Giuseppe Castiglione

Giuseppe Castiglione, an Italian missionary to China who served as a court artist to 3 emperiors. Well I bring his name up because the picture that I found on line, Ayusi on Horseback, came this weekend. That was when I realised it was painted by this famous artist. And then I realised that the last time I was at the Nat'l Palace Museum in Taipei I had bought another replica piece by him.

This is the work that I bought.

I have been fascinated by the work of the Jesuits in China. It seems they sent the cream of the crop out as missionaries and in China they targeted the intelectual elite, and actually like this man made it into the graces of the Imperial family. The same approach was tried in Japan but was not as successful.

Concert Pics

I just finished uploading concert pics to my Mac page, please take a look.

Nagihana

Last week I finally got the DVD and CD of pictures from the drum concert that we had last Feb. I need to go through and find the best ones and up load them. It may take me some time though.

You may know him as Big Foot

Ran across these comercials and they are too funny. Sure to make you laugh.
Check out "Water Bowl" too.

Shirtless @ Abercombie and Fitch

Word of the Day

Tchotchke, ran across this funky new word. It refers to: trinkets, small toys, knickknacks, baubles, or kitsch. The term has a connotation of worthlessness or disposability, as well as tackiness. What a funky word, but how do you say it? Find out at Websters. I just need to find the right place to throw it into conversation. So lets see, Connie, do you have any tchotchke?

Check out my FunPix!

I thought I would have some fun with Alina's picture and reminder of the word we taught the clerks at the Crocks store.

Alina's Pics

Alina had quite a few good pics, it took her a little while to get them up but here are a few.

Pics from Alina

Line Riders

This little came is pretty amazing. I don't know how they can make such cool maneuvers, I can barely get it to stay on a flat line.

Marching Soldiers

We just happened upon these soldiers practicing for Double 10 day.

Taipei Pics

For the rest of my pictures of Taipei click here.

Ayusi on Horseback

This is the painting that I saw at the Nat'l Museum, they wanted NT $33300 for it. But I just found a smaller version for about $100. Yeah it's mine.

Nat'l Museum

This is the Nat'l Museum of Taiwan. It really is a magnifcant building and facility.

• The museum holds the world's largest collection of Chinese artifacts, around 700,000 items in all. Since the museum only has space to display around 15,000 pieces at any given time, the majority of the treasures are kept well protected in air-conditioned vaults buried deep in the mountainside. The displays are rotated once every three months, which means 60,000 pieces can be viewed in a year and it would take nearly 12 years to see them all. Furthermore, the collection continues to grow through donations and purchases.

This is definately a must see if you are ever in Taiwan. Now the reason that they have so many great artifacts is because when Chang Kai Shek fled with the KNT to Taiwan when the communists took power, they took all the treasures with them. Now I have only been to one major museum in China and it didn't hold a candle to the magnifcance of this great museum.

Weekend in Taipei

On Friday our first full day in Taipei we went to the Nat'l Museum. It was undergone a renovation, but for whatever reason it seemed to not flow as well as before. And there were som ceramic pieces that I had seen before but were not out, so I wasn't that impressed this trip. The museum gift shop was a lot nicer, but the one peice that I saw that I liked was priced somewhere close to $1,000. Obviously I went away empty handed.

On Saturday we went to the Jade market, and it was as fun as always. The unusual thing was that I got away without buying anything for myself. Can't say so much for Alina, she got a very nice "old jade" braclet. You'll have to hear her story about the former owner Ping.

Soldiers

The marching band was behind these two formations of soldiers and it was actually a very nice performance, even if it was only practice. As we left I found a button from one of their uniforms and it soon became Alina's souvenir. Too bad we didn't see the guy that lost the whole soe of his shoe, it would have made a great prize, if they would have let us get away with it.

Military Flags

Friday morning we went to the Chang Kai Shek Memorial. We were dissappointed that the Nat'l Theater, and concert hall were both being worked on. The memorial was being worked on too, I think they were cleaning it in preparation for double ten day. But a pleasant surprise was we were able to watch the military band rifle corps practicing for the big day. We could just walk anywhere we wanted and I thought a couple of people were going to get marched over. It did make for some interesting pictures.

Loose trousers

Don't know which to be afraid of more the loose clothing or clear trousers.

Just one of the many funny signs we encountered in Taipei.