Today was a cool day where we visited two major museums in Taichung. First, we visited the Natural Science Museum. There were all the usual exhibits about assorted biomes and animal life, geology, and realistically, multple awesome things. What really attracted my attention was the China themed exhibits. There was a big one on Chinese scientific advancements through the ages, as opposed to the Western centric history that I am accustomed to seeing. Apparently gunpowder was discovered first by Chinese alchemists who were trying to develop immortality elixers for their Emperor. At least they were immortalized in history.
My favorite part of the natural history museum was an exhibit called “The Deep”. It was a montage of images and information about assorted deep sea creatures. This included preserved bodies of several deep sea critters, including an anglerfish, and even a juvinile Giant Squid! My favorites were probably the siphonophores, which assembled into towers that resembled taipei 101, aaaaaand the medusa jellyfish, which is nearly invisible to all unaided earthly forms of vision.
Botanical gardens were also nifty. It had a giant two story butterfly statue out front and an amazon river themed garden inside. Though a greenhouse in taiwan was doubly tropical for me. There were amazon river fish inside that were as big as any that I would see at an aquarium or zoo. The biggest one made an audible *whoomph* sound as it suched in fish during feeding time. The sound greatly resembled a speaker blowout, and had the whole audience in hysterics.
Art museum was also super fun, but sadly the time was cut short because we got there about an hour before closing. Too much fun at the other museum I guess. A robot greeted us as we got in, and we got some pictures with it. I eventually figured out that it was mostly a puppet, controlled by an attendent about 20 ffeet away. The robot even knew some English phrases, such as “Yaaaaaaay. Rock and Roll!”. Barry and I got to play a mind game where we tried to move a ball with electericall sensers that detected brain waves. Barry wone that game.
My flight heads home today. I’ll miss taiwan, but I will be glad to be back home as well.
September 28th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Hey Ben, I have an idea for you.
You know how you said you wanted a picture from Fullmetal Alchemist as your banner, something to do with the Star Trek quote you have up there, “It’s life Jim, but not as we know it?”
I think you mentioned a picture of Ed in anguish or something, but how about a screen shot from the credits when snowflakes are falling on his hands, and in his metal hand they stay frozen and in his flesh hand they melt?
I remember it clearly, should be easy to find because it’s in the credits. XD