2-28 Peace Park And The National Taiwan Museum

Today I took a break from madly refreshing employment websites while Mel is in training (her training=Facebook, btw) and I decided to head into Taipei to do something a bit touristy. I’d read that the 2-28 Peace Park was nice, so I got off the subway at the NTU Hospital stop which exits directly onto the park grounds.

The 2-28 Peace Park was named to commemorate a tragic massacre which occurred on February 28, 1947 under KMT rule after a long period of Japanese occupation. Basically, there was a protest, the KMT killed a bunch of the protesters, and the violence continued for another 8 days resulting in 28,000 deaths. For 40 years any discussion of this massacre was forbidden. So, yeah… it’s a pretty heavy topic and it’s nice that the park stands today to show a bit of respect to the lives that were lost.

The grounds pretty much resemble that of your typical park: lots of grass and benches where people were eating their lunches. The centerpiece of the park is the above monument.

There were also some impressive traditional Chinese looking structures around a pond.

There was absolutely no peeing permitted in the park (because you need a sign to tell you that?)

After I was done sweating it out at the park I decided I needed some A/C, so after being cornered by a tea saleslady (“I give you very good deal! It give good memory! And you never need sleep”), I headed to the National Taiwan Museum which was just behind the park. The museum was only $20NT (60 cents) but at that point I would have paid a million NT for a place with air conditioning :P

I can’t say that it was a very interesting museum. The exhibits on the first floor were both in English and Mandarin but the rest of the place was basically all Chinese. There were a lot of ancient rocks, dresses and cups on display if that kind of thing tickles your fancy.