After snacking through brunch at Yongkang Street, hubby and I thought to go back to the National Palace Museum. It was a rainy day when a typhoon was slamming into Taiwan, so spending the day indoor at a museum was preferable to trekking outside in the wind and rain. Plus when we were there last with A-san, my sister, and my cousin Q. and her friend, we rushed through the whole thing because a bigger group means people get bored faster. Now with just the two of us, we could take our time and see the whole place in leisure.
Turned out the typhoon forced J. to cancel her hiking plans at Maokong, so she ended up tagging along with us also. After checking with the National Palace Museum website and saw no warning for closure, the three of us headed over by train then bus. Holy cow it rained cats and dogs, and the wind was so strong it blew over my umbrella a few times.
Turned out the typhoon forced J. to cancel her hiking plans at Maokong, so she ended up tagging along with us also. After checking with the National Palace Museum website and saw no warning for closure, the three of us headed over by train then bus. Holy cow it rained cats and dogs, and the wind was so strong it blew over my umbrella a few times.
On our way up, we saw people walking out towards us, and not just a few but a huge group. We had just walked past two tour buses after all. They saw us and waved their hands. We were confused, and upon coming closer they said, "The museum is closed for the day."
Hubby and I looked at each other, puzzled. We'd checked the official website for closure announcement before getting on the bus! So ducking under a shade hubby checked the website again, this time combing through every possible page. Guess what--there was a closure announcement, but they'd hidden it under some obscure link instead of making it front and center on the homepage! How stupid and counter-intuitive was that?!?
As a result, we weren't the only ones who arrived at the closed museum during a typhoon. As we left the place and the huge tour group boarded their two buses, two more tour buses and several taxis arrived and started to unload people. Urgh.
So we went back for the day and decided to go to Ximending for some almond shaved ice instead ^.^ The three of us returned the next day, after having checked the same obscure link for any closure announcement of course. It was still raining and J. again couldn't hike as planned.
Take two.
To my surprise, the museum allowed non-flash photography. I don't remember this was the case the last time we were here, but either way I took a ton of pictures and will need to divide them into several different posts.
Close-up for your viewing pleasure.
That's a lot of pictures, I know, and that's not all of them either. There will probably be at least 3 subsequent parts to this series.
See my previous National Palace Museum, Taipei (故宮) post.
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