Today we visited Taipei National University of the Arts and were guided by a current student, Daniel, and a past student, David. At last, it has begun to rain more consistently. I didn’t think to check the weather and bring my new umbrella, but luckily there are many ways to procure one. There is a rack at some MRT stations with old, lost umbrellas that you can borrow and return, and there are also rentable umbrellas that ultimately cost about NTD$20 a day.

We were shown around the campus as well as a few of the students’ art exhbits. The first exhibit had student guides whom we asked questions about the different pieces being shown. I’ve included a couple pictures of two of my favorite pieces below. The first reminded me of the last of us, as it utilized foam and clay to make what appeared to be fungal covered arms. The second I included is one of several mythical creatures the artist portrayed with vivid colors and dynamic poses. Many of the pieces were paintings or drawings, such as a story told through many art sketches and even an animated video that one of the guides present had created. There were many paintings with a specifically neutral palette of colors in the next gallery, which had two large scale banners hanging from the ceiling (see picture three below). I enjoyed analyzing the various mediums of art displayed and getting to ask one of the artists about her work directly.

We also toured around the campus in general, including the various academic buildings and an athletic building on the crest of a hill (you can see the view in the central photo below). The whole campus is very scenic and honestly has the essence of an art school. It’s hard to describe, but perhaps the rainy weather contributed. One of the interesting facts about the school is that it was built over an old graveyard; I’m sure what became of the graves. To prevent buried souls from troubling the living, they built the lion in the picture on the right to symbolize the containment of the dead. If you look closely, you can make out the skull under its left paw.

Instead of going to the Chiang Kai-Shek per the itnerary, as we had already gone once before, we went to the Jianguo Jade Market. I went in with the expectation that I’d buy something fake but affordable, and I still managed to get swindled or at least attempted at a couple of times. At one point, Malli and I were looking at bangles and I was trying to discreetly test their sound by clinking them with my tungsten carbide ring (not sure if that was even an effective thing to do). One minute later we blinked and suddenly we were both sat down, they had gotten us water cups, and two people were trying to push a small jadeite bangle over Malli’s lotioned up hand. I tried to stay out of the haggling, as even the discounted price was more than either of us had brought in cash, by looking through the rings for a gift for my sister. Both of us were trying and failing to get the price down when Mikey finally came in with a wake up call and got us to leave before we bought hundreds of dollars worth of what was probably fake jade in retrospect. I still wanted to get a gift for my sister, however, so I hunted down a wholesale seller whose simple jewelery fit my sister’s style. The price was not too unreasonable by US prices but I still tried to get it down to the same price I typically pay for my own jewlery. You can see that I looked distressed throughout the process:

I managed to get the price down by NTD$100, so I consider that a minor win.

After settling our affairs, Malli, Mikey, and I finally got to visit the Raohe Night Market at the end of the green line. It was certainly larger than the Ningxia market we had visited a couple nights prior, yet we still circled once before starting to buy our dinner. We got some famous items, such as the black pepper buns, as well as tried new things, such as boneless chicken feet. It was good that we went out of our comfort zone but I will say that none of us were fans of the texture nor the temperature (tasted like soy sauce or something, so that wasn’t too bad). I also got to play one of my favorite rhythm games, Taiko no Tatsujin. Half the instructions were written in Traditional Chinese and the other half was written in Japanese, so not even Mikey could really help me to work it. It was very much worth the NTD$30 I spent on it 😉 .

I finished up the night with a trip to the Genki Spa with Malli and a trip out one of the students from the university. Genki Spa is a Japanese style spa and massage parlor, and it was very affordable for the services they provide. I got a 60-minute fully body massage for only US$33. I’ve been having shoulder problems for a while now and the masseuse spotted them all immediately and really went to town on all the knots I had. After, about half of us went up to the area around Yuanshan. I ended up meeting many more new people as well as reuniting with some others, such as the guy I met at the café the other day. Funny how interconnected we are within the city! Here’s to making more new connections at our next visit.