It was an early morning flight to Taipei, but not a long one, and flying out of Haneda instead of Narita made it seem much shorter. I arrived at Songshan airport with my girlfriend, Miki, and we took the MRT subway to Ximen, where our hotel was. When we surfaced at Ximen, I took in my first impressions of Taipei. The immediate area around the station was a populated intersection, complete with store fronts, food vendors, big screen advertisements, and tall buildings in the background. We had been told this area would be like Shibuya, and so far it was living up to expectation. As we walked toward the hotel, the sidewalk seemed narrow. The store fronts all crowded right up to the sidewalk, and the street was not far on the other side. Foul smells
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