Today we went to this Taiwanese cultural center. Basically it's a giant plaza with a temple, some shops, and various exhibits on traditional Taiwanese art and culture. The first thing we all noticed, however, was how friggin hot it was outside. I'm thinking it was in the mid 30s (upper 80s or 90s for the metrically challenged). I dunno, maybe it was just the humidity that made it seem so terrible. There were these things that sprayed mist everywhere, but they didn't really help that much.
Anyway, the heat pretty much forced us into staying in the various shops and exhibits, where we learned about traditional arts and crafts. First, we walked into the temple, which gave us a little shade, but not much.
From there, we all went our separate ways. I listened to a guy speak about the merits of chopsticks made of certain material that I think was stone but I'm not sure. Apparently metal chopsticks taste kind of weird and can be cold in your mouth, and wooden chopsticks can splinter and kill you painfully. I think I'll stick with the ones I got though.
There was also this exhibit on charcoal carving, where we all sat wondering how and why you even work with charcoal. There was this incredibly cool sculpture of Guan Yu (maybe? I'm not sure) wielding a guandao. (Pictured: awesomeness)
Finally, I think a big attraction there were the puppets and puppet shows that played during the day. There was an exhibit showing off various traditional puppets, including a set showing the main characters from Journey to the West.
After a while, though, I started to get creeped out by all the puppets staring at me with their cold, glassy eyes. It was like looking at extremely grotesque action figures that stared into your soul.
After a few minutes, I really felt the urge to hide from the puppets. I suppose I should show you what some of them look like so OH SWEET JESUS THEY'RE STARING AT ME THROUGH THE COMPUTER MONITOR AS I'M POSTING THE PICTURE.
But other than that the place was pretty cool.
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