Taiwan - The Final Installement

101 Floors. 509 meters tall. Not as good as Petronas Towers though

Halfway to Taipei, Sab pulled out the camera and asked me to explain why we were actually on the train. 15 minutes later I had finished my monologue and really looking forward to leaving this country that had given us nothing but trouble. 4 hours after we left Tainan we arrived in Taipei to find ourselves rooming at a shitty hostel which was located at the end of an alleyway in downtown Taipei. The place was downright shocking. even for us and we have stayed in some pretty shitty places before. The clients living at this place were actually living there. The shortest stayer had been there two months. Sure it was cheap but it’s not exactly conducive to a home environment what with the pissed American and the stoned Canadian residing there as well.

The next morning Sab woke me up by pointing to an adjoining bed where a bony white guy was meditating. He didn’t move an inch for an hour as Sab and I just looked and pointed at him in amazement. WE got ready and headed down to the worlds tallest building. Taipei 101 is difficult to find. Sure it’s the world’s tallest building but with the concrete landscape that is Taipei it is very easy to find yourself lost in the canyons that are the streets of this mega city. We eventually found it and on first impression it wasn’t as impressive as the Petronas Towers. Now they were amazing but this tower seemed to have no purpose other than national pride. I liked it and went for a look on the outside observatory 390 meters above the ground but all I could really see was smog.

Later that day we secured flights for 8am the next morning but seen that the airport is 5okm out of the city, we weren’t prepared to stay another night at the hotel. We decided to find a place closer to the airport but with prices for a room going for about 80 Aussie dollars for the night it was way way out of our range…so we slept on the departure hall floor that night. When I say we I mean me. We were so desperate to leave this hellhole that one night sleeping on a cold cold floor at an airport was justice enough considering the events of the previous days.

I’ve never felt so excited to be going back to Hong Kong. My second home