Taipei

This weekend, while you were enjoying copious amounts of beer at Moses and fabulous turkey dinners at home, I was off on the other side of the world wandering the streets of Taipei, Taiwan. October 10th is a national holiday in Taiwan, so 4 other teachers and I decided to make the 4-hour bus trip north to see the big city of 13 million people.

The buses here are ridiculous. Giant leather reclining chairs that are easily twice the size of a greyhound seat, complete with massagers, a personal TV and play station. Needless to say the trip started off well…

Our first day we went to Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world (no longer the CN Tower) and shopped. It was a bit of a reverse culture shock as there were tons of Western stores and foreigners. We’d been on a bus overnight and hadn’t slept too much so the sight seeing was kept to a minimum. We went out that night to a bar called Luxy, which at $30 for cover and $10 for a drink, proved to be an investment…a worthwhile one. We were actually still dancing when they turned off the music and asked us to leave. Yep, a little embarrassing. Apparently we were enjoying our tequila shots and each other’s company so much that we failed to notice the exodus of 1000 people.

Sunday I decided to take off on my own to explore the sights of Taipei. There’s a little bit of English in Taipei, so it wasn’t a terribly difficult solo mission after living in Kaohsiung for 5 months. I went to the Chiang Kai Chek Memorial, an absolutely enormous complex of 3 buildings (memorial and 2 pagodas) which, as I’m sure you’ve figured out, is dedicated to Chiang Kai Chek. He’s a dead Taiwanese nationalist who was a little on the psychotic side. I then went around to a couple of temples where I apparently distracted heavily from the activities at hand. It’s amazing how one single white person can attract more attention than a centuries old, intricately built, sprawling Buddhist temple…but I did. It was a domino effect. 2 young Taiwanese girls came up and asked for a picture with me, then another group, and then another group. Needless to say I felt a little awkward. Any non-Chinese in Taiwan is quite a novelty.

Today we decided to make it up to the top of Taipei 101 and look out from the observatory. It was a pretty amazing sight, which you’ve seen in the pictures above. It was definitely a good weekend and Taipei’s a pretty good city. Much cleaner than Kaohsiung. There’s much more I’d like to see, shop, and eat in Taipei so a return trip is in order!

The first picture is of the Longshan Temple and then, obviously, the view from the top of Taipei 101. If you double click the Taipei 101 shots you'll get a much better view ont he city. The last two are two of the three buildings at the CKS memorial.