Taipei
August 22-26, 2009
Temple Colors
Send
an engineer of a high-tech company to a high-tech city, and what do you get?
Pictures of temples. It seems it takes bright colors to make me pull out the
camera when I’m jet lagged, and these temples provide the color. Longshan is
one of the most famous temples in Taipei and always busy, while Qingshan is
more quiet, with staff that has enough time on their hands to remind me repeatedly
that there are three floors to see.
And More
Of course there’s more to see in Taipei. For the first time, I get to use the subway, and it works very well. Interesting are the plastic tokens that are used for single trips – they actually hide an RFID chip to record their value. Impressive also how travelers line up to the sides of the doors and let folks on the train get off first before boarding – that doesn’t work so well in many other places.
Yangmingshan,
the mountain north of the Taipei, provided a good hiking opportunity and some
nice views of the city before we got enveloped first by clouds and later by
sulphuric fumes. At the Shilin night market, we found some tasty food, even
though we had to use a Japanese menu for lack of an English one (kana are easier
to read than Chinese characters!). And of course we also tried the famous (and
still good) dumplings at Din Tai Fung and the huge shaved ice with fruits at
Ice Mönster, without which a visit to Taipei apparently cannot be considered
complete.