Interesting culture and places in Taipei, Taiwan; as featured in the 4th and 5th episode of The Amazing Race Asia (TARA) season 3.
Ximending, Taipei
Ximending is one of the most bustling areas in Taipei with a mixture of new and old culture.
You can find the latest trends and hype in Ximending… fashion, books, entertainment, cosplay, games etc; and on contrary also home to some of the oldest shops and restaurants in Taipei.
Ximending is also a popular place for celebrities to hold fans meeting or small concerts.
Ximending in a relatively quiet night (Image by
Kok)
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Bahnar Rong (Ba Na Rông) are communal houses of the Bahnar tribe from Central Highlands (Tây Nguyên) region in Vietnam.
The distinctive features of traditional Bahnar Rong are its tall and steep roof, and also its lifted platform which are built to adapt to the (often rainy) tropical weather. The houses are traditionally used for cultural, religion and gathering purposes for men.
These traditional Bahnar Rong are almost obsolete nowadays, as the people are replacing their communal houses with iron and cement instead.
Photos below were taken at Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi where the Bahnar Rong, along with other traditional houses of various ethnic minorities, were built as an effort to preserve the fading Vietnamese traditions and heritage.
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The Museum of Ethonology in Hanoi is a great place to have a glance at the traditional culture of Vietnam’s 54 ethnic groups. The museum is located the Cầu Giấy District, about 8km from city centre… took a bit of travelling time but worth a visit.
Sharing some photos below, taken inside the museum building…
Chinese stuff in Vietnamese culture
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Went to the National Rice Museum (Muzium Padi Nasional) in Kedah, Malaysia, in March 2008. The museum is near the city of Alor Setar, and is famous for its huge 360-degree ceiling painting on one of the interior domes.
The painting is a nice piece of art work, featuring the bird-eye-view of the surrounding environment around the museum, as well as the growing cycle of the rice crops from ploughing to harvesting and celebrations etc…
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One of the most iconic Hanoi features… bicycle loaded with variety of baskets and fish-traps. Images of these fully-loaded bikes have graced the cover of various Vietnam travel guide books and magazines for decades.
The photo above was taken at the Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi. You know you won’t have a good chance to see this in real life when you can find this in a museum lol.
Would be cool if I could just catch this once in real action… will have to wait until I visit Vietnam again, perhaps years later. Chances are getting even slimmer in future though, as the feat will gradually fade away altogether.
Visited a jade museum in Hualian, Taiwan, on May 1. Museum is an overstatement actually, it’s basically a big shop (really big) selling jades and other precious stones of different sizes and prices. A pretty interesting visit regardless…
Variety of jade vases and containers
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Thought to be the first McDonald’s store when I posted the original article… but turned out that it’s a museum which was modelled after the first McDonald’s Restaurant opened by McDonald’s Corporation founder, Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois in 1955.
The McDonald museum in Des Plaines (Image by
Sgt Fun)
The first McDonald’s was actually opened by Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California in 1948… the Des Plaines restaurant was the ninth outlet but is often regarded to be the beginning of the modern McDonald’s franchise that exist today [more McDonald's history on Wiki]
