It's still raining pretty steadily this week in Taipei, but we had a brief reprieve on Friday, so we hopped on the MRT metro to the Xinyi District to get some close up views of Taipei 101. There it is, behind the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall!
Sun Yat-Sen was the founder of the Republic of China. His party overthrew the imperial Qing dynasty in mainland China and replaced it with a republic government in 1911. Fun fact: he was educated in Hawaii in the 1880s and was a student of American history and political philosophy which influenced his ideas for reform in China. Although Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule while he lived, he is now considered the “Father of the Nation” since it was his party, the ROC (under Chiang Kai Shek), that succeeded the Japanese as the ruling government of the island after World War II.
Unfortunately the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall is under renovation so we didn’t visit the interior. But I really enjoyed strolling around the surrounding Zhongshan park and gardens and watching the locals taking advantage of the rain-free morning to do some gentle Tai Chi and some other kind of more jazzercise-type group exercise (I wish I could figure out the name of it, maybe Yuanji Dance... anyway, the energetic elderly ladies doing it gave us friendly waves and a few cheery “Ni hao!”s as we walked past).
From there we headed to Taipei 101 tower, built in 2004 and briefly the world’s tallest building at 1667 feet tall (the Burj Khalifa surpassed it in 2010, and it now ranks as only the eleventh highest). As the name implies, there are 101 floors, with a 360-degree panoramic indoor viewing deck on the 89th floor or an outdoor skywalk on the 101st floor for people who have no fear of heights. The 89th floor is about $20 USD per person but we discovered another option is to just buy a coffee at the cafe on the 88th floor.
It was only a limited view from one side of the building but hey - it was a fraction of the price and we got some tasty iced coffees to boot! We also had a chance to peek at the enormous earthquake damper, a pendulum weighing 660 metric tons that acts as a counterweight to offset any swaying during earthquakes or high winds. It's hard to tell from the photo but it is massive!
Riding the elevator in Taipei 101 was a trip, it zipped up to the 88th floor at something like 38 miles an hour and took less than 45 seconds. Another alternative would be to use the Alex Honnold route of free-climbing the outside of the building. That would get you to the top in about 90 minutes.
We did get a workout hiking nearby Elephant Mountain later that morning. The trail was a steep 1.5 kilometers of about 500 oddly-spaced stairs that had me wishing I was back on the elevator!
But the spectacular view of the city was well worth it!
We then took the zippy MRT to Da’an Park, a beautiful green space in the center of Taipei. This weekend was the kickoff of the azalea festival, so there were beautiful flower displays set up throughout the park.
The theme was something to do with boats, so many of the displays had a nautical slant. The hydrangeas were by far my favorite.
We wandered a few more blocks and found the charming Yongkang neighborhood. There were trendy shops and boutiques and we found a great cafe with a cellist/piano duo playing classical music. A fantastic place to relax after walking and hiking nine miles! We have only been here four days and already we have walked 35 miles.
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