National Palace Museum

Today was Double 10 day here in Taiwan. It's basically celebrates the Wuchang Uprising (which happened October 10, 1911). The uprising led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, so 10/10 is considered Taiwan's birthday, basically. There are lots of parades, both military and otherwise, and it's generally a patriotic day.

We Fulbrighters celebrated by going to the National Palace Museum in the early afternoon. As we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, you'll just have to take my word that it's a spectacular museum, one which you can spend days in. We saw a ton of artifacts, including a tiny tiny carved ship with working windows, and a piece of stone which looked like a piece of meat. Since we only spent an hour there today, I know a number of us are planning on going back to cover more ground.

After changing into formal wear in the museum bathroom (and gathering more stares than usual as we all came out of the handicap bathroom and proceeded to put on make up in the mirror by the sinks), we were taken over to the Taipei Guest House, as we were invited by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to a 10/10 celebration. Walking up the red carpet, I think it hit us that none of us had ever been in this position before, and possibly will never experience anything like it again (unless we really make the right connections).

Waiting to get in, we were passed by many black town cars. Needless to say, we were curious as to who could be in those cars.Who could it be?

Tons of foreigners were invited to the celebration, including, but not limited to, various US state senators, a bunch of students from a college in Illinois, foreign diplomats, and THE PRESIDENT OF TAIWAN. Although I didn't get a picture of him, it was pretty cool to say that I've seen the president of Taiwan, and he was at a party I attended. He stayed for all of 15 minutes, but still.

Miss Taiwan and Miss Teen Taiwan were in attendance.

Feeling glamorous.


Katie, Jeannie and me with various officials and the grandson of the King of Swaziland.
Jeannie, Meg, Jenny, Katie and me with the Prince of Swaziland.

Needless to say, it was a big bash. Many of us got calligraphy of our names on large sheets of paper (mine says "May luck be with you," in addition to our name), there was a ton of food and entertainment. Including these acrobats who could balance on various objects (the picture doesn't do it justice).

And these girls who spun things with their feet and rode tall tall unicycles. Crazy. What a day.