Friday, September 24, 2010

Taipei, Day 2

9/22/2010:  After sleeping in and taking a shower, I took a walk over to Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world.  As you can see below, it is hard to miss.

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I walked around the mall attached to the building for awhile, then eventually found where you can buy tickets for the elevator to one of the top floors of Taipei 101.  The elevator ride was incredibly smooth as it reached a speed of 55 feet per second.  After reaching the 89th floor, I walked around the building and looked out of the windows at the urban landscape, surrounded by mountains and the ocean in the distance.  On the 88th and 89th floors, I got a close look at the mass damper.

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After Taipei 101, I followed some people into a very large bookstore, supposedly the largest in Taiwan.  I then took the metro to Shilin Station, where I walked around the night market area.  It was not busy yet, but it would be when I returned that night.  From Shilin Station, I took a 30 minute bus ride to the National Palace Museum, which holds some of the best items from Beijing’s Palace Museum, which were moved out of Beijing due to the Japanese invasion and out of the mainland due to the Communist takeover.  I only had about 1.5 hours there before it closed at 6:30, but I think I made it to every exhibit.

Back at Shilin, the night market was in full swing.

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