Taipei Experience

Taipei is a wonderful city. It is a bit more spread out than Shanghai. There is one land mark skyscraper in Taipei that used to be the largest in the world. Here are a few pictures that I have of the building. Can you guess which one is the imitator?

You guessed it. This is Taipei 101, graham cracker style. This one was actually inside the building on the fourth floor. I learned that the higher you go the more expensive things get. All the shops on the fourth floor were prestigous stores like Cartier, Versace and Prada. On the first floor there was a swatch store and a seven eleven. We ate lunch on the fifth floor. It was a restaurant similar to PF Changs in quality with more authentic Chinese food. It was excellent. We also ate dinner on the 85th floor. We didn't realize it would be so expensive. Steve had to take out a second mortgage on his home in California to pay for the dinner. I think the food was better on the fifth floor. The view was spectacular though. If ever in Taipei and want the best view, go to the 85th floor and visit the restaurant "Diamond Tony's 85". Then go strait the the Mens room (sorry ladies). The urinals back up the the window and you can look straight down while managing your business.

Here are a couple of monuments in Taipei. The most visited site is the National Museum which we were not able to visit due to lack of time (I am here for work). We were able to visit some of these other places though during the evening which were pretty cool to look at.

This is Chiang Kai-Shek (CKS) Memorial. After WW2, China had some political unrest between the ruling party and the communist party. Well as we all know, the Communist party under General Mao won. The former ruling party led by Chiang Kai-Shek fled to Taipei and formed the Republic of China. They also took a huge amount of the Chinese national Treasures which are still hidden in the mountains of Taiwan and displayed in the National Museum. Which government philosphy was right? Well Taiwan is known as the biggest conductor producer in the world. They do not condone the DVD piracy and other trademark infringements as China does and citizens in Taiwan enjoy nearly every freedom we Americans enjoy. China on the other hand is not so free.

Here is the national threater. I dont know how often musicals such as Wicked and Les Mesirables plays here. Still a beautiful building.

Here is my wifes dream come true. A night market that is filled with really cheap goods. I said earlier that the Taiwanese do not condone trademark infringements. All of these cheap goods also have cheap local brands. The knock off Coach purses actually have a tag that says some other brand completey.

There is also the typical fair food that you would find in Minnesota. I found one vendor that carried everything on a stick (reminded me on Minnesota). Watch out for the stinky tofu though. It reminded me of a diaper in the sun for a couple of days and then pressed into a semi edible food that you eat off of a dare (I did not try it as I do not go for dares).