MOCA TAIPEI

 Heyy everyone,
     We haven't really been to many museums or exhibits since we've been here and I've been thinking it might be nice to check out some Taiwanese artists while we still get the chance, so today we made a trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei. Admission was 50NT so a little under $2  and they gave us these neat little light boxes as tickets. The first artists' work that we saw was full of pelvis bones and little army men. I didn't really understand the concept though.

The main exhibition was the work by Hsi-Shih-Pin. We were shown fragments of beautiful, masterfully crafted sculptures as we walked through the exhibit. They appeared mechanical and were so detailed. These pieces were meant to be viewed in dim lighting because the reflections casted of the metal created amazing forms on the walls and floor. After walking through a room full of blue prints of these mechanical pieces put together to form a variety of larger pieces we entered a large space where these marvelous creatures took on their ultimate forms.  We were confronted these colossal beasts that looked like horses and across the room was a Griffon and a Unicorn. These creatures were made up of many many pieces with such detail it was difficult to view each part and instead we were forced to focus on the whole but my eyes kept trying to break them down. The title of this exhibit was The Memory Palace and it was the artists goal to challenge the viewer to visualize and interpret the memories brought about by these forms. He wanted people to reflect on them and correlate the small parts to their own memories. It's difficult to try and explain based on what he was saying in a video at the end but it was truly a magnificent sight to behold.

    After The Memory Palace we saw a familiar face that I recognized from the other art museum we had visited. We entered into Chang Chia Ying's solo exhibition called Fairy Tale Reincarnation. Her style is very recognizable to me because it reflects pop surrealist aesthetics which include very large eyes and vivid coloring. Many artists I admire work in this particular style. Ying's work is much less "cutesy" than many others I've seen and instead has a more uncomfortable slightly creepy vibe moslty because they eyes of her characters are very big, but also very creepy. I did not understand the concept whatsoever even after reading the thoughts behind the work. Her aim was to recreate Eastern and Western fairy tales and mix them together somehow. I didn't really get it but maybe I'd need to have a more thorough grasp of the stories behind the work. The coolest part of this exhibit was the presentation. The pieces on the far wall both lead the viewers eyes to a small door blended into back wall. There was a line waiting to get in and once we made it to the front they give us each a fox mask to wear inside the room behind the door. The room was made to look like one of the artist's paintings and you were meant to feel as if you were a part of the work. It was very neat.

This was by far one of the most interesting art exhibitions i've been too and I highly recommend anyone reading to go check out the artists mentioned.

~Savi

No candy tonight(ó﹏ò｡)

    Happy late Halloween everyone! I hope if you weren't able to go out that you at least had a fun night watching scary movies or pigging out on something sweet maybe. It was my hope that we could go to one of the Halloween parties I read about, because Taipei apparently has quite a few big gatherings, but we just didn't plan for it. No costumes and no where really in mind to go, we dressed all in black in spirit of the day, and headed for the Taipei main station area. I had seen Halloween icecream advertisements around but couldn't remember which place was serving it. We wandered all around the mall food court area and finally found it at ColdStone.

                                         

They had a deal where if you bought any of the medium sized ice creams and you made a scary face at the register, then you could get a free one of these "Toothless" desserts. I was of course happy to oblige.Yue got herself a tea ice cream with red beans and pieces of pistachio which turned out to be DELICIOUS. It was way better than the free ice cream mostly because it was so much less sweet. The toothless ice cream tasted like bubble gum with little pieces of raspberry or something, not the greatest flavor, but still fun to try. It was topped with gummy teeth and some Halloween cookies. 

Having had our fill of sweet stuff for the day we went to the underground mall which we have frequented a few times since we've been here. They had some decorations up around the mall and they even had their mascots dressed in costumes. We walked through looking at the figures again and the merchandise, never can get sick of looking at everything.

We later went back to the food court for dinner and had the worst food experience we've had so far (aside from the maid cafe lol).

We tried the Indian food place and were severely disappointed. The presentation looked nice, typical curry dish with a side of large naan (it was unusually large).

Sadly the presentation is all this meal had going for it, the curry was bland and the chicken was still pink! The bread was big, but very tough, almost stale when it should be soft and easily tearable. We were pretty horrified and now we know that at least back home we can get good Indian food.

   After our meal we decided to go to Ximen again in the hopes they maybe had something going on for Halloween. There were plenty of people as is typical for a Friday, but not many people were dressed up. I saw a few groups of kids and parents in costume and small groups of friends scattered amongst the crowd, but Ximen was really no different from usual. There were a few more street performers out doing their thing and there was even a foreigner among them tonight. He sounded like an American to me when he spoke and when questioned by the security guy he held up a badge. I guess they have performing licenses people can get so they don't always have to run whenever the security comes by (like the food vendors have to do). Anyway the night was getting late and I suppose all the cool costumed people were at parties so we called it a night and headed back. We ended the evening by watching the Halloween episode of Modern Family and of course American Horror Story. 

What did you guys do this Halloween?


P.S. Yue also got her first cartilage piercing on our trip to Ximen. We pass the piercing shops often and finally just went in haha. Don't know if i'm up for a new one again yet.

Bloop

Hello, today is just a chill out day so I figured I'd make another post about some more random stuff.
Firstly I wanted to mention a few other cafes/restaurants that we went to that I never talked about. We had heard that there was a small "anime" scene here and we had already been to the underground mall with the anime merchandise, but I was curious if there was any maid cafes like what I saw in Japan. After looking online it definitely seemed like there was, or at least used to be some in the Ximending area so we set off for Ximen. The experience was almost as awkward as the cafes in Japan. The one that we found (and I think the only one around) was on the 5th or 6th floor of this building near where you can see the huge street crossing. The sign was not super visible but it had an anime maid on it so we knew it was the right place. The restaurant looked like it served light snacks as well as meals possibly in the evening. There was no entrance fee but there was a minimum purchase charge of about 100NT which a little less than $4. We ordered the tea and cake combo which came with a pot of tea and a slice of taro cake. We were the only customers in the place aside from one sleeping guy and  mother with her child. Honestly this place was disappointing, much cheaper than a Japanese maid cafe, but probably because it was so shabby and the food was just okay. The maids were cute at least but their uniforms were kinda dirty which I thought was a bit unprofessional. They did draw cute pictures on the plates at least.

     Another food related place we visited that is worth mentioning is the Dayan Cafe, well it's called a cafe but it's really more of a restaurant like many of the "cafes" here. The theme of the cafe is the Japanese Wachifield character Dayan. There's a giant statue of him outside the restaurant and a gift shop selling merchandise on the bottom level of the cafe. The exterior is very cute and resembles something you could see in Europe with it's small court yard and green door. The food was much more pricey at this cafe to our dismay, but the presentation was adorable. As usual We ordered drinks and dessert. My tea was brought out in a lovely tea set with a small side of cream and Yue's coffee had one of the character's faces on it as did our Tiramisu (which tasted perfect by the way). This place was definitely unique and there were tables with reservations on them so I suppose it must be popular as well. 

     Secondly, I wanted to mention the strange parking habits of the Taiwanese. I don't know if there is a law or something or it is just common knowledge to do so, but everyone parks in reverse here. No matter how small the parking spot or whether it be a parking deck or a parking lot, every car is facing forward. I've seen maybe 2 or 3 cars parked the opposite but that's it. It's not like everyone are great drivers here but it would seem they all know how to reverse park. Why this is I couldn't say. 

    Lastly, the employees must not get very long breaks here or something because we keep seeing workers taking naps at work. Unlike at home when we don't have any customers and are forced to try and keep busy, it seems workers here just sit down and get on their phones or they take a nap. We kept noticing people with pillow just sacked out at restaurants and we thought dang they must be tired after they eat but then they got up and put on their uniform and back to work they went! How weird haha! It makes sense I suppose since when people have breaks at home they may go out to their car and nap. Here they can't really do that so the only option is to nap at work. 

                                  Well that's all my blurps for today, 

                                                                                    ~byee

It feels like in the movies..

Hello my peeps,
    Today was another exceptionally hot day but we got the chance to cool off in the sky for a bit. We headed back towards the Zoo area and road on the Maokong Gondolas that start at the Taipei Zoo station and go all the way up to the top of Maokong, which is an area famous for it's tea production.
The gondola station was so cute and decorated with Hello Kitty everywhere including on the gondolas themselves. The HK look was introduced recently to celebrate her 40th anniversary and now she is featured as the mascot.

The ride up was a little under a dollar and it took a very long scenic route over the forests and parts of the zoo. The city was visible over the expanse of trees as well as the mountains in the distance. We road in the Crystal cabin on the way up which has a glass floor so we could see through the bottom. When I looked down, it brought to mind certain movies where they do a long pan over a forest or an ocean like in Jurassic park or something. It would be the perfect romantic spot in the evening because you can see the sun set on the horizon and behind the mountains. For us though, we were put inside with 2 other guys and it was pretty hot and stuffy in there because the lack of airflow. That along with the constant swaying didn't settle too well with my motion sickness.

    We didn't do much at the top, just walked around a little and ate this fried egg thing as a snack. We would've liked to try some of the tea since that is what the area is known for but we didn't get to this time around. The ride back down cost the same as the way up although we took just a regular cabin instead of the see through one. I was a little more nauseous for this trip so I kept my eyes closed for a good part of it, I opened my eyes to watch the sun slowly go down though but we disappeared behind the trees before seeing it fully set.
 

Sometimes it's worth it to do more tourist-like things for a change

Savi

I could go for some coffee right now

 Hello! Today I wanted to talk about some of the cafes we have visited. Of course there's the quick coffee places attached to the 7-Elevens and the typical Starbucks that attracts both international and local peoples, but we have tried to pick some more quirky places with a bit of charm to get our coffee fix. This past week we tried a place called Vino Vino Cafe, that's set in what seems to be a more laid back street with some small boutiques and restaurants. In fact we ate at the Italian restaurant right by this cafe a while back which is what sparked my interest in this place. We  arrived around lunch time and found out that they unfortunately don't serve their "special" coffee until night time but we decided to stay and have a light snack. We had a tuna sandwich and green tea. I was surprised by the tea though because it came in a tall glass and was foamy at the top giving it the appearance of beer! And here I thought everyone in the restaurant just liked to drink afternoon beer out of little twisty straws haha! This cafe was charming to me partly because it reminded me of some of the cafes in Paris. It had an open view facing the street with windows ajar letting in the breeze and soft relaxing music playing overhead. There was also a second floor where customers could sit in a more open area without windows.
toilet Chaplin lol

 
Our whole reason for visiting this cafe in particular though was for their specially made coffee art, so as not to be disappointed we came back again that same evening to get our drinks. It cost a little bit more for the fancy coffee but it doesn't seem like something many places do so it was worth it for the experience.
Caramel cake~

         

The next cafe we visited was kind of a surprise to me. It is called  安和65 or Anhe65 and it is an art gallery/ cat cafe. The entrance was kind of set back away from the main streets and not entirely noticeable at first as any sort of coffee shop. Once we walked in I noticed the first cat asleep on an ice cream trolley. You have to walk down to get into the actual cafe area where it opens up into a basement-like area with concrete floors and various artworks decorating the walls. I was a little bummed at first that there was only one other cat asleep on a chair but the place had a really nice urban artsy feel to it that distracted from the lack of kitties. The art work was fun and colorful and they had some small items by local artists for sale as well. We sat and enjoyed our drinks with some cheesecake adorned with a cat drawing done in some kind of green sugary stuff. 

             

The last cafe we visited actually visited today was Minimal Cafe which is also a cat cafe but this one lived up to it's name and was full of cats. The first thing I noticed aside from the cat drinking from hte fountain on a shelf was the smell, it definitely smelled like cats! I didn't mind at all and neither did any of the other customers. It had a very laid back feeling much like all the sleeping cats we kept spotting. Some in chairs and others lazying about on the counter where we made our orders. I had a French iced coffee and Yue had a weird banana latte thing blegh. The coffee was delicious but kind of pricey at $6, I just hoped the extra money was going to pay for the cat food lol.. the furniture was a bit shabby and covered in cat hair but we didn't have to pay any extra fees to sit with the cats or pet them. They came and went as they pleased, one even found its way onto the coffee mugs and was just laying there on top of them. I sure hope they wash those haha! I honestly didn't mind it at all but I don't think a place like this could ever exist back in the US simply because they have such strict laws about workplace hygiene with food.  We both thoroughly enjoyed our cat time though after being surrounded by dogs everywhere all the time. Definitely a unique place I'm glad we could check out.

<---This cat wasn't haven't it today lol
                                         
                                   

Well that's it for now, I'll add more updates soon!

Bye~