taipei – awordfromjapan

At 509 metres high, Taipei 101 is the tallest building in East Asia, and for a few years held the title of tallest in the world.

In an otherwise low-rise city, it stands in splendid isolation as the city’s premier landmark. Its vertical rhythm differentiates it from other tall buildings, and is intended to suggest the form of a bamboo plant.

While Taipei 101 has now fallen to number 3 in the world height rankings, it retains a number of records, including the world’s fastest elevator.

Travelling at a speed of over 1 km per minute, it whisked us to the 89th-floor observation deck in double-quick time. Although there was no real impression of speed inside the lift car, there was a helpful illuminated display to let us know how high we were and how fast we were going.

The 91st-floor outdoor observation deck was closed today (no explanation was given) so we viewed the city through the floor-to-ceiling glass of the indoor observation deck. Taipei tends to be very hazy, limiting the visibility of more distant areas, but there was a great view of the area of the city closer to the tower.

World Trade Center

Dr Sun Yat-Sen Memorial

The 2 General MacArthur bridges over the Keelung River, and Yang Ming Shan mountain in the background

At the heart of Taipei 101, a huge metal ball forms part of a tuned mass damper, protecting the building from excessive movement in high winds and earthquakes.

This ball is 5.5 metres in diameter and weighs hundreds of tonnes. It is the biggest of its kind in the world, and the only one open to view by the public.

The lower floors of Taipei 101 are given over to an upscale shopping mall. The exposed structural elements of this atrium seem to combine a 19th-century Industrial Revolution aesthetic with a science-fiction sensibility.

After visiting Taipei 101, we hopped on the metro for a visit to Astoria Café. Astoria was founded by a Russian exile in 1949, and was the first western-style bakery and café in Taiwan. The White Russians, who had formed a community in Shanghai having fled the Russian revolution, were forced to flee yet another Communist revolution in 1949 and found themselves in Taiwan.

When we arrived, we were asked if we wanted “lunch or café”. As it was a bit too early for lunch, we opted for café. The menu had an extensive range of coffees and teas. The prices were very high, especially by Taiwan standards ($180 for a cup of coffee, equivalent to around €4.50). I chose a Russian blend coffee and Yuko went for a cold longan tea. (Longan is a delicious local fruit, quite similar to lychee.)

The menu didn’t feature any cake, only drinks. We wondered if we were supposed to buy cakes from the bakery downstairs and bring them up. But we asked the waiter and he brought us a cake menu. The cakes were good value at $50 per slice (€1.25). Yuko had a millefeuille and I had a coffee cake.

The décor is charmingly old-fashioned, with various significant items on display including old photos, samovars and a collection of matryoshka dolls.

The old-world style of the Astoria stands in delicious contrast to the Temple of the City God on the other side of the narrow street. This was the view from the window seat as I sipped my Russian coffee and nibbled my cake.

In just a few short days, Taipei has become one of my favourite places. It’s a wonderfully manageable city and very easy to get around. This is largely thanks to the MRT metro system, which has a dense network of underground lines in the city centre and extends all the way to the distant suburbs. The service is very frequent and easy to use; we haven’t had to wait for more than a couple of minutes for a train. Fares are $20 to $30 (about €0.50 to €0.75) which is extremely reasonable.

When we arrived in Taipei on Monday, we each bought an EasyCard and loaded it up with $500 worth of value (approx €12.50). This can be used on buses, metro, suburban rail and the Maokong gondola (which is not a boat but a cable car).

The “Hello Kitty”-themed cabins fail to make the ride any less terrifying

The main advantage of the EasyCard is that it makes it much more convenient to hop on and off buses and metro, since you don’t have to buy a ticket each time. You buy it (and top it up) from a machine at any metro station, and then when it’s time to leave Taipei, we can return the EasyCard and they will give us back any money that we haven’t used.

The EasyCard can also be used to hire a bike from the “YouBike” service. This did not work for me, however, as the registration process requires a mobile phone number and it would not accept my Irish phone number. However I was able to hire a bike at the kiosk using my credit card.

Cycling turns out to be a very enjoyable way to get around Taipei. The streets don’t have cycle lanes as such, but cyclists are well catered for, and there are dedicated cycle ways along all the city’s river banks. The one thing to be careful of is drivers (including taxi drivers) turning right without indicating.

One of the major sights in central Taipei is the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial, dedicated to the memory of the former president of the Republic of China.

In front of the central monument, which houses a huge statue of CKS at the top of a steep flight of steps, there is a paved area flanked by two impressive public buildings (a library and a museum) built in the form of temples. On a more human scale, there are also attractive gardens north and south, with trees, ponds and wildlife.

Another impressive building in Taipei is the Presidential Palace (formerly the Governor General’s office).

Ximending is an area of youth culture, and I stopped to watch this band rehearsing on an outdoor stage at the “red house”, an octagonal red-brick converted warehouse building in Ximen. Here’s a short video.

I got thirsty cycling around in the heat, so I bought a can of Hey Song Sarsaparilla from a vending machine. I was curious, because we don’t have sarsaparilla drinks in Ireland. I liked it. I also liked the fact that the drinks in the vending machine only cost $20 (€0.50).

Tag: taipei

Taipei old and new

台湾　Taiwan