Taipei 101
Taipei 101 was designed specifically to be the tallest building in the world. In a few months from now it will be trumped by almost 1,000 feet by Dubai’s extremely ridiculous 160 floor ‘Burj’ officially in a month (January 2010) but when I went it was still considered officially the “tallest building in the world.”
I didn’t know much about Taipei before I went but I figured it to be similar to the large Asian cities I’ve been to such as Bangkok, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong but it seemed very different. I don’t know if it was just because Taipei 101 was so tall or ont but it seemed like Taipei only had 2 buildings over 50 stories, one being 101 and the other being on the other side of the city.
I thought it was a cool way to bring tourists into the city but an expat I talked to on the plane likened Taipei 101 to a giant unnecessary phallus of Taipei. I was just on a weekend trip so the only thing I cared about was to see it, take a few pictures of it and from the top floor with my Nikon D90.
Getting Close: Walking to Cloud Shrouded Taipei 101 on Xinyi Road
Getting Taipei 101
You may be surprised to know that even though Taipei 101 is probably the city and country’s biggest tourist attraction, many taxi drivers still didn’t understand me when I asked them to take me there. Like I said in the excerpt for this post, Taipei 101 sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the Taipei skyline so pointing may be the best way to tell a cab driver to take you there.
Luckily for me, there was no need to bust through the language barrier to find Taipei 101 or even use any form of public transit. I got lucky because it is on the same street (Xinyi Road) and is comfortable walking distance from the very likable hotel I was staying Dolamanco Hotel.
The straight walk from the hotel to Taipei 101 passed by numerous bakeries and I stopped at a street stand to get a couple random buns. I tried to order pork buns but of course I was not understood and they just gave me a bunch of various item filled buns. Needless to say the hot steamy snacks were nice on a misty Taiwan day. I bought a timer remote for my camera in Taipei’s ‘Camera District’ earlier in the day and I had a chance to take my first time lapse sequence (below) which in hindsight I should have done the math and took more pictures, but I still got a pretty cool 10 seconds nonetheless.
Shopping
Upon entering Taipei 101 from the ground floor all you can do is shop and it’s not cheap. You will find every high end store you can think of from Emporio Armani to Gucci to Prada. You will also find Diesel, Calvin Klein, Nike and less expensive options but NOTHING in Taipei 101 would be considered bargain shopping.
On the bottom floor there is a food court which looked pretty good. I say looked pretty good because I skipped it and went straight to the bakery. There is a bakery which you will see as soon as you go down the escalator from the Nike store which I found everything I ate and drank to be delicious and fairly priced. Since I didn’t want to overpay for stuff I didn’t need, after filling up on delicious baked goods and freshly brewed coffee I decided to make my way to the observation deck.
Looking up to Tower from inside Shopping Area
Line Wait and Fastest Elevator in the World
Taipei 101 boasts the fastest elevator in the world which gets all the way from the 5th to the 89th floor observation deck in only 39 seconds. The elevator was very cool with space graphics and sound effects as well as a graphic readout of the speed which whizzed to the top very quick which was nice as I was stuffed in there like a sardine.
Before I could get up to the fastest elevator in the world I had to get through what maybe was the rudest line in the world. They told me as I purchased the ticket which cost 400 TWD ($13 USD) that there was a 30 minute wait which wasn’t bad until I got in line. As I stood patiently in line at least 2 dozen people rudely pushed past me, or went under the barricade to get in front of me. I don’t know if they were all together or something but I was getting pretty agitated. After around 30 minutes of getting pushed around waiting in line, it was finally my turn to get up to the 89th floor observation deck.
Continue… Taipei 101 Part II
Last 5 posts by Mike Behnken
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