Wulai and Grass Mountain (Yangminshan) are located about an hour's drive from Taipei. Peitou is located on the northern outskirts of Taipei. All are known for their hot sulfur springs and spas. Taiwan has one of the highest concentrations (more than 100 hot springs) and greatest variety of thermal springs in the world varying from hot springs to cold springs, mud springs, and seabed hot springs. (35mm slides converted to digital images.)
Eighteen miles north-northeast from Taipei on Taiwan's northern coast is the seaport of Keelung (click here for website). The many bars in the Keelung harbor area catered to American and other sailors enjoying shore leave while their ships were in port. Dawg Flight at Shulinkou was known to occasionally travel to Keelung by taxi from Taipei (30 min.) to take in the nightlife...when there were no ships in port.
High above Keelung City and overlooking Keelung Harbor is the statue of Goddess of Mercy, the landmark of Chung Cheng Park. At a height of 80 feet it is the biggest Goddess statue in Southeast Asia. It Inside the statue is a stairway leading to the top. The first immigrants to Taiwan used to fight with each other for land. In order to stop the disputes, they set up a temple for yearly worship. The temple was in Kao Sha Park during the Japanese occupation and moved to Chung Cheng Park.
The National Palace Museum (click here for website) located in Waishuangshsi in the scenic northern Taipei suburb of Shihlin, 20 minutes from downtown Taipei, Taiwan. The museum ranks as one of the four best museums in the world. The museum displays the world's greatest and rarest collection of traditional Chinese artworks, art crafts and historical documents, around 700,000 items in all. Most of the items were collected by China's ancient emperorss representing the essence of Chinese culture spanning more than 3,000 years.
In 1965 constuction commenced on the National Palace Museum building in Taipei. When completed a year later the Museum was christened the "Chung-shan Museum" in honor of the founding father of the nation, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. It first opened to the public on the centenary of Dr. Sun Yat-sen's birthday, November 12, 1966. Due to the insufficient space to put on display over 655,707 artifacts, the museum underwent renovations in 1967, 1970, and 1996.
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