They arranged to meet up at Zhishan MRT station and after a few false starts because of multiple entrances, they were on their way. Cass was in charge of the directions and was slightly trepidatious about the whole deal, but she steered the group through a few different stops and changes and they ended up in perfect time at Papa Gio’s down at Dunhua. They lingered over their choices and shared a bottle of rose along with various salads and pastas and fish. It all sounded very classy, but I think I would have been choosing wildly different dishes from the menu!
After a long lunch, they made their way to Cassy’s secret bag shop that they had all been keen to visit since Cassy’s description of an “Aladdin’s Cave” of beautifully crafted, genuine leather bags, all bearing an uncanny resemblance to stratospherically priced bags of noted designers in the swanky malls virtually shadowing this little shop. Tucked in behind the giant SOGO store at Zhongshan MRT, the shop did not disappoint its enthusiastic crowd. I was amazed how long they could spend down there: hours! All the girls ordered or bought at least one bag, some of them bought two. From reports, the whole day was a wild success and they plan to meet up for lunch again soon, perhaps trying a different after lunch activity like the jade market. I’m actually loving this: it saves me another trip to this area that can hold my interest for about 10 minutes, yet I think Cass would be happy there for about 10 hours!!
Today, the sun streamed in and woke us from a slumber earlyish and we thought it would be a perfect day to get down to Yuanshan Park and the Taipei Fine Arts museum. On our previous trips to Paris, we’ve never missed an opportunity to visit the amazing Musee Marmottan, nestled in a nondescript Parisian suburb. The house holds a priceless treasure trove of the most exquisite Monet paintings and its bottom circular room definitely IS a place I could spend 10 hours. Well, suffice to say that if you visited the Marmottan anytime between now and the beginning of June, you’d be bitterly disappointed: there are 32 of the most magnificent Monet paintings in the world hanging on the walls of Taipei FAM, just three train stops from our front door!! We wandered through Yuanshan Park with thousands of Taipei’s citizens as they marveled over the Taipei International Floral Exhibition in the spring sunshine. Eventually we were directed to a shuttle bus, as the art museum is actually within the floral festivals grounds, and you need to be ushered into the grounds in a group. In we went and after paying the ridiculously small fee (less that $10), we wandered into a Monet wonderland. They had certainly raided the very best of the paintings too: giant waterlillies studies, the bridge at Giverny in all different lights, agapanthus and iris, the Seine in dappled light and a beautiful piece we had never seen borrowed from the Scottish national Gallery and yet another from a private collection. The bulk however, was from the Marmottan and it was both surreal and unreal to view them again in our own backyard. I’d say a return visit or two is definitely on the cards.
Blissing out from both the sunshine and our art fix, we enjoyed a cup of coffee in the sun splashed courtyard before training home. We decided to use Cassy’s gift vouchers for Chili’s for a very late lunch/early dinner and scootered across to the Shinkong Mitsukoshi building. A window seat to watch the world go by, a pretty girl for a date and some great tasting food….what else could anyone want? We whiled away a couple of hours before getting home to blog duties et al.
Oh, I nearly forgot! I spent a big chunk of Friday night down at Roxy Rocker with my book club mates. Not a lot of books were shown (in fact, none!) but we enjoyed some icy beers, great company and classic, classic music spun up on twin turntables and rockin’ all night….what a blast! Words can’t really do this justice but the pictures can. My phone camera is not great in such low light, so the old fashioned theme of the slide show actually enhances the shots and captures the feel of the night pretty well. You can check the slide show here with a few awful shenanigans up top! Cass is reading "Her Fearful Symmetry" and I'm still on the Harlan Coben