I got into Taipei in the early morning. A one hour busride took me into town. I made my way to the hostel (the Taipei Backpackers Hostel, in walking distance from the main station), left my stuff there and went off for some first sightseeing with a first stop at the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall and the surrounding park which also “hosts” the National Theatre and National Concert Hall.
From the memorial hall I took a short metro ride to Ximending … from the descriptions in my guidebooks I sounded like Taipei’s version of Myeong-Dong in Seoul or Tokyo’s Shibuya … however turned out pretty boring … it was probably still too early being here before lunch time …
Another short metro ride brought me to Longshan Temple … the first of many temples on this trip …
After leaving the temple, I played the good, old ‘getting lost on purpose’ (TM) game … and ran into what seemed to be a pretty new open air museum: an old Taipei street restored to old glory. It must be pretty new, it is neither in any of my guidebook, nor on any of my maps …
It was now about time for THE landmark of Taipei and maybe even all Taiwan – the Taipei 101 … officially the world’s tallest building until January 2010 (when Dubai’s Burj Khalifa was opened).
Getting up to the viewing platform on the 89th (inside) respectively 91st (outside, at 392m) floor was a bit of a fight though … waiting time for the elevator was around 35 minutes (35 minutes wait for an elevator on the journey up – plus another 35 minutes down!) … and busloads of mis-behaving tourists from mainland China (most amusement parks would have gotten rid of half of them for queue jumping) …
However getting up was definitely worth it … a fabulous view over a fabulous city.
I got back to the hostel in the evening … heading out for dinner to a nearby night market and getting a first feeling of being lost in translation … most stalls only had signs in Chinese with the occupier only speaking limited English or none at all. I selected based on the queues … means at stalls with long queues I checked how the food looked like … and started queuing … in summary: I don’t know what I ate … but it was good 😉
