Chiang Kai-Shek memorial

The other day, we visited the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial. It's considered one of the top few places to visit as a tourist, and I’m glad I got to see it. 

Chiang Kai-Shek was Taiwan's leader for several decades, and was also the head of the Kuomintang (KMT), one of Taiwan’s two major political parties.  He and a lot of other Nationalists fled from China to Taiwan in 1949 following the victory of the Communists in China’s civil war. 

The memorial itself is part pavilion, part garden, part museum. On the pavilion, there were two large buildings besides the museum (see above--they looked like concert halls) and a gate (see below).

We got there around 5pm, and people were already staking out seats on the pavilion for a dance performance that was happening at 7:30.

The museum/memorial

The white building is a combination memorial/museum. The memorial, which you can get to through the giant door hole, has a large statue of Chiang Kai-Shek. The lower floors are a museum.

Andrew took the stairs.... I took the elevator.

Inside the memorial hall, there's a pretty ceiling with Taiwan's flag in the center.

We got to watch the changing of the guard. The man in white to the right of the statue is one of the two guards stationed there. The other is on an identical pedestal on Chiang's left. The one on the right is the lucky one, because he gets to be in the shade.

I have no idea how I would survive standing still on a pedestal in full army dress in the sunlight for an hour at 30 degrees celsius.

In walk three more guards. Normally, two of them would switch places with the existing guards, but we got there at 5pm so they all just did the changing of the guard ceremony and left.

Here is a minute-long clip of some of the ceremony.

The museum was about 50% tribute to Chiang Kai-Shek and 50% Taiwanese military history.

a map of battles

different paintings of moments in Taiwanese military history

A replication of Chiang Kai-Shek's office, complete with mannequin

it is very realistic. the first time i saw it i got freaked out
thinking they paid someone to sit there and pretend to be him all day

The museum also had some information about Madame Chiang Kai-Shek.

There were many missed opportunities to discuss her alma mater.

There was.... a lot of his stuff displayed. (Clothes, cars, writings, even replications of his wedding invitations.)

how famous do i have to get before there is a museum with
my old soup bowl in it?

Despite what this may imply, Chiang Kai-Shek did not eat plastic food

My favorite part of the memorial, though, was outside.

This was partially due to the beautiful gardens....

...but mostly because we found another koi pond!

(Mak/others, do a control + f for *** if you want to skip past the fish)

turtle and mini turtle

it's dinnertime

you put money into this large fish to get food for
the small fish

cylindrical fish food

***

We stuck around to watch some of the dancing concert and take some more pictures of buildings.

This is the Taiwanese equivalent of the White House

I only have one and a half more days in Taipei, but probably around three blog posts to write. As you may be able to tell, they're a little backlogged. We went back to the cat cafe yesterday, and today we visited the hot springs. I also want to write a bit about the underground metro mall.