Taipei Part 2

Sunday was the last day for some of our group because they had to be back by Monday. Finally, it was sunny out, so a few of the other people and I went back to Taipei 101 to finally experience it when there was a view. When we finally got up to the observation area the view was very cool. We could see out over the entire city including the mountains to the east. We even got to go up to the outdoor observation deck. It was very windy and because of that they only had some of the roof open. This wind is the main reason for the dampener. Without the dampener the building would start to sway uncontrollably from the wind.

After Taipei 101 those of us that had a flight left for the airport. I headed to a nearby town of Dan Shui by myself because everyone else was too tired. Very conveniently, the MRT took me right there. Dan Shui is a town on the coast of Taiwan. I spent most of the afternoon exploring the town. They had a cool riverside market that had lots of locals enjoying the day. I tried some very interesting seashell snacks. A bunch of small shells are cooked in a mixture of spices and tasty sauce. To eat the shells you put it in your mouth and then suck the meet out, so you get to taste from the shell and the meat inside.

Tree I was sure had the Geocache

I also attempted to Geocache but without a  GPS I was unsuccessful, oh well. I did get to enjoy a very scenic sunset over the ocean.

After sunset I headed back to downtown to meet up with the lazy people. We met at a mall to go to a restaurant called Din Tai Fung. It is a very good restaurant with locations throughout the world, but their original restaurant is in Taipei. We ate some very good dim sum food. After dinner it was late so we headed back to the hostel.

Monday morning, our last day there, Rens and I headed to the Taipei zoo. Just like everything else in Taipei it was reachable by the MRT. This zoo is probably the best zoo I have been to in Asia.  All of the enclosures were high quality and the animals 

were in much better conditions that the other zoos I have seen. The location in the mountainous area was also very cool. Sadly though we didn’t have much time at the zoo because we had to catch our flight back to Hong Kong, so shortly after we headed back to the hostel to collect our baggage and head for the airport.

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Instead of using the bus we had used to get from the airport we chose to use another form of transportation, high speed rail. This is a very fast train (350 km/h) that goes from one end of Taiwan in 2 hours. The train was very cool, very comfortable and very fast. Oddly though the train station in Taoyuan is not very close to the airport, but thankfully they have an easy shuttle bus to the airport.

Zoo animals

We waited for awhile in the airport for our flight and then got on the flight to head back to Hong Kong. The flight was even better than the flight there. If your seat is in the first 33 rows you essentially get business class seats but for no additional cost. I got an almost fully reclining chair with a footrest and of course meal service for the short flight. So if you get the chance fly EVA air.

High Speed Train

Overall Taipei was very cool. I liked the group of people I traveled with and I enjoyed the activities we did. I really like the culture in Taiwan. It is very orderly and nice. I also like that I was able to start to use my Mandarin skills and was able to pick out words in people’s conversations, or do things like ask someone how much something costs (Zhe ge doushou qian?). One thing that I was disappointed about was I didn’t get a chance to explore the more natural parts of Taiwan that are south of Taipei. If I ever get a chance to return I think I would go explore the mountainous areas to the south that are easily reachable using the high speed rail.