Day 19 - Taipei 101, The World's Tallest Building

Today’s Programme
Morning	Ending Ceremony / Learn the result exhibition
Afternoon	Taipei MRT Trip / Taipei 101 / Taipei Astronomical Museum
Evening
Hotel	Armed Forces Hero House, Taipei

I woke up with a small problem in my throat. I couldn’t really breathe too (but this was because of the dust, I think.) The breakfast was the bread and milk tea from 7-11. They couldn’t provide food in the restaurant for us. This was good for me ‘cos I was really bored of the Taiwanese breakfast. We had Ending Ceremony on the first floor of the Hero house, where we stayed. The stage was big. The chairs were arranged into four sets for each group. There was a display table closed to the door where the work products we did were shown. My paper-fan was on the table too. We had a seat for a couple of minutes, then the OCAC Committee came. We met them once on the Opening ceremony. This time they spoke shortly. They also showed a Chinese newspaper that had our pictures on it. I thought it was a normal newspaper, but it was the OCAC newspaper. After they finished talking, we had 2 shows from each group and a show from Dui Zhang (group leaders). The OCAC Committees left after the shows.


After the Ending Ceremony was over, all of us moved to the MRT - XiMen station which was very closed to the Hero House. The Fu Dao Yuans and we, using an One-Day pass for the whole group, got on the MRT to Taipei City Hall station to walk to the world’s tallest building, “Taipei 101”. It is 508 meters height with 101 floors. There’s also the world’s fastest elevator that moves with a speed of 1010 meter/minutes. The name of the building was intended to be a mixture of digit 1 and 0 which refer to binary numbers of the digital world. The building is pretty far from the station. The Fu Dao Yuan gave us NTD100 (again) to buy lunch. We bought our lunch from the Taipei 101 Food Center. The cost of the food was expensive as the building was like high-class shopping mall. The money they gave wasn’t enough to buy food there. I had to add my money to buy food and drink. After we were full, no one wanted to go to the observawith me. I decided to go there alone.

To get to the top of the building, I had to go to the fifth floor where the ticket booth is. The ticket costs NTD350 which was reasonable for me (but some people told me later that we may get the discount from showing the program’s ID card). After getting the ticket, I queued up to hop onto the world’s fastest elevator. The sign in the elevator looked great. There was a simulating picture showing the height level we currently were. The ceiling of the elevator imitates the real sky. It took only about 38 seconds to reach the 89th floor, the Indoor Observatory (This is the number written there, but it was actually 42 seconds in total as I counted the time for opening the elevator doors) If you want the Audio Guide, you may get it by leaving your passport, hotel key, or the sum of NTD 1,000 as a deposit. The Audio Guide looks like a big telephone. You can just press the number of the site you are.

There is also the world’s biggest passive wind damper with a diameter of 5.5 meters and a weight of 660 metric tons which is used to make a balance for the building during an earthquake. (My camera is poor, it was too dark to get a good picture. This picture is from the TV presentation.)

There is a service to create a certificate stating that you’ve been visited the building, including the picture of you in front of the building (Photoshop). You may get it in 15 minutes for NTD350.

There is also the cool post area. You can buy nice postcard and stamp there, then write the receiver and stamp the sign you want. There are 3 stamps-- Family, Friends, and Lover. The mailbox is divided into 3 boxes just like the stamp.


I bought another ticket that costs NTD100 to walk to the Outdoor Observatory on the 91th floor. I thought I could go out of the building and get the scary feeling but it was like I was in jail. (see the picture) There were security guards around the floor because the 92nd – 100th floor are the Communication station where the access is forbidden.

From Taipei 101, we walked back to the MRT station and went to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. There are Chinese-style buildings in the front and a big white building with a blue roof from far sight. I walked to the white-blue building. It took long time to reach it. The building was so big. There were a lot of steps from the floor to the building. I climbed to the hall. There is a statue of the Taiwanese late president Chiang Kai Shek. The statue was extremely big. There were also the guards to protect the statue. There was also a changing ceremony. From the hall we could go down to the ground floor to visit the exhibitions related to CKS. I saw the elevator but I didn’t want to wait for it, so I walked down. It was my mistake walking down the steps alone. I felt like I was in an old castle. I saw nothing but the steps. The route was extremely long. I paniced ‘cos it seemed like there was no exit. It was like more than 4-5 floors until I reached the exhibition hall. There were lots of things displayed at the exhibition. There was a nice souvenir shop too, but I only took pictures of it, then left because I had to rush as it was almost meeting time.

We took a group picture, and then hopped on the MRT to the JianTan station where the ShiLin Night Market is. (There’s also the ShiLin station, but getting out at JianTan station is closer to the market than ShiLin station.) We looked for the food first because it was very late. Finally we got a yummy hot-pot with special chili paste. I then looked for the shop where I could make a name stamp. We finally got a shop where I got the final price at NTD700 for 3 stamps.

It needed an hour to finish the stamps. I didn’t want more shopping, so I left and asked Oum to get it for me. I then caught the MRT to the Taipei Main Station because I wanted to buy MP3 CDs (not player) at the Nova Mall. I was told that there were lots of MP3 shops. I really hoped I could get a couple of MP3 CDs containing Chinese songs, but the place was full of shops selling MP3 players. I was disappointed and walked back to the MRT station. During the way back to MRT, I passed by a place called “Taiwan Story Land”. It looked interesting from the sign. I decided to give it a try. The admission costs were NTD100. Unfortunately I was late for the Audio guide.

The Taiwan Story Land is like a small town indoor. It was designed to present the Taiwanese community in 1965. It’s a nice place to take lots of good pictures (If your camera is good enough.) I didn’t spend long time there as I only walked/looked/took pictures. The restaurants there were all closed.

I headed for the Hero house immediately after leaving the Story land ‘cos I had no power left.