My first day in Taipei started at 5:45 am CST. Would have been nice to sleep a bit longer, but I'm glad Mom and I weren't waking up at 3:00 in the morning. Got ready and headed downstairs for breakfast. We are staying at the Regent Taipei Hotel and the buffet breakfast here is incredible. Best ever. Lot's of Chinese, Western, and Japanese breakfast choices. Everything is fresh and beautiful.
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| View from our table. |
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| Part of the room. |
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| Breakfast round 1! Cornedbeef hash, bacon, hashbrown, steamed bun, dumpling and omlette! |
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| Round 2! Papaya, pineapple, watermelon, passion fruit. Sounds like a Heather Blush tune! Oh and some salmon. |
Dad had to go to work for a meeting so Mom and I had the first part the day to ourselves. We stopped for a moments rest after lunch, then wandered the busy Taiepei streets. We got some coffee and spent sometime in the green space by our hotel. There are not a lot of parks that I've seen so far, so we're fortunate to have a lovely green space close by, which you can see in the pics.
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| Little department store across from the hotel. Mom bought shoes. |
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| Taipei 101 waaaay in the distance there. |
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| A chain of coffee shops where they roast their own beans. |
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| This guy must have been here for hours smoking and dancing. |
By lunchtime I was starting to feel kind of funny. I was dizzy, nauseous, and my hands were shaky. We were looking for lunch, but I have to admit that it was a bit intimidating. Mom tried to go into a few busy lineups, but I was so nervous about communicating that I backed out. We went down another street back to our hotel, and based by a ramen house. It was bright and had lots of pictures. We went in and sat down and looked at the menu. Our waitress didn't speak English, but one of the cooks clearly did! I was a shocked and a little disappointed with myself at how much relief I felt just being in the presence of someone who spoke English. The food was tasty, the beer was cold, another great success!
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| Best ramen ever. Broth flavour explosion! |
Mom and I were pretty draggy after that. We met Dad at the hotel and had a lay around for an hour or so. Then it was up and at-em to go see the Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world!
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| Big! |
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| Not so big right? |
Pictures will never do this building justice. I almost fell down dizzy looking up at it.
We took the MRT to get to the area. Busy but not overwhelming. So far I haven't experienced any sort of culture shock. I even managed to find a Bobbi Brown to replace the gel liner I forgot back home!
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| Up to the observation deck! |
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| And it was fast! 84 floors in 37 seconds! |
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| Just in time for sunset! |
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| Facing East. |
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| Winnipeg made the cut! Never knew it was that far south of Vancouver though... |
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| From the observation level, 91st floor. |
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| Parentals! |
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| One of the dampers that keeps the building stable. |
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| How it works! |
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| A damper baby! These little guys guide you through the 101. Adorable. |
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| Grocery store find! |
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| Lot's of Roots stores! |
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| HEY THERE ALBERTA! |
Attached to the Taipei 101 is a shopping mall. Of course. We wound our way through it to find the famous Din Tai Fung. Mom and I weren't entirely hungry so we didn't order much. For as much as I've ready about the dumplings at this restaurant, I wasn't super impressed. The wontons were delicious, but everything else was so-so. And another example of being exhausted and forgetting to take photos. Dang.
We took a cab back. It was terrifying. More on that another time.
The shoes I wore on the plane weren't the best for walking, and at the time I could feel some rubbing happening on my left foot. By the end of the night I had a full blown blister. Thankfully Dr. Dad was there for some needle and tape work.
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| Travel isn't always glamerous. |
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| Dr. Dad to the rescue! |
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| Ouch! |
After that it was rest and early snoring from Mom. I was asleep by 9 too. More adventures tomorrow!
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