Taipei: land of the big dome ... and the big Santa

Well, we took a trip to Taipei over the weekend - a 4 hour bus ride from Sinying (we'll just say it wasn't excessively comfortable). Luckily, Jake is a highly intelligent individual and bought us a Taipei map beforehand, because Taipei is huge.

I lost count of how many Westerners we saw in the city. In order to understand the amazingness of that, you have to realize that we've been living in Yanshuei for the past 3 months where only a few foreigners reside. So, seeing someone who isn't Taiwanese is extremely rare for us - and, furthermore, having a fluent English conversation with someone other than eachother is a pretty non-existent possibility.



We stayed at a hotel in the Ximen district of Taipei which was an area with shop on top of shop. During the nighttime, it was completely crammed with people (and was obviously the "happening" place). We spotted a noodle shop that was so busy we couldn't even see the counter - but, there were no places to sit(many of the food places here are more like food stands and not actual restaurants)and so their customers were just standing all over the street sipping from their soup bowls - it was an interesting sight. When we woke up the next morning, however, the streets were almost completely empty (like the above photo) and most of the shops were closed - it was quite a transformation from the bustle of the night before.











(above 5 photos) Ximen at night. I thought the Starbucks on top of the 7-11 was an ineresting combo. By the way, Taiwan is overrun with 7-11 stores and I'm not sure what the obsession is - but they're good for 2 a.m. snacks.





(above) You can see the Taipei 101 building on the right.

















It was a bit tricky finding our hotel - we ended up getting directions from a few police officers who were roaming the streets. As it turns out, our hotel occupied the 7th, 8th and 9th floor of a building - meaning that it was hard to spot from the street - especially since the ground floor level was a massage parlor (above).



This was easily the most awesome Starbucks I've ever been to (above) because it was 4 stories. Brilliant.




Kaohsiung has Dream Mall and Taipei has Living Mall (above is the dome side entrance).







An escalator connecting the dome building to the other building inside the mall (above).



Now that's a cool elevator.





Though the mall had very interesting and intricate architecture, it really wasn't that great for shopping. In all, we preferred Dream Mall (see last post).



(above) A really big Santa in the mall.







(above) The mall food court.


That's all for this post. Until next time.

traipsing Dream Mall = sore feet

"Kaohsiung is the most dense and the second largest city in Taiwan, with a population around 1.51 million ... and will be the host of the 2009 World Games," says Wikipedia. We made a trip Kaohsiung a few weeks ago and spent two nights exploring the city.

We took a bus to Kaohsiung, and then took an MRT all around the city. Below is a picture of the MRT station - A train came on each side, one headed South and one headed North.



Riding the MRT was a fairly awkward ride - sometimes we were crammed right against the locals, who stared unfalteringly at the two Americans in their midst.







(above 2 photos) The "Dome of Light" ceiling at the Kaohsiung MRT station featured several different scenes. It was quite an awesome sight after having emerged from the underground.

(above) Jake made the wise decision of purchasing a map of the city so that we'd have some notion of where to go - it was quite handy.



(above) Scooters in action! Exciting, yes?



(above) This is a building we saw from afar. When we got close enough to read the front, it turned out to be a huge movie theatre.

While in Kaohsiung, we spotted a large building with what looked like a Ferris wheel on its roof. Since one doesn't often see Ferris wheels on top of buildings, we decided to investigate. We soon learned that the 11-story building was the famous Dream Mall and is Taiwan's biggest shopping mall. Sometimes referred to as "shopping paradise," it's number five on the list of the world's largest shopping malls.



(above) Entrance to the mall.

The Dream Mall website says this, "It [Dream Mall] contains two major buildings: a fish-shaped building and the main body, and an inner street that resembles the 5th Aveanue in New York meanders between the two buildings. The shopping mall is planned under the four major themes of water, flowers, nature, and the universe." Indeed, the light fixtures and decorations of each floor represented these 4 themes - and water was used through the landscaping of the mall.



(above) A small waterfall inside the mall.



(above) Looking down into a cafe area which had small pond-type areas and a live band playing music.



(above) right before entering the mall.





(above) Fashion show inside the mall.



(above) We ate at TGI Friday's (which is just as good in Taiwan as in America). The mall had a few familiar stores - including TOYS'R'US and even a World Gym.

The roof of the building was a small children's theme park and featured a Hello Kitty Ferris wheel.



(above) The Ferris Wheel at night.



(above) A view of the city from the roof.





(above) The entrance of the small had a small pond type area with random glass spheres and squares that were lit up.

While in Kaohsiung, we also visited a day market - shown in the following 2 photos.





We visited a night market as well (following 5 photos) which was much more crowded than the night markets we've been too previously. It was so crowded that we could barely walk more than 2 steps at a time - everyone was basically shuffling along, while scooters tried to force their way through the throng.



(above) A vendor selling raw meat.



(above) Lobster tank.



(above) I don't quite remember what this was ... it was just a random vendor along the street.



(above) A rare open space admist the market crowd.





(above) We ate at a "BBQ" restaurant. The food was good, but everything was piled high with onion slivers - I'd never seen so many onions used in one dish before.



(above) This bag of betel nuts was left on a sidewalk in Kaohsiung, and I was glad since I've wanted a picture of them. Betel nuts are the Taiwan equivalent of chewing tobacco. Wikipedia says the following about the betel nuts:

"Areca nuts are chewed with betel leaves for their effects as a mild stimulant, causing a hot sensation in the body, heightened alertness and sweating ... Regular betel chewing causes the teeth and gums to be stained orange/red, a color that was formerly considered attractive in certain cultures."

When we first arrived in Taiwan, we saw small glass booths (what we dubbed "glass boxes") along certain streets. Each box featured a scantily dressed woman. Later, we learned that these woman are called "betel nut girls."

"Dressed at times in little more than a string bikini, young Taiwanese women sit alongside freeways and roadsides in a clear glass booth (often covered by flashing neon lights), hawking small packages of Betel Nut to passerbys & truck drivers," says eslisland.com.

Well, that's all for this post. As always, thanks for reading.