirely sure what to call it, but it tasted kind of like a roti or flaky naan. It was really good! I don't know if I was supposed to dip it in the soup, but I did, and thought it went really well with it.

I arrived around 6:00pm and had to wait for about fifteen minutes. By the time I left, the queue was stretched down the street. I was really glad I had gotten there early.