Been a week since my last post, guess I'm falling behind on blogging as my last day approaches. Haven't been doing anything too exciting although I made another trip to the weekend jade and flower market last Sunday. I've been before and it's a great place to spend a few hours wandering around. The market is huge with one section selling jade and a few other precious stones, while the other section sells flowers and gardening supplies.
The jade market is one of the largest in Asia, with ~600 vendors selling some amazing jade carvings, necklaces, and bracelets. Prices range from a few dollars to several hundred depending on the piece and the quality of the jade. I took a jade class a few months ago to learn the basics of determining quality, so I can spot obvious fakes (plastic, glass, poorly treated low quality jade) but luckily Taipei has some of the most honest vendors around. Last time I was there I bought a necklace featuring the Buddha holding a lotus leaf. This time around I bought a jade ring, about 8mm wide, made of higher quality jade than my necklace. You'll see me wearing it when I get back to Portland.
Across the street from the jade market is the best flower market ever. Stall after stall of trees, orchids, cut flowers, pots and vases, and everything else related to flowers. Taiwan has beautiful orchids and they're dirt cheap. You can buy an orchid plant for as little as $1.50 and the plants that sell for $30-50 back home cost about $5 here. My flatmate told me that a lot of orchid breeding is done in Taiwan so there is a much wider variety of colors and shapes than you typically find in the US. I love, love, love orchids and lilies (also readily available at the market). I wish I could live in the flower market.
I'm not sure what jianguo translate to in English, but last night I learned a little bit about Taipei street names. I live on heping which means "peace," zhongxiao roughly translates to "filial piety," and xinyi is "justice," representing some of the eight Confucian virtues. Now you know.
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JianGuo means to build the country: jian = build, guo = country. BaDe Road refers to Confucius' 8 principles: Ba = eight. Of course, the 8 principles are repeated on 4 main through fares: ZhongXiao, RenAi, XinYi, and HePing.
Other neat parts of names include SanMin (Sun Yat Sen's 3 Principles of the People), which are represented by, yes, 3 streets: Mingzu (people's government, aka nationalism), MingChuang (people's power, aka democracy), and MingSheng (people's livelihood).
And in old Taipei, the street names are of places in China (KunMing Street, GuangZhou Street), roughly laid out as they are geographically found in China.
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