A typhoon came through last night. Lots of rain and wind, but the hotel wasn’t affected. It didn’t even lose power. Some of the following pictures will show the typhoon damage that I saw.
All the museums were closed due to the typhoon, so I just did more walking around. This is the area near and outside the Museum of Contemporary Art, which is about three blocks from the hotel where I’m staying.
I headed to the train station and saw an abstract sculpture. I also noticed the manhole covers, which are somewhat artistic. In the station is a sculpture which I take to be Don Quixote. (You have no idea how many times I had to rephrase that sentence to avoid a misplaced modifier.)
I spent most of the day out at the Taipei Expo Park near Yuanshan station. Here is what I saw when I got off the subway:
The train station had a map of the area, and I knew I couldn’t remember the directions. Then, all of a sudden, I had a brilliant idea: I took a picture of the map, and I would then have it in my camera for reference.
There appears to be some sort of Buddhist shrine near the park:
When I got to the expo park, I saw that some of the roof on one of the pavilions was missing:
And other various destruction
The typhoon also damaged some of the small model houses in the park.
Here are the remaining pictures from the park.
The bridge support columns are painted, which is a nice touch.
The museum was closed, but I was able to get pictures of the sculptures outside the building.
Near the museum is the Taipei Story House, the only English Tudor-style house in Taipei.
I saw these two far up in the hills near the park; I really enjoy having a long zoom lens on the camera for situations like this! The first one is the Grand Hotel. It was too far away to walk, so I can’t tell you how grand it really is.
From the park, I walked back to the subway stop and then further along, looking for lunch. I passed these painted electrical boxes and animal sculptures. Whether they are monkeys or bears or what, I have no clue, but they are quite clever. I have absolutely no clue what the animal in the last picture is carrying. A flatiron?
Then I came upon these two temples, which are right across the street from one another. They are just one amazing visual treat after another.
The cleverest was this statue of a man and his assistant painting a sculpture of a dragon. As I walked further, I noticed that the dragon is intertwined with the trees and rocks.
I kept looking for a place to eat, and was looking at my map, when a guy from Canada approached me and told me that there wasn’t much else to see around the area. He suggested that I get on the subway, which traveled all above ground from there to the endpoint (Beitou), and “you’ll get a really good view of the city.” Actually, no. All I got was a view of a lot of really skungy buildings near the tracks. These pictures are the best of a bad lot.
Breakfast was the same as the previous day (Yoshinoya beef & kimchi sandwich), with some pastries. I got a picture of the sandwich.
Lunch was a banana bought at the Wellcome 24-hour grocery. No, I didn’t take a picture—if you don’t know what a banana looks like, you have worse problems than trying to read this trip report. While at the store, I also bought a razor, as I had forgotten to pack mine.
Dinner was vegetable curry at a place called “Moni Curry Master.” It was quite tasty. (Except for the hard-boiled egg, which I didn”t eat. I have never liked hard-boiled eggs.)
This seems to be some advert for some government function. It just seems wrong (as well as horribly faded).
A really cool logo.
The first sign is to tell people to watch out for sexual harrassment on the subway; the second is a sign telling you not to eat, drink or smoke on the subway. The third one warns you to keep your kids’ hands away from the doors.
In the train cars, the display shows the station you were at before (at the right), the station you are approaching (in the middle), and the station after that (at the left). Sorry about the blurry image, but the train was moving as I took the picture.
“Haters gonna hate”—someone out there is not a fan of the Tibetan Buddhists.
Here is a sign urging you to take the stairs. Of course, I did.
I saw these two advertisements next to one another at the main train station. Even though you may not be able to read Chinese, it’s obvious which one is better designed. The first one has mixed serif and sans-serif font, way too much text, the pictures seem to be thrown in pretty much at random, and your eye doesn’t quite know where to focus.
Compare that with the one on the right, which is clean, balanced, has lots of white space, and gives you just the information you need to know.
Here is a view from the window. My room is on the 7th floor, which is actually the 6th floor. Just as many U.S. hotels don’t have a 13th floor because of superstition, there’s no 4th floor here because the Chinese word for “four” sounds like the word for “death.”
The hotel also provided a coffee maker in the room, and also some chips, a network connector, and a condom (shown at the middle left). The brand name of the condom is “Safeway,” which I am sure would amuse the U.S. grocery store chain.
