Postal Museum | 郵政博物館

I've always liked collecting postcards and stamps, so I knew that I had to visit the Taipei Postal Museum 郵政博物館 the first chance I get. The last time I tried to visit the museum, it was during a national holiday, so unfortunately it was closed. Make sure to double-check whether or not the museum is open before you get there!

The second time around, I visited on a weekday, so it was open for visitors. The museum consists of the 6 floors. I started on the 6th floor and made my way down.  

On the 6th floor, there was a special exhibition depicting women in postal stamp history. It was fascinating to see how women from ancient Chinese tales were incorporated into postal stamps. The exhibition also displayed clothing designs that the post office also decided to feature in postal stamps.

That same exhibition also celebrated women from all over the world that had made an impact. For instance, we see Queen Elizabeth imprinted on the postal stamps of Australia. 

We also see famous Bollywood actresses from the 1950's imprinted on the postal stamps of India. It's not that often that we get to see rare stamps from around the world, so I took as many pictures as I could. 

After that, I moved onto the next floor. There was a giant postal stamp of an ROC flag hanging on the wall. 

The exhibition on this floor included unique Taiwanese stamps that depict Taiwan's cultural, historical, scenic sights, national animals, and even popular sporting activities. I was surprised to see stamps that had traditional sanheyuan 三合院 houses imprinted on them as well as stamps depicting popular religious activities in Taiwan. Oh, and there were also stamps with grand churches in Taiwan. I was making notes of a couple I plan on visiting in the future. 

Fun fact: Did you know that the first postal stamp in the world was created in the UK? Yes, it was created by the UK postal service as a way to take advance payment from people to deliver their letters. Very smart! 

I entered a room in which there were rows, and rows, and rows of world stamps put up on display! There were stamps from the early days of Afghanistan, India, and many other countries. There were also stamps from lesser-known countries such as the Ivory Coast! When looking at the stamps, I realized that there was a natural progression of sorts...stamps used to be more simple and as time passed by, they became more and more elaborate and complex. Not saying that that is a bad thing. One country that stood out to me was Japan. Japan has the cutest stamps ever, with Hello Kitty and many other cute cartoon characters. They also have many ancient castles on their postal stamps. 

Moving onto the next floor. On the fourth floor, there was a mini postal exhibition for children. This exhibition basically taught kids how to write out a postcard or letter and send it out. There were also many interactive activities for kids on that floor. It was super cute and I recommend parents take their kids so that they can learn how the postal service works.

On the third floor, there was an elaborate exhibition on the history of how the postal service developed in China and Taiwan. China was one of the first countries in the world to start delivering mail during the Chou Dynasty using livestock such as ox. The postal services evolved to eventually delivering mail with postal vehicles, bicycles, and now, motorcycles. 

There was an old letterbox...

 and a very colorful, traditional postal kiosk that were displayed as part of the exhibition. 

On the second floor, there were a couple more postal relics and famous Taiwanese stamps from back in the day. The exhibition also had photos and collections of a few popular Taiwanese postal stamp collectors who shared their experience of how they got started with this hobby. There were also a cool game setup in which there was a tablet and you could ride a bicycle, pretending to be a mailman and delivering posts and letters ASAP. I tried twice but unfortunately I failed lol. Anyways, it was still fun. 

I would definitely recommend visiting this museum if you're interested in postal stamps, mail, and letters, and post cards. You'll learn a lot and it's an educational place for kids as well!

How to get to there: You can take the Taipei Metro and get off at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Station Exit 1. You'll have to walk roughly 10-15 minutes to get to your destination. The entrance fee is NT$30 for adults and NT$15 for students. 

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