Month: January 2013

The Taipei 101 tower in downtown Taipei city was the world’s tallest inhabited building at the time it opened in 2004. I had the chance to visit the area a few times, first to walk about, then for the Xmas experience, and finally to check out the heights and sights up there from the 73rd floor, where the Google office is located.

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There is a huge, luxury shopping mall inside the tower and many lifts that feel like smooth, silent airplanes going up. It’s quite a thrill, nicely crowning the already exciting walk around Xinyi’s modern neighborhood. Absolutely the number 1 urban experience in Taipei!

The winter’s cold temperature settled in, yet still in double digits. Certain areas of Danshuei and Xinyi were decorated for Christmas (even though it isn’t a local tradition nor a holiday), making it fun to revisit the Taipei 101 area.

Christmas Day itself turned out to be both delicious and sunny, while new year’s eve offered great fireworks right outside our door in Danshuei! We even lit up a couple of sky lanterns, which flew into the dark night sky, propelled by fire. Reportedly, 800.000 people gathered around the Tower 101 on this night — some of which wearing diapers to deal with the difficulty of leaving the area and finding WCs!