First Day in Taipei!
February 4th, 2009
After spending precious little time sleeping, we got an early start on tackling Taipei. The forecast is rain for the rest of the week, and the skies greeted us with some moderate downpour right off the bat, which lifted soon after we made our way into the heart of the city.
Honestly even being here in the flesh, and experiencing it first hand, it’s hard to imagine that I’m actually thousands of miles away from home. Teipei is a very metropolitan city, with a large ammount of Western storefronts. It feels almost as if we’re still in Chinatown back in San Francisco. However, knowing that pretty much nobody in the city can understand a word I say, other than my companions on this trip, is quite an experience!
Walking through the open-air markets is surprisingly similar to walking through Chinatown, however there is 10 times the ammount of people, and everything seems extremely chaotic in some strange way that it is at the same time very organized.
The food we experienced today was awesome. We were treated to a delicious (and sinfully large!) lunch, featuring more items than I can remember, including peking duck, beef and veggie buns, pineapple shrimp, duck soup, duck salad, bean curd, fish, noodes, etc etc etc …
After lunch we headed to Taipei 101. This building is freaking tall. Also the elevator is freaking fast. Your ears actually pop on the way up from the tremendous speed. Honestly as awesome as Taipei 101 is, it was extremely underwhelming in contrast to the rest of the city. As technically impressive as it is, it feels a bit out of place with it’s heavy Western influence found in the shops inside, and overall gimicky tourist appeal. Also the views were subdued by the weather, as visibility was not the best today.
However the reall highlight for me today was the bustling nightlife in the street markets. The city really comes alive when the lights are on. I had some amazing street food, including my first experience with stinky tofu. I’ve got a general plan to tackle as much unique Chinese food as possible on this trip, and I think I’m making good progress so far in my first day. 
One thing that I am really stoked on is that I successfully navigated through parts of the city, despite (barely) speaking the language, and not being able to read most of the street signs! My Garmin Edge 705, with Taiwan City Navigator maps is already proving invaluable, from finding bus and train depots, to restaurants, to settings waypoints along our journey. It’s a very nice feeling knowing that we won’t get lost
Well, that’s day 1 in a nutshell. I’m back in the hostel and ready to pass out! More photos taken today can be found here!
