Taipei 101 - Intro to Taiwan

Remember that Intro to Whatever course you took in college?  Remember how you hardly paid attention to the lecture because what you really wanted to do was check out other students in the room?  Especially that cute guy or girl that sat just behind you on your left making it incredibly awkward to turn around and get a good look?  Learning about Taipei on our own for a couple days has been the perfect opportunity to take in the scenes and people without the requisite tour guide filling our heads with trivia and commerce.  We just sat on a bus as it crossed town and the river into New Taipei, and as we rode, we watched whatever caught our interest.

On our exploratory bus ride we rode past universities teaming with young people.  We rode past an urban park that looked more like a tree farm than forest evenly spaced with props holding them up. And not a single person in sight.  Turning a corner, Jenny pointed out the window and up.  Reaching high above all the other buildings was a glass skyscraper with tapered layers like a palm trunk or sugar cane stem.  At the top of the tower a long spire reached even further like a tendril stretching to the sun.  Taipei 101 has one more floor than the Sears Tower back in Chicago where we started our flight.

Near the end of the bus line we stepped out into the sweltering heat and walked down the street to the nearest soup shop.  We met a guy who wanted to sell us real estate, we ate noodles and soup and then walked back through thick humidity to the bus stop.  With nowhere better to go, we found a bus to take us to the Taipei 101 tower.  Crowds of shoppers and tourists filled the halls between boutiques selling Chanel, Rolex and McDonalds.  Once in the tower we could only go down a level!  There we found people queueing - a one and a half wait - to go up the elevators.  We decided not to wait and headed back to find a bus home.

In the hotel room Soleil and Jenny collapsed from jet lag exhaustion and sunk into the soft beds.  I had napped on the bus so I decided to go out again to look for adapters to charge up our gadgets.  I walked along the busy street, people were coming out as the burning sun set.  As I walked, I shamelessly looked people in the eye and began to recognize a great deal of uniqueness in each - tall, short, thin, round, youthful, wizened, calm and aggressive.  They all began to sparkle like gems in my sleep deprived eyes.  In that magical moment I was reminded that we are surrounded by family and friends wherever we go.  Taiwan seems to be just such a place.