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Published: November 5th 2006
Taipei 101 Tower
Tallest Building inthe world!With all this planning for the months ahead, Tapei has been one of those places I didn't look into much. Furthermore people told me it wasn't such a great place. They said it was dirty and very industrial. I'm now wondering if they've even been here.
In short this place has been very impressive so far! It's a large city of about 5 million people. 10's of thousands of scooters buzzing along the roads. It's very clean, in fact cleaner than Vancouver...Spotless. I definatly didn't expect that in China! Everyone here seems rich or at least very well off. There's no ugly cars on the street and very little homeless people, I've maybe seen 2 or 3 in the last couple days we've been here.
The streets are busy but not chaotic. Finding our way around is very easy. We've been lost a few times but are back on track within minutes. What's great is that the locals are always there to help us. Everyone is very friendly here and it's not too hard to find someone who speaks english.
The streets are very safe here, crime here is rare. It's safe to walk around in
Jasmine & new friends
They helped us cook at the most confusing restaraunt in the world! any part of town, even at night. We've done a lot of walking, just exploring the neighborhoods, maybe 6 or 7 hours a day. It's been tiring but we've seen a lot so far in the short time we've been here. After getting tired we realized that the huge subway system here is cheap, quick and efficient so we've been opting for that option lately. Taipei main station is about as big as Metrotown mall but 5 floors deep. It's pretty nuts! On the 4th day we discovered a giant mall inside it, that we didn't know existed.
We've seen a lot of the tourist type things. Tapei 101 which is the tallest building in the world. Looking down on the city from the top made me realize what a huge city this actually is. We've been to the huge zoo, giant monuments, Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Gardens, witnessed the changing of the guard.
The crazy thing is that there is NO TOURISTS HERE. We've maybe seen like 4 or 5 over the past couple days. Even in the tourist area's, white people are rare. It's great that this place is unspoiled by mass tourism.
just me =)
Typical Chinese architecture But I wonder why in such a safe, clean city with so much to do why nobody comes here.
With the exception of Tapei 101 which was $NT 330 ($10 USD) everything has been free. Tapei's economy is great so things are considerably more expensive than the other cities we're going to. Our first day we walked by all the Gucci, Dolce & Gabanna etc stores, and even the smallest stores had prices comparable to Canada.
We were worried that we were going to go over budget.
The next day we realized that we just picked the upper class part of town and that everywhere else was considerably cheaper. Especially in the night markets. Each night 1000's of people flood the streets to the markets. You can pretty much find anything there and get an entire closet of clothes for $70 USD!
For food you can find anything from normal stuff we'd find in Canada to Snake Soup. You can tell where they sell snake by spotting the live cobra's at the entrance! Other than that though Taipei is seems very normal. There's no culture shock. It's hard to explain but although it's a world
Downtown Taipei
Most of the cities buildings are really ugly, yet it's a very clean city away and althoug everything is looks very different, everybodies doing pretty much the same thing as us back home.
Things are done differently though. Like for example the garbage trucks out here play the same tune our ice cream trucks do out in Canada. When people here that tune they run out to the truck and throw their garbage in. It's a funny site to see!
On the 4th day we went out of town and discovered an area that I pictures real China to be like. Dirtier, smaller and busier with open air meat markets in the heat stinking up the place. We took a stroll down the alleyways. There probably hasn't been very many tourists, if any in that area. I like that cause we get to see what other's don't. The real Chinese culture.
Overall, we think that Taipei is an amazing place and would recomend it to anyone! Next stop.....Bangkok!
You can find more photo's of our trip here
http://s124.photobucket.com/albums/p20/AGROculture/?sc=1
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stimmy j
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damn man . just looking at those pics makes me sad .. i miss taipei like crazy .. i been everywhere u mentioned there . ximandeng was like my 2nd home on weekends... i really wanna get back to tapei again. thx 4 all the recommendations ... i had a blast there. I feel empty now back in vancouver.