Weekend in Taiwan

Spent a weekend with my parents a couple weeks ago in Taiwan. A family friend played host for a day and brought us to 淡水 (Light Water...?), a cute little city to the north of Taipei. I've been there years ago... and my only memory of it was food.

The locals showed us something much better.

There's a geological park with some oddly-shaped rocks along the coastline. The following are all naturally-formed rocks.

Odd, eh? These rocks are formed this way because Taiwan is in an earthquake-zone. Above: When the rocks were pushed up and there was water left on the rims. Erosion was faster there and a ball-shped rock on top remained. Below: rocks are pushed up and the erosion happened at the lower part of the rock. This one, in particular, is best well known to be the "Queen's Head".

Also near 淡水 is the 朱铭 Chu Ming museum. He's most famous for the Tai-Chi series of outdoor sculptures. Unfortunately, it was raining that day and the outdoor pictures didn't turn out too well. Definitely a museum that I want to go back on a good day.

Quite remarkable is that Chu actually owns this museum. He bought land to place his own exhibits, so it's quite a remarkable collection of everything he has done. Of course, the best ones have been sold (Bank of China in Hong Kong has two very nice Chu Ming Tai Chi sculptures)... but this is a very comprehensive collection.

Here's a wooden sculpture of a relaxed business man (hard to find a real one these days).

I think of my job when I saw these copper sculptures. It was raining outside too... so it was a nice coincidence.

Oh, and there's food too... for another post!