Yesterday, James, Peggy, Hanlie and I went to Taichung. The first stop was the earthquake museum. The 7.3 earthquake hit Taiwan on September 21, 1999. The epicenter was in Nantou, and this Jr. High/High School sat on the fault line. They made an earthquake education center/museum out of the site, and did an amazing job of preserving the school exactly how it was. I just kept saying how lucky they were that it hit at 1 in the morning, and not during the school day. The information says that 2,000 people died, it may have been more, if it had been a few hours later. I've felt 6 earthquakes since I've been here, 4 little ones and two stronger ones. The freaky thing is, unlike a tornado or a hurricane, there's no warning, and you really can't get away from it. It's very humbling to see this and realize how powerless we really are.
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| The track |
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| concrete pillar |
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| If you look closely, you can see mops on the railing. The afternoon before, the students would have used them to clean the floors, and propped them up on the railing to dry. |
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| Water tank |
The next stop was the Taichung Art Center. I was here in the fall, when they put on the candy exhibit. I love it that the exhibits are constantly changing. Right now, they're doing a show on the Terra Cotta Warriors.
The other part was called "Dark Art," an exhibition about optical illusions.
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| A flat painting of Venice? |
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| Nope |
Every few minutes, the normal lights would shut off, and the black lights would come on. Under black light, all kinds of invisible details showed up.
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| Mona and I, having coffee |
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| Creating my masterpiece |
