National Palace Museum (Gúolì Gùgong Bówùyùan), Taipai

At the end of the Chinese Civil War ancient treasures and artefacts from China’s Forbidden City were split between the National Palace Museum in Taipai City and the Palace Museum on the site of the Forbidden City. The National Palace Museum, home to one of the world’s largest collections of Chinese art and objects got the ‘Jade Cabbage’, a famous multi toned piece of jade carved into the shape of a cabbage, the ‘Meat Shaped Stone’ a chunk of agate which has strata making it look like a piece of pork with crackling, a tiny boat carved out of an olive pit and to get away from the food theme, the ‘Painting of One Hundred Horses’. It has impressive collections of paintings including famous calligraphy and watercolours, rare books and scrolls, tapestries, lacquerware, enamel, jade, bronze and ceramics as well as artefacts used in the day to day life of the Chinese imperial families within the walls of the Forbidden City. The National Palace Museum has over 700,000 pieces, but is able to display only around 15,000, rotating them once every three months. The rarest and most fragile objects are displayed each October.