We gave this place a miss during our last trip due to the typhoon. I planned this place in this round. As we stayed in Xi Men Ding, it pretty easy to get here. There are 2 ways in fact.
1). At Ximending station, take the blue line train to Taipei main station, transfer to the Green line towards Xin Dian (新店）and alight at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall station (中正纪念堂站).
2). At Ximending station, take the light green line train and alight at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall station (中正纪念堂站). This is a preferred way as it is less crowded, no transfer is needed and of course faster.
Of course, we chose the 2nd way.
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| Map of the park |
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| The front gate |
The memorial hall is right beside the exit for the MRT station. I once heard that Taipei rains 200+ days a year and it's the 1st day it rained since we reached here. Since the memorial hall is an enclosed area, we have no problem with rain but to walk from the main gate to the memorial hall is quite a distance. So still need to prepare an umbrella for the unforeseen circumstances.
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| Side hall |
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| Main hall |
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| Walking towards the main hall |
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| Map of the main hall |
There are 89steps that leads to the main hall. These steps represent the age of Mr Chiang Kai Shek had lived. The opening hours are from 9am-6pm, admission is free.
However, we are too early today and had to stand outside to wait for the hall to be open.
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| View from the main hall |
At 9am sharp, the heavy door leading to the main hall open slowly and the huge statue of Mr Chiang appeared slowly before our eyes. A crowd had already formed by this time and were waiting patiently to enter.
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| Doors slowly opening |
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| Guards all ready for the parade |
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| Parade starting |
Similar to Sun Yat-Sen memorial hall and Martyr's Shrine, there are guards of the arm forces guarding the main hall during opening hours. Guard changing period will take place at every hour. I am not sure which arm forces these guards belonged to but it is said that they will rotate between the forces periodically.
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| KMT Crest on the ceiling |
After taking photos of the bronze statue of Mr Chiang, we moved on the various exhibition halls inside. Mr Love had been here before but had mostly forgotten what was on displayed. Typical him.
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| Photo of Mr Chiang Kai-Shek and Mr Sun Yat-Sen |
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| More photos with other leaders of the time |
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| Writings of Mr Chiang Kai-Shek |
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| Signing UN Charter in 1945 |
We went around the exhibition hall going through the photos on display and the various artifacts. I didn't have much concept of the history between Taiwan and China, only knowing the main outline.
This exhibition halls only display the life of Mr Chiang Kai-Shek but didn't mentioned much on the history on why he came to Taiwan. It is to say, there is no political links here as far as I can see. It is just like a history museum to us.
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| Victory over Japan day |
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| With his wife Mdm Chiang |
Moving on from the hall that displays photos and paintings, we moved on to the hall where artifacts are displayed. Here there are display of writings of Mr Chiang Kai-Shek, items that he used, gifts by other countries and many many more. There are far too many to take photo of them all. We moved on quickly with me only taking pictures of things that interest me.
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| Some writings with a lot of correction it seems |
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| Mr Chiang Kai-Shek clothings |
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| Various badges |
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| With Mr Chiang Kai-Shek's car |
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| Portrait of Mr Chiang Kai-Shek in his military uniform |
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| Oil painting of Mr Sun Yat-Sen & Mr Chiang Kai-Shek |
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| The car & I |
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| Mr Chiang's sedan |
The last exhibition we came to is where his former office are displayed. Not sure whether they are using the original furniture are used but it is display true to his last working place.
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| His office |
1 thing I am sure is the clock displayed here is the very same in his office at the time of his death. It is said that the clock stopped at the time of his death, this is quite amazing to us.
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| Clock that stop at time of Mr Chiang Kai-Shek's death |
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Got bored after this and we moved to the gift shop to do some shopping. Still I find it interesting to visit here once when you are in Taipei to understand a bit about their founding father.
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