While living in Taiwan my last two years of high school, I visited the palace museum in Taipei. The building itself shows attribute of Chinese architecture, with its swooping rooves and decorated wood beams. The museum holds a collection of treasure and art from when Chinese royalty fled to Taiwan, known then as Formosa (“beautiful island”). The immense size grows even bigger as your walk across the tile path and up the stairs and finally over the courtyard. I enjoyed seeing so many trees and ferns and other greenery. The garden seen on the bottom right of the picture included coy ponds for people to feed fish. Inside the palace, I was intrigued by the detailed art styles and seeing a timeline spanning several hundred years. I felt a great deal of respect for the people that chose to preserve the artifacts and documents.