Taipei, Taiwan

What a long trip this was...after a 14-hour flight to Narita (and I'm NOT happy with the Japanese after watching a documentary on their 1937 massacre of Nanking), a 40-minute taxi ride with a meter that beeped every 15 seconds, I made it to the Taipei Westin at 10:30PM on Saturday...it took 25 hours door to door. I was wide awake since it was 9:30AM DC time, but this wasn't a problem a couple of Tylenol PM tablets couldn't solve.

I woke up on Sunday feeling refreshed, but to a gloomy day. Breakfast consisted of some western crap and congee and pickles (I might have had two servings), and really, that was all I needed to feel settled in.

After my meetings today, I decided to explore the city. I'd envisioned Taipei to be posh, but it isn't so. The buildings are old and some are very rundown, and the view from (my very fancy) hotel room isn't very scenic. There are about 23 million people in Taiwan, and possibly 100 billion cars and motorcyles on the roads. The people here are very friendly, especially those in customer service. Sometimes their courteousness is overwhelming and I almost want to say, "Dude, I'm really not that important!" I had dinner with the client at a popular dumpling place, a northern Chinese specialty, um, like, totally my cup of tea! After dinner, we went to Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper in the world until it was overtaken by the Burj Dubai in 2007. Taipei 101 has 101 floors, hence the name, and it measures 1,670.60 ft. It has the world's fastest elevator, built by Toshiba, that goes up 89 floors in 37 seconds. We went up to the observatory on the 89th floor, and let me tell ya, Taipei looks a lot better at night!

My time in Taipei is very limited so I don't get to see much else. I was really hoping to see the National Palace Museum or the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall...hmmm, I wonder how the communists who raised me would feel about that.