Land of Oz

Taipei 101

The building can be seen from almost anywhere in Taipei. At night it's lit with 8 bars of varying colors depicting a bamboo motif and at the top there's often the ideogram for Spring in brilliant blue. One third of the way up there are circles - supposed to signify money - lit up. It would be nice if each side had a different design or character so you tell what side of the building you were on.

508 meters. That's how tall the building is. We went to the top - or at least the 85 floor observation center. It was a bit smoggy/cloudy, but you could still see a long way. The elevator is pretty amazing - 80 floors in 37 seconds and smooth as could be. While we were up there looking out the window, two guys in a little basket went by outside the window - now there's a job I wouldn't care for. How you'd like to be out in the wind, almost 500 meters from the ground in something about the size of a bathtub.

Inside the building design varies between old mechanical art deco and the latest in clean design. The stores are mostly high end and there's an open cafe area that is about 8 stories high with some coffee shops and ice cream stands and small cafes scattered around. Right across the street is the Warner Village where western tastes hold sway. This building is pretty cool (and TALL).

If you wondering why these posts haven't been showing, I had some problems finding the language switch. I lost a couple of posts guessing at the Chinese prompts and decided to wait until I could get to the English version.