Taiwan Continued...........

This picture came out a little blurred, but it was a picture of a house that was literally right off the main street and between a wall and then in a row of houses. The Taiwanese love plants as you can see and are big on putting them wherever they can. This actually ended up being a restaurant and we came upon it again at night and it actually looked even cooler. It was on the way home from our walk from the subway to our hotel, so we got to see it quite a few times.

I took this picture out of the window while I was on the bus coming from the airport. It shows you the trees once again mixed in with the overpass and the parking lot. They are big on trees making everything look nicer and I actually think they have done a good job of it. It makes everything look a little softer instead of a full on concrete jungle, which it really is!

This is a guy that I saw passed out right before you get to the famous Lanshou Temple. He was right out of it. Every culture has these types of scenes, but Korea has a lot more people drunk than Taipei. Another assertion that I became aware of very quickly while I was there. He was actually the only person I saw in that state the whole 5 days I was there.

I saw a lot more handicapped people in Taiwan than I have the whole time I have been in Korea. I don't know why that is, but I think it is because in Korea there is not a lot of acceptance for handicapped people and not a lot of effort put forth to integrate them into society. Taiwan seemed very receptive towards handicapped people. I saw a lot and I mean a lot of people with bad legs or what seemed like stroke-like ailments. Again, not something that I went looking for, it just seemed very transparent.

This picture was taken of two girls in their school uniforms. I asked them if it was okay to take their picture. Didn't want to seem like no pervert or anything. I told them that I wanted to take a picture because they were in their school uniforms. They were obviously quite shy about it, but they let me take the picture and I thanked them for it.

I took this picture as it shows the mixture of old with new. The two buildings are somewhat traditional style, but right in between them is the new 'Nokia' place. Chinese letters either side and English letters with one of the biggest companies in the cellular phone business beside them. Notice again all the scooters. The people are not in the stores by the way. That is parking area, like I mentioned before. There are parking areas like this all over the place, on every street, back alley and side street.






I actually took this picture at the airport in one of the souvenir shops. I just thought that is showed some of the stuff that they sell as traditional souvenirs. You probably could by the same stuff anywhere else in the world and probably cheaper.

One of the positive things about Taiwan also was that everyone on their scotters wore a helmet. Unlike Korea, where nobody wears helmets. This was a picture of a small stall off the main road that sold helmets and bike paraphanalia. They are big into the helmet design. I guess with so many scotters, the helmet can make you feel somewhat unique!!!!!

The drivers on a whole were much better in Taiwan. The taxi drivers didn't ride the brake or accelerator pedal and the bus drivers didn't drive like maniacs. The driving style was very smooth and crossing the road, pedestrians were given the right of the way all of the time, with a lot of courtesy. Sorry that I can't say that in Korea, where cars go first and people are an afterthought.

This is a shot out one of the windows at the top of Taipei 101. It is the tallest building in the world at about 388 meters. It also hosts the world's fastest elevator. It goes from the 5th floor to the 90th floor in approximately 37 seconds. It was a hoot going up it. My ears popped and the whole lot! It was dead smooth though and very cool. There was a picture of the elevator on the inside as a red square and it showed us moving up the floors. Quite a rush, I must say. It is officially entered in the Guiness Book of Records as the world's fastest elevator. This is a good view of a part of Taipei.

The temple once again that we visited. Actually Dave and I managed to lose each other. He ended up getting pulled aside by some monk or something and I couldn't find him. I guess he was still inside, but I didnt' look diligently enough. I waited outside for about 40 minutes and guessed he had gone off somewhere.... don't know why I thought that! Anyway, we ended up meeting each other about 3 hours later at the hotel. I had got a taxi back there and left a note on our luggage, which was in the front lobby, to tell him that I would be back there about 3pm. I checked in a couple of times in between and I guess we just missed each other an hour earlier. I ended up getting a hair cut and eating some very spicy curry at a restaurant downstairs from the hotel that we had booked out of.

One of the cool things is that even when you check out of a hotel, they will still let you keep your luggage in the front lobby. They give you a ticket and just throw a net over everyone's luggage. That way I guess they figure they have a better chance to get you to stay another night, if you want to.

This is another cool picture that shows how poor some of the people there are. Someone actually lives in this place, believe it or not! As far as I could see, there was no middle-class there in Taipei. There was rich and poor, very poor. This was taken on a side-street not far from the main road. We walked down it and also saw a small make-shift temple where a woman was burning the yellow pages with all the prayers on them in a traditional pot for the wishes to come true. The Taiwanese are very big on those kinds of spiritual things.

Another picture of a parking lot full of scooters. You can see more clearly from this pic just how many there are. This is one of many many lots similar to it all over the city.

This is the best shot that I could get of Taipei 101 from the outside. You can see they have tried to integrate the design as a kind of traditional Chinese building. It is an engineering accomplishment and something that Taipei is very proud of. There is a hall attached to the side of the building and across the street a very American style mall with shops and coffee shops outside. Dave and I had a coffee at the Starbucks right across from this building and hence that is where the photo was taken.

A photo of a fruit market on the main street. I thought it looked so colourful that I had to take a picture of it. They had Korean pears in the store! Some nifty looking fruit and Dave bought a couple of apples and peaches from there.

A picture of the mall that I was mentioning across from Taipei 101. We were sitting right next to this stall at the Starbucks. It was all Hang Ten products. This was the main entrance to the mall, which we didn't bother our arses to go in of course. Could do that anywhere in the world. Nothing special about shopping in an American style mall in Taiwan. Believe me!!!!!!!

This was a shot taken out of the hotel room window. The second hotel that we stayed at. It was much nicer and cleaner than the first one and about the same price. They had a fairly good breakfast too. It was away from the main downtown, but close enough to the subway and a few other areas.

This is a picture of "Snake Alley" which is part of the night market in an area close to the temple that we visited. It has all kinds of delicacies, from chicken's butt holes to snake soup and other exotic foods. We didn't like it that much as it was a bit stinky and dirty looking. Every other store was a sex toy shop too. The shopping at the night market was very disappointing and there were not really any good bargains or if there were, the stuff was shite. Nothing we expected from Taiwan. "Made in Taiwan" we thought would be a great place to shop........ not!!!!!!!

A monk on the subway. We saw quite a few of these all around Taipei. We were on the subway at least about 20 times. We got to know the subway very well and Dave was an expert with his beloved map.

Some more photos of the streets and the buildings and the traffic. Enough for now anyway. Don't really have that many more good photos, but Dave has a few that I am sure I can borrow. He had his camera with him 24/7, I however had mine sparingly on my person.