13 May 2023
The restiest of rest days
Taichung natural science history museum
First as promised, I had to do my washing (laundry). This required google translate, as I had to buy a card, add value, certain cycles added detergent automatically, others you had to add your own, after inserting my card I added value to I had to press a button repeatedly to take money from the card etc. All That is fine, but the surprising thing was, there were 6 dryers, and all were full of dry clothes with the cycle completed, and no one was around. Then someone else came in, took someones clothes out of the dryer and put them into a container and placed a laminated card on top that said something like 'You left your clothes unattended, so now I had to fondle them for you'.
It seems to be an accepted procedure to take someone's clothes out of the dryer. If you tried that in some countries, you would get shot. In the face. Repeatedly.
Washing my clothes took a couple of hours, it was a big load and I like to dry on low, so after that, it was the other rest day favourite activity, museum time.
I may or may not have been to this museum before, it is one of the main attractions of Taichung, of which there are not many, but on this visit, I learnt quite a few new spurious facts.
The general vibe of the coin laundry. It has no doors, so it is truly open 24 hours. I am standing in the street to take this shot.
Someone thought it would be a quick way to clean their dog and or cat, so now there is a sticker on everything telling you to not do that.
Next up, the natural history museum botanic gardens (that is a mouthful). A nice place for a stroll, many locals were strolling here with a Beijing taxi singlet, which is where you fold your shirt up under your armpits so your fat guts gets aired.
Cool trees.
What is this magnificent building with a giant butterfly guarding it?
Well, it is a tropical rain forest conservatory. Do they need that here? Under it, there is a learning centre, but first, I had to judge the orchid competition, as a special foreign guest judge.
The conservatory has a waterfall, a small pond, and instead of gold fish, these awesome prehistoric dinosaur fish. They are big, I think the big one here is probably 5 feet long.
Hmm, crap pic of the waterfall inside the tropical conservatory.
I thought I would be able to climb up this tower and leap off the diving board into the fish filled world below, but alas, no, no public access.
Across the road is the actual natural history museum, $4 entry fee. After entering, this is the very first exhibit. Interesting, turns out it is a period shaming exhibit, like we have in all Australian supermarkets now.
The building is not as grand as I expected, because the museum is huge, but like a lot of things in Taiwan, a lot of it is underground. Here is the forecourt, around the outside are stalactites pulled out of caves. I thought they must be fake, but no, inside they have a video of them removing them from a cave somewhere.
After the history of the shame of menstruation, the next exhibit was, the history of the history museum. I was thinking I wanted my $4 back at this point.
Now for the most controversial exhibit. Taiwan is the cradle of all civilization in the world. This map proves it. Taiwan has the oldest date, everything else followed. The arrow to Australia is the most recent. I expect a new 42 dash line soon.
The history of Chinese scientific discoveries. 99% of the museum focuses on Chinese achievements, and Taiwan definitely presents itself as part of China here. There is one small section on the native Taiwanese culture, but it is mixed in with Hawaii, Papua New Guinea etc. Japan does not get any kind of mention.
Apparently we all evolved from this ancient Taiwanese pig like bacteria, with flippers.
Over 90% of visitors seem to have only bothered going to the animatronic dinosaur part of the museum.
And now another amazing thing. Giant bugs once roamed the earth. Larger than any dinosaur. Elephant for scale. Overall the museum is good for at least 2 hours. Now to try on my clothes and suspect they all shrunk in the wash.