Asian Sabbatical - Day #23 - Taipei, Taiwan

Friday, July 22nd

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

 

Entry Gate of the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

Interesting facts about Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

Big tourist attraction - a lot of folks on the grounds

Statue of President Chiang

Interesting Taipei Zoo Sign

 

Maokong Gondola

Passing over a lush, green forest

Busy streets at top of mountain

One of the many tea houses at the peak

A hazy view of Taipei 101 building in late afternoon

 

I rode back in a glass-bottom gondola - really neat

 

My hotel - Cosmos Hotel Taipei

Street view right out the door of my hotel

 



 

A pretty relaxing day in Taipei today.  I did some planning in the morning and went for some site-seeing in the afternoon.

I started the day at the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall.  This is a national monument erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China.  The Memorial Hall is white with 4 sides.  The roof is blue and octagonal, a shape that picks up the symbolism of the number 8, a number traditionally associated in Asia with abundance and good fortune.  Two sets of stairs, each with 89 steps to represent Chiang's age at the time of his death, lead to the main entrance.  The ground level of the memorial houses a library and museum.  The upper level contains the main hall, in which a large statue of Chiang Kai-shek is located.  The monument reminds me of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. 

After a couple hours walking the grounds and sweating through my T-shirt (high heat indexes today), I decided to go to a new area in the city and take a gondola ride.  I took the metro to the Taipei Zoo.  A short walking distance from the zoo was the Maokong Gondola.  This was pretty cool.  The gondola ride was 30 minutes to the top of the mountain.  It passed over a green, lush forest.  It was impressive to see the sites.  At the top, a number of shops and restaurants were located.  It's a great place to stop for a drink and take in the views.  The skies were a bit hazy today - but you could still see the dominance of the Taipei 101 building standing tall in the background.

I did more walking around the city areas and just taking it all in.  I was much more efficient today with my metro stops.  The city really is easy to get around.  Just don't eat/drink on the metro or anywhere near the metro.  I was eating a handful of cashews while waiting at the metro stop for the next train.  One of the security folks rushed over to me.  He put his arms in the form of a cross - and said something while pointing to my cashews.  I need to be careful on this front -- after this incident, I've been noticing signs indicating that you could get as high as a 5K fine for eating on metros.  I guess I was lucky to get the warning.

A few other interesting things abut Taiwan.  Taiwan has the lowest birthrate in the world.  Garbage trucks play music (kind of like the ice cream truck - to let people know to bring out the garbage), it's roughly the size of Belgium, and Wi-Fi is everywhere (I noticed this when I was able to get on Wi-Fi while waiting to go to the observation deck of Taipei 101 --  the city government of Taipei recently declared that everyone should have access to the internet in any public spaces - Wi-Fi has been
introduced throughout the city).

Back to the hotel around 8pm.  Getting organized tonight.  Tomorrow I fly to the Philippines for the weekend.  

Asian Sabbatical - Day #22 - Taipei, Taiwan

Thursday, July 21st

Rows of motorbikes everywhere

National Palace Museum

Nice garden area at the National Palace Museum

Walking the grounds

Looking through the pillars at the National Palace Museum - no photos allowed inside

7-Eleven --- everywhere

Busy streets

Interesting note

Guinness Book of World Records

View from observation deck of Taipei 101

 

View from observation deck of Taipei 101

5th tallest building in the world - Taipei 101

37 seconds to reach the top in elevator -- my ears felt it

Interesting info on Dampers

The damper in Taipei 101

Taiwan is the "Coral Kingdom"

Taipei 101 at night

Taipei 101 during the day

 

 

Really good day!  I woke up this morning at 4:45am in Hong Kong, China.  It's 11pm now - I'm currently on the 10th floor of Cosmos Hotel Taipei in Taipei, Taiwan.  Things went really smoothly on the travel front today.  I took a taxi to the closest metro in Hong Kong around 5:15am.  I then took the 30-minute express train to the airport at 5:50am.  My flight was set to depart at 9:10am.  The flight departed ON TIME.  Fantastic stuff!  I arrived into Taipei around 11:30am - about a 2hr, 15min flight. 

 

Taipei - I'm learning all kinds of things about this place.  I knew almost nothing coming into today.  First off, Taipei City and New Taipei (2 separate areas) make up the Taipei Metropolitan Area - roughly 7 million people.  The entire island of Taiwan is roughly 23 million.  These numbers are tiny in comparison to China and the huge cities I just visited.  It was a welcome change today -- I was able to walk around fairly uninhibited.

 

Taiwan is considered a province of China - it's claimed, but not actually controlled by the People's Republic of China.  There were a few unique things I noticed right off the bat.  First, about 50% of the traffic appears to be motorcycle/scooters.  See picks above -- everybody is riding around on these.  Next, there are 7-Eleven stores everywhere in site.  Sometimes, you can stand in 1 spot and see 3 of them.  They are a "1-stop shop" - buy food, drinks, rent movies, buy books, sit for coffee, mail packages, etc --- you can just about do anything at the 7-Eleven.  A lot of areas of the city appear to be older, with some new sections sprinkled in.  The subway system is very efficient and nicely laid out.

 

After getting to my hotel room, I rested for about an hour and then went out to hit the streets.  My first stop was the National Palace Museum.  This was the lone entry from my "1000 Things to See Before you Die" Book.  The Palace Museum was originally founded in 1925 in the Forbidden City in Beijing, thus the word "palace" in its name.  After a couple relocations, the National Palace Museum in Taipei was created.  It has over 690,000 objects, making it the premier collection of Chinese art and culture in the world.  Impressive site.  Keeping an open mind on my exploration.  The museum had 3 levels -- similar to the Shanghai Museum -- just with more detail and more items.  There was a large section on ceramics and jade.  They went into more depth on how these pieces were formed (which was more interesting to me than just seeing some decorated plates).  I spent a couple hours in the museum, then walked around the markets at the Shilin metro stop -- a popular area of town. 

 

I next took the metro to the main city center.  I went to the 87th floor of Taipei 101 World Trade Center - the 5th tallest building in the world (pending the site you use).  This building really stands out in Taipei - there is no way one could confuse another building for this one.  The building holds all kinds of records and honors (It holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the fastest elevator, voted the tallest green building, has the worlds largest and heaviest tuned damper for stability, has won engineering honors for best design).  The sites were great on the 87th floor - but I found myself more intrigued by the design than the views.  I posted a couple things above.

 

After my observation deck trip, I then walked some of the streets in the central city section of town.  I then took the metro 7 stops back to my hotel.  My hotel is right by the metro entrance -- I just need to make sure I come out the correct exit tomorrow.

 

Here's to a good day in a brand new place in the world for me.

Asian Sabbatical - Day #21 - Hong Kong, China

Wednesday, July 20th

Good views from my queue line waiting to see the Big Buddha

The Big Buddha - from a distance

Healthy climb to get to the top

Almost to the top

Bye Big Buddha

Town leading to the Buddha statue

Great cable car ride

Views out cable car window

Views from cable car

Tram to "The Peak"

That's the shot - generally at night - of Hong Kong

Tall building in background is the International Commerce Center, the building in the foreground is the Two International Finance Center

View out over the bay

Another overview shot

    

International Commerce Center in background

Busy waterways

Tall buildings everywhere you look

One last photo

  

1/2 mile long escalator on Hong Kong Island

A full day of action in Hong Kong.  I slept in a bit, then had a really nice breakfast at my hotel.  My first item on the agenda -- Tian Tan Buddha.  I took the metro over to Lantau Island (very near the airport).  I've read that the cable car journey up to this mammoth Buddha on the hillside is a top attraction in Hong Kong.  After my time spent today, I would agree and the area did not disappoint. 

I got to the cable car area to find a pretty lengthy line.  I happened to be standing my an English guy who was on holiday.  He teaches business in Shanghai (for 15 months).  It was nice getting his take on China.  The 45 minute queue went by pretty fast with some interesting conversation. 

Tian Tan Buddha, also known as the Big Buddha, is a large bronze statue of Buddha Shakyamuni.  It was completed in 1993 and symbolizes the harmonious relationship between man and nature, people and faith.  The cable car ride went up this mountain side and over the ocean bays below.  Outstanding!  I've done these rides up ski slopes, etc -- but another flavor being over the water.  Upon arriving at the top, there was a small town with shops, food, and a variety of walking paths.  The Buddha stood atop this big hill, hundreds of steps leading to the top.  I made this happen.  A little morning workout - all good stuff.  After some great pics - I took the cable car back to the metro.  The photos from the cable car were even better on the return trip.

Next up -- the Peak Tram on Hong Kong Island.  A lot of promotional pictures you'll see of Hong Kong are taken from "The Peak".  It is also known as Mount Austin, and sits on the western half of Hong Kong Island with an elevation of 1,811ft.  I got lost a bit out of the metro station on my way to the tram entrance.  I sort of did this on purpose to get a chance to walk the streets and see more sites.  Once I arrived at the Tram station - there was another pretty significant queue.  It went fairly fast however, I was in line around 30 minutes or so before boarding.  Well - see pictures above - the wait was certainly worth it.  Shanghai has an incredible skyline, but is generally surrounded by hazy skies.  The Hong Kong skyline is equally as impressive and generally offers some blue skies for better picture quality.  I talked with the guy this morning and he said there are a few days you'll get some clearing - but not very often in Shanghai. This is another difference between mainland China and Hong Kong. 

Correction I have to make from yesterday.  I had taken a picture of a building on Hong Kong Island that I thought was the International Commerce Centre (#11 tallest building in the world).  My viewpoint from Kowloon did not allow me to actually see this building.  The International Commerce Centre is on the Island of Kowloon and the building I took the picture of is actually the Two International Finance Centre (#25th tallest building in the world).  I show these in photos above.

I spent a good hour atop "The Peak".  There was a walking trail I spent a little time on.  Hong Kong, just like all the other Asian cities, is immense in size.  It's always good to get a bird's eye view to put things into perspective.  After taking the tram down, I walked more of Hong Kong Island.  It's a very hilly island - reminds me of the city of Seattle.  They have an escalator that extends for 800m (1/2 mile from the bottom of the hill (Central Station) to the mid level point of the city (where many business, etc are located).  It's not 1 continuous escalator (as there are areas you have to walk between sections), but it truly is amazing.  It only goes up, you have steps to walk down beside it.  I did a section to check it out. 

Doesn't sound like much today - but I covered a lot of ground and got a really good idea of what makes Hong Kong special.  Hong Kong is a former British colony.  Just about every person I spoke with speaks good English.  I think the city has a very dense population (even more so than Beijing or Shanghai), but is very lively.  It you like non-stop action, good food, shopping, and great views -- this is the place.

Onward to new countries - tomorrow I fly to Taiwan.  Have a good night!