Monday, 12 March

First morning in Taipei! :). Today I had a city tour. We gathered at 8 am in the lobby. We visited National Palace Museum in the morning and Yang Ming Shan National Park in the arvo.

There were 16 of us in the bus: Dr. Mayuree (Associate Dean for Medical Education) and her assistant from Prince of Songkla University (PSU), Thailand; Nina, Kim, and Dear, medical students from PSU; Kat, Nicky, and Don from University of the Philippines; Byongsung from Juntendo University, Japan; Milena from University of Belgrade, Serbia; Karen, Alicia, Helen, Zoe, and Julia, the staff from APMSS; and me!

Remember when I said Taipei city was like Jakarta? Actually, now that I explored it more, the city reminded me more of Tokyo than Jakarta J. The architecture of the buildings, the way the road was laid out, the atmosphere, plus the Chinese characters (which I couldn’t read, just like Japanese characters :p) reminded me of the places I visited in Tokyo with tata-chan & Mas Zal.

National Palace Museum held imperial collection from the Sung, Yuan, Ming and Ching Dynasites in China. The items ranged from painting, calligraphy, handicraft, books, etc. It was such a great and historical museum. Apparently the same museum exists in China mainland but they don’t have the collection, since most of them have been brought to Taiwan. A guide from the museum gave us a tour and explained the collection. She taught us about the history of ceramic bowls, how to ‘read’ a painting: from the bottom right upwards to embark the journey which has been set by the artist, about how the rare books were written and preserved for thousands years, etc.

My favourites were ivory handcraft and a long painting. The ivory handcraft was very small and meticulous. I could imagine that the artist’s fingers must be bigger than the craft itself. It showed the great technique and patience that the artist had. Some of the ivory crafts were in the form of gift box with a present inside. There was a philosophy behind this. The late Chinese believed that you shouldn’t give an empty box as a gift. Therefore, after the artist crafted a gift box, he/she would also make another craft, eg fruit, crab, etc as a gift and put it inside the box.

The long painting was from Ching Dynasty, if I'm not mistaken. It was a long and colourful painting depicting activities that the people were doing, like fishing, wedding, traditional performance, etc. The artist drew the people in a small size. If you read the painting from one end to another, you would read the scenes in the villages, main city, and the palace.

From National Palace Museum, we then made our way to Yangmingshan National Park. It was located further up in Northern Taipei. By the time we got there, we were all hungry. So, we ate in one popular restaurant there. The name of the resto meant ‘victory’. We all had a nice lunch. Alhamdulillah they prepared vegetarian food and after further clarification, they didn’t cook it in animal fat! :). Alhamdulillah…

The national park was sooooo…. beautiful, masya Allah! It was spring time, so I got to see cherry blossom :). They also had a flower clock.

Then, we tried the local food: steamed peanuts and sweet potatoes! This reminded me of my home town :). Although the sweet potatoes here were even nicer! It was very dark purple, sweeter, and had a stronger fragrance compared to any other sweet potatoes I had ever had.

Feeling exhausted, we made our way home. It was quite a long journey. It took about one and a half hour to get back to the hotel. Alhamdulillah I could still catch prayer time. I also had time to get myself ready for the welcome party for APMSS!

At 7 pm, the welcome party was started. There were food, welcome speech, music, and magic show. Everyone used this opportunity to get to know each other. The committee who was in charge of the food approached me and showed vegetarian and seafood plates. They even warned me about the drink which contained alcohol.

Alhamdulillah, I was so grateful that they took my dietary requirement seriously. I offered them a list of halal restaurants that I had collected prior to my departure as a referral if it need be.