Taipei 101 | Martin's Tripping

It’s 10 pm. I should be sleeping because I have to catch a taxi for the airport at 4 am. In a moment of complete insanity, I booked a flight departing at 7.40 am. And now, I am severely regretting the stupidity of this decision as 4 am looms. The other flight to Sydney was at 11.55 pm but it would have meant booking the hotel for another night and only using it for half a day, so I decided to save the money.

Anyway, it’s my last day in Taipei and feeling a tad sad that I have to leave. I wasn’t sold on Taipei at first. It seemed like just a mini dirty Tokyo, but over the days I discovered many more layers to the city and really came to like it. It’s a bit Japanese and a bit Chinese but still has very much it’s own unique special flavour. The people are without a doubt some of the nicest I’ve ever encountered on my travels. And there’s a real unpretentious, easy-breezy vibe to the place. It is what it is and the people aren’t wannabes like those other people up the Han Peninsula.

On my second last night, I decided to ignore all the nay sayers on Trip Advisor and went to visit Raohe night market. Night markets are a huge part of Taiwanese life. They have unbelievable selection of foods. I wish I ate meat… I could have gone to town on offal: pig’s fallopian tubes, tripe and chicken feet!

I had my Lucy Jordan moment… Not quite Paris in a sports car and not quite 37 either… But I got a ride to the night market through the streets of Taipei on the back of a scooter..

And today, on my last day… It finally stopped raining!! The temperature maxed out at 29 degrees so I hot footed it down to Taipei 101 to check out the city view. It’s funny… The Taiwanese appear to be really theoretical with their dress. It was 29 degrees but because it’s still winter, they were all out in their hooded down puffer jackets. Meanwhile, I was in shorts and a T-shirt.

Taipei 101 is a very nice building and definitely looks much better in real life than in pictures. It was at one time the tallest building in the world but already in 2019, it has dropped to 10^th place. And next year when Jeddah Tower opens, it will drop another place.

Some random stupid Mainlander staging a one man protest against the Fallun Gong protest that was going on outside the building…

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The lift whisks you up to the observation deck on level 89 in a matter of seconds. Level 89 is a windowed observation deck. But then you go up 2 flights of stairs and you have the open observation deck. When I got to level 89 and looked out the window, my first reaction was, “Why the f*** did they use smoked glass for the windows?” … But then a short while later, I went up to the non-windowed observation deck and noticed that the view looked exactly the same. Of course the glass wasn’t smoky. It was crystal clear. It was just the blanket of smog hovering over the city.

Level 89…