Taipei

It's certainly been an interesting experience for me to spend a week in Taipei. I lived here for 3 months in 1989. Then for a full year in 1993-94. Since then, I've only been back once, for just a few days in 2005, and didn't have a chance to experience the city (other than a quick visit to Taipei 101).

Taipei has of course changed a lot in 16 years. There's now a rapid transit system, which is fast, efficient, and comfortable. The city is more sophisticated and internationalized. But it very much feels the same way it did when I last lived here.

It's still extremely ugly. I know no other city that seems to entirely lack a single attractive piece of architecture. Not only are the buildings hideous to start with, they seem designed to age poorly, to attract and show grime.

Taipei still smells like

• incense
• auto exhaust
• stinky tofu
• wet cardboard
• steamed meat

Young guys still ride motorbikes wearing flip-flops.

When I was an exchange student at National Taiwan University, the main street nearby (Roosevelt Road) was torn up for the new subway line they were building. Construction was loud and went on through the night. Traffic was a nightmare.

As I walked from the airport bus a few blocks to my hotel, I found that the street my hotel was on was torn up for the new subway line they were building. Construction would be loud and go on through the night. Traffic was a nightmare.

"Taipei Rapid Transit - Quality First"

As I recall, signs like this used to say "Safety First". I don't know if the change from safety to quality should be taken as a good sign or a bad sign.

Here's a brief scene of traffic near my hotel. Note the huge numbers of motorbikes, the noise, the chaos. Note also the diagonal crosswalks.

The first few days I stayed in a really neat little boutique hotel that would not have seemed out of place in New York City. It was called Dandy.

The hotel was decorated in a spare modernist style, with the rounded rectangle as the main decorate theme.

My room was small, but pretty fancy.  The double blinds were very effective against the tropical sun.

I never did figure out what that white thing in the corner was.  Very heavy metal object.  I think maybe some sort of safety device.  Perhaps it could be extended out the window and used to lower oneself to safety in event of emergency?

A condom was provided in the room.

The Chinese says "Digital Condom".  I don't figure that.

This is the view out my window in the morning.  It seems a very typical Taipei scene.  The owner of the little breakfast shop across the street is out in his shirtsleeves watering his plants with a hose.

My first evening I wanted to get good beef noodle soup.  On the advice of the hotel staff, I went to a nearby place called "Old Zhang" (founded 1958).

One of the great things about Asian airports is that they have fantastic bus service.  Big comfortable limousine-style express buses run frequently from the big airports into the city.  They don't cost much and they get you where you need to go.  When I got to the bus ticket counter I saw that the bus I needed to get me into Taipei was leaving in about 2 minutes.  I pulled out the 500-dollar bill (about US $15) that I had remember to bring with me from Seattle -- I had brought it home from Taipei five years earlier -- to pay for the ticket.  "I can't take this," the woman said, "It's old.  We don't take those bills any more."  Fortunately, I had also changed some yen into Taiwan dollars at Kansai airport, just on a hunch.  I was able to buy my bus ticket and run onto the bus just before it left.

This is the bill I had tried to use:

One of my errands was to go to a bank and exchange it for a new bill.  This is what I got for it:

Looks like the main difference is the silver security stripe. Front and back images are the same.