18 July the start of this years vacation, it started out like any other vacation day, well any other vacation day that you start out on a plane. You land at some time during the morning, its afternoon before you get to the hotel and 3 in the afternoon before you get going anywhere. I’m in Singapore again and with only the one evening to tour around I set out to one of the many malls to look at all the merchandise that I know I’m not going to get, and probably wont really want. I am also hungry and malls are usually a fairly safe place to find something to eat. A little after lunch I head back to the hotel which is located within walking distance of Little India. Given not much else to do for the next hour or so I head out to little India to see if I come across anything interesting. I come across a few interesting things but nothing that catches my fancy. I return to the hotel empty handed, but not particularly disappointed. I take it easy at the hotel for a while and then head to River Walk, which is an area where restaurants and shops line both sides of a narrow river leading out to the ocean and the wharf. I walk around for a while wishing I had brought my camera. By the time I get something to eat and am ready to head back to the hotel I realize that it is getting kind of late and I wont have quite enough time to head out to the china town Night Market which starts closing up around 11:30 or so. Instead of running out to the Night Market and trying to rush to find a few items my family had requested from there on my last trip home, I decide that I will just take it easy tonight, and I’ll just have to get there knickknacks next time I go through Singapore.

19 July starts out without too much reverie. Wake up, shower, repack my suitcase, and get some breakfast. After that wait for the shuttle service to show up and take me to the airport. Board the plain and head to yet another country I haven’t been to before. This time its Taiwan, but unlike previous trips I will have someone I know already waiting for me. In fact the person actually lives there, or has been for the last year or so. This particular person I will refer to as Heather, predominantly as that is how she is known amongst her friends and family. I arrive in Taipei Taiwan around noon, and meander through the airport and customs until I come to the airport arrival waiting area where I am welcomed by throngs of unfamiliar people. Finding Heather amongst all these unfamiliar crowds proves to be rather easy as it turns out there are surprisingly rather few tall, blond, Caucasian women in a predominantly Asian country. We then catch a bus which takes us to the section of the city that Heather lives in. From the bus stop we are able to walk to heathers apartment. Now not really having arranged a place for myself to stay, Heather having arrived back off her vacation just the day before, hand managed to line up a place for me to stay with one of her neighbors. Quite nice neighbors they were offering me a room and not knowing me at all. I managed to get my things put up and by then it was well past time to get something to eat. So Heather took me out to a couple of her favorite restraints, or rather she tried too as they were closed so we ended up going to another restraint she was acquainted with.  Not too terribly much else was done that day and so it eventually progressed to a close.

20 July being the only full day I was going to have in Taipei to tour around Heather had planed a couple of things for us to go do and see. We started out by going to see the Grand Hotel, a rather extravagant and luxurious hotel based on the design of Chinese temples. While it was well beyond my means to stay there for this trip it was worth a stop by to see it.  The lobby of the hotel being very impressive itself was filled with displays of traditional art. Altogether a rather impressive display art and architecture. Our  next stop was  the school that Heather teaches at, and I was privileged to receive the full tour. The school is comprised of two halves each nearly a reflection of the other separated by a small corridor between the two buildings. Being in a city the school in not laid out like typical schools in the US where they are spread out, but rather is several stories tall having only a few rooms per floor. After our tour of the school our next destination was Taipei 101, the worlds tallest building, or at least for one last day. I had the distant privilege of visiting it on its last day as the world’s tallest building; it was overtaken on July 21 by the Burj Dubai. Visiting the Worlds tallest building without going to is observatory would be pretty much unthinkable, so we purchased our elevator tickets and took the worlds fastest ascending elevator (37.5mhp) the 89th floor. There are 101 floors to the Taipei 101 which is of course where it derives part of its name from, but unfortunately they wouldn’t let me go to the 101st floor. From the 89th floor you can get a pretty good view of the city of Taipei and the surrounding mountains and the views are impressive in more than one way. Also available to view is the worlds only open to the public mass damper which is a massive 662 metric ton pendulum that serves to offset the movement of the building caused by wind. By the time we were done looking around Taipei 101 it was time to head back to heathers apartment and meat one of her friends and then head out to diner. By the time we got back  from diner it was getting later and doing not much more than sitting around sounded like a good idea and thus we finished the day.

The 21st of July was a Saturday and so we went to church in the morning. The church was conveniently located very near Heathers apartment, the church being part of the Adventist hospital. The high-rise apartments one of which heather lived in was also located on the hospitals grounds. The afternoon was spent partaking in potluck, and when we were all properly stuffed Heather and a couple of her friends as well as myself retreated back to her apartment to socialize and take it easy. After the sun had set Heather and her friends drug me out to tour the city at night. Our journey started by walking to the closest MRT (subway) and catching a train to another part of the city, couldn’t quite say I remember just where it was. They took me down to a waterfront area along a rather wide rive where there was quite an active night life with shops and food aplenty. Being as I was the only person among us that wasn’t working or living in Taipei it was determined by the group that I should be subject to trying all the “safe” foods available, and as I only had this one last night that I would have to try them all at one time. Most I found to be tolerable or palatable, a few were less so such as the Stinky Tofu which is quite aptly named. We spent a good deal of time walking around and sampling the fare and poking our noses in shops, and finally when it was obviously getting late and some of the shops were closing down we decided it would be appropriate to head back and manage to get a few hours of sleep before we had to fly the next day.

22 July starts out with not much other than waking up, packing our bags, getting on a bus for the airport, and boarding the plain for Okinawa.

The Grand Hotel

A dragon & mountain village sculpture in the Grand Hotel

Taipei 101

Part of the city of Taipei
Sort of looks like an infection or cancer doesn't it?

Mass Damper in Taipei 101