Taiwan Trip: High in the Sky

Since I have well documented my brief love affair with the Taipei 101, you won't be surprised to hear that we spent out last afternoon there going up to the top. It was ridiculous. The weather was fairly misty and muggy and we didn't have the best views, but they were good enough to tell how ridiculously high you were. Usually when you go up tall buildings, people look like ants. When you're at the top of the Taipei 101, buildings look like ants. 

Where Skyscraper meets shopping mall

There are displays of intricately carved coral at the top. They're gorgeous, but rather random!

Hello down there 15 story building. You look so small I could squash you with a finger.

Somewhere just in the forest to the left of the photo is where we sat to take these photos.

Sun was in the wrong place for photos from the outside deck, but it was extremely beautiful.

The thing in the background is the damper. It's a big ball that stops the building falling over. I don't understand how, I chose just to trust it. The thing John is cuddling is the Damper Baby. Because it's not only Japan that makes everything cute :)

Taipei 101 with the really big moon there was that night. I'll miss you!

Taiwan Trip: 象山

This was absolutely my favourite thing we did in Taipei.

The Four Beasts Mountains (四獸山) are hills with a set of hiking trails within the Eastern Taipei city limits. There are loads of hiking trails, and I wish we'd had time to walk them more. Apparently they're all lit at night and pretty easy to follow. Since time was tight, we only had time to walk Elephant Mountain (象山). This is the easiest to access; just a 15 minute walk from the bottom of the Taipei 101 and we were in lovely jungley-forest, and another 20 minute walk and we were at the top of a hill, with gorgeous views over Taipei and, of course, the Taipei 101. We wanted to watch the sunset, and apparently so did a lot of other people, so it was a little busy, but everyone was friendly and there was a nice atmosphere. I'd recommend getting there by about 5 if you want to get somewhere to sit (and by somewhere to sit, I mean have a boulder to climb on!). There were loads of guys with tripods, twiddling with lots of dials and obviously doing very fancy things with their cameras, but I'm pleased with how our little photos came out!

I found out about it on this blog here. It also has maps of the whole hiking system and information about the other hikes you can do there. It also has some beautiful photos.

I'd thoroughly recommend going to Elephant Mountain if you're in Taipei. Even if you're not a big hiker, it was all steps to get to the top, and judging by the 6 inch heels I saw some girls wearing, it's not exactly essential to have hiking gear!

And now, lots of Taipei 101 photos. Hurrah!

After a lot of trial and error, we eventually managed to get onto the last remaining rock, so we had somewhere to sit and enjoy the sunset :)

Oh, so mature. Hehe. Rurousha, I think this is what the statue from the last post saw!

John playing with miniaturisation mode. He loves it, I think it looks stupid.

It's the leaning tower of Taipei.

Sunset wasn't as good as the night before unfortunately, but it was still lovely.

Taiwan Trip: Taipei Explorations

We spent the 2nd and 3rd days we were in Taiwan wandering around Taipei and exploring miscellaneous places we found in our guide book. Whenever I go to a new city, I always feel like I have to go to all the touristy places because, well, that's what you're supposed to do. And while they're always interesting, I always prefer "getting off the beaten track" and going to anywhere that bus tours aren't. We didn't have much time for that this holiday, but it's why I like to walk whenever I can, just to get away from idiot tourists like me! That's why a lot of these photos are just of random bits of walking, rather than grand buildings!

PS - "off the beaten track" is in quote marks because I absolutely hate it as a phrase. Too many pompous idiots use it to describe the fact they went to ___insert random location here___ as if that makes them better than you. I try not to be a pompous idiot, but it is a very apt phrase, hence the fact it goes in quotes :)

We got the subway to Jiantan Station, and then walked from there to the National Palace Museum. It was a lovely walk, which took about half an hour, mostly along by a river. There were tiny play parks, exercise machines and people ballroom dancing under bridges (I kid you not) to entertain us as we walked!

A lovely little park just before the Museum.

Lovely view from the Museum. You can't take photos inside the Museum, which is a shame, but there are lots of photos on their website. It was all very interesting, and there was a lot of really ancient stuff. I thought all the jade stuff was beautiful, and I was interested to learn that it was used as a tool, as well as just ornaments.

On the way back, we detoured to Chiang Kai-Shek's Shilin Residence. The gardens are really spacious and pretty. What else would you expect from a dictator posing as a happy democratic ruler?!

By the way, if you, like me, kind of assumed that Taiwanese history went something along the lines of "few native tribes, fighting in China in 1940s=people flee to Taiwan, Taiwan became the good democratic bit of China", then here is a really brief history, or there's a more detailed one in this wikipedia article. It's pretty interesting.

I doubt that Chiang Kai-Shek would have had either John or the crab in his garden.

Is it just me who thinks this looks like a person?!

Oh, the Taipei 101 isn't that big after all. Hehe.

There is seriously nothing not to love about the Taipei 101. OK, so it may not be the tallest building anymore, but it's still completely ridiculously massive.

Taking this picture made me feel a little like I had vertigo.

There are lots of little statues dotted about all over Taipei. I like the face of this one, he looks like he's seen something naughty happening somewhere.

Chiang Kai-Shek's memorial hall. 

And here's the man himself in all his glory. 

Longshan Temple. We'd planned to go back here during the day, but we didn't have time. We were hungry and tired by this point, so all my photos are a bit half-hearted!

Night night!

Taiwan Trip: Impressions

Well, we made it back from Taiwan! We had a thoroughly enjoyable Golden Week break, but I think we've both come back feeling more tired than when we left! Taiwan is way more beautiful than I was expecting, even Taipei is surrounded by gorgeous green mountains. The Portuguese knew what they were at when they called it Ilha Formosa (beautiful island).

Taipei, where we spent most of our time, has everything I love in a city...gorgeous setting, delicious, cheap and readily available food, a healthy dose of Asian madness, a combination of beautiful old things and fancy new ones, lots of parks and greenery...yet somehow I didn't love it. I liked it, and can well appreciate all the fantastic things about it, but neither John nor I liked Taipei as much as we felt like we should. We decided it's because it's not as polite, ordered and clean as Tokyo, but nor does it have the chaotic charm of South East Asian cities like Bangkok or Hanoi. We both likened it to Kuala Lumpur, another city that didn't grab us. But then it's equally similar to Singapore, a city we both absolutely fell in love with. It's funny, isn't it, the gut reactions you have to different places? 

But despite that, we had a fantastic week there. As well as Taipei, we spent a few days spoiling ourselves at a luxury hotel in the gorgeous Taroko Gorge. Taroko Gorge is one of the must-sees of Taiwan, and I'd go back to Taiwan in a flash just to visit there again. Lots of hiking with amazing views, nicely balanced with our swanky hotel with it's stomach-ache inducing buffet meals and rooftop jacuzzis. 

That's enough talking for the time being, I'll blog in more detail about what we did and where we went in later posts. I have almost 1000 photos, so there'll be a lot of posts! For now, here's a random sampling :D

Making new friends

"It's so green". "I love how green it is here". "I've missed green". Repeat, and there you have 90% of our weeks conversation.

National Palace Museum. Lots and lots of awesome Chinese things. Very interesting, but no photos allowed, and Museum Fatigue definitely set in!

We love the Taipei 101.

There will be a LOT of photos of this building. It's ridiculous.

I love dumplings. Buying a steamer is now very high on my to-do list.

John played a lot with the fancy settings on my camera this holiday. It made some photos ridiculous, but I love this one.

We didn't visit many temples, sorry Rurousha, but I love the dragons and phoenix(s?es?) on the roof of the Taoist temples. Apparently they symbolise the harmony of yin and yang but they don't look very harmonious to me.

Yes, that is a curry in a toilet.

View from our hotel in Taroko Gorge.

I love buffets.

So many pretty insects :)

Don't have a heart attack, Terry, that is John up there but I promise I got him back safely :D

Nothing says Taiwan like a paper mache rabbit on a bicycle.

Hiking the Caoling Historic Trail

No prizes for guessing where this was taken from!