20231021 AAAA Trip - Keelung and Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China - Temples and towers

2023 Alaska, Asia, Australia, Arabian Peninsula Trip 
Day 35/105 - Keelung and Taipei, Taiwan

Today, we arrived in the port city of Keelung, Taiwan, about 30km from Taipei.  While Taiwan regards itself as a standalone country, it is part of the Republic of China.  This means we can add one to our country count - China makes country #53 for us.

Before we get into today, here's some weird stuff.  Mainland China is China.  Taiwan is China.  Hong Kong is China.  This means that China has four official currencies.  Taiwan uses the New Taiwan dollar (NTD) with an exchange rate of $1 = 32.35 NTD.  Mainland China uses the Chinese Yuan with an exchange rate of $1 = 7.32 Yuan.  They also have the Renminbi that is used for domestic transactions only.  Finally, Hong Kong uses the Hong Kong dollar with an exchange rate of $1 = 7.82 HKD.  Confused?

Military vessels across the bay

Advertising here is interesting

There are over 18,000 convenience stores here - there is a 7-11 visible from the ship - you can buy transit tickets, lunch, and just about anything at these stores

A nice home built into the hill

A park across the bay

Our tour today, the optional Taipei Highlights, took us to three main stops, a temple, a memorial, and a tower.

Some sights along the way...

First, check out this restroom on our tour bus.  Note the step on the left - that's a normal size step. This isn't a photo trick - the door to the restroom is only about 2.5 feet high and it sits under the floor of the bus. On the right, you can see a walker on its side with the handles resting on the floor. Restroom for Hobbits?

You never know where Spidey will show up...

Art

See no...speak no...hear no...

Bao-An Temple

We arrived at the temple after a short walk. Several buildings adjacent to the temple are built in the same style.

Our guide was quite excited.  They were performing a ceremony at the temple.  She said she has never seen it - they only perform it once or twice a year.  We don't know the significance of the ceremony, but what we saw was interesting.  

Ringing the bell

Sounding the drum

We explored the rest of the temple, checking out the architecture and the various prayer vestibules that were all ornately decorated.

Check out the tiny koi in the lower left

Lots of people were burning incense

The individual shrines were amazing.

Across the street from the temple, we saw more buildings of the same style. There was a lovely park and hidden treasures to find.

Worshipers were lighting incense in the fire on the right

After our time at the temple, we headed to the Chiang Kai-shek memorial.

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial

Chiang Kai-shek was the head of the Nationalist government in China from 1928–1949 and later in Taiwan from 1949 to 1975.  There is a large memorial in his honor plus a large gathering area and additional buildings that form a large complex in Taipei.

Liberty Square Arch

National Concert Hall

National Theater

This was a series of drinking fountains - really cool

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

After a stop at a gift shop, we were off for our final stop - the Taipei 101 Tower.

Taipei 101 Tower

Taipei 101 Tower is a 101-story building that contains office and retail space.  High-end retailers like Rolex, Harry Winston, Hublot, Bvulgari, and more dominate the retail space.  The highest building in the world for several years before being one-upped by the Burj Kalifa in Dubai, Taipei 101 is built to resemble bamboo - tall, strong, and resilient. Built as a series of eight-floor pods, they look like inverted triangles, almost pagoda-like.

Each pod contains eight floors

Me, playing tour guide when our guide was procuring our tickets for the observation deck

A model of the elevators

The ceiling of the elevator put on a show when ascending or descending.

The elevators are amazing.  They whisk the occupants from floor #5 to floor #89 in a mere 37 seconds.

The return trip from floor #88 to floor #5 takes 45 seconds.  Zoom!

At 101 floors, Taipei 101 is subject to extreme forces from earthquakes and typhoons.  The designers offset those forces with two damping balls.

The damper consists of 41 layers of 12.5 cm solid steel plating welded into a gold sphere mass, weighing 660 metric tons and measuring about 5.5 meters across.  The ball is suspended by 92 steel cables measuring 8.9 cm across.  The entire system can move 150cm, effectively dampening the movement of the tower when subjected to extreme conditions from typhoons or earthquakes.

The tower mascot - its eyes and mouth form "101"

Corner details on top of the tower

Clouds were circling below us as we took in the views.

The retail space is incredible and brings nearly every high-end boutique you can think of under one roof.

My Bvulgari watch visiting its second Bvulgari boutique on this trip

We finished up our visit and headed to the bus for the return trip to the Viking Orion.

Taipei 101, looking a little clearer than when we arrived

There are a ton of scooters in Taiwan. We saw them splitting lanes and zipping all over. Our guide mentioned a particular section of road where from a certain vantage point, all you see are scooters coming over a hill and moving downward – a “waterfall of scooters”.

It was a good day visiting Taiwan, despite the heavy overcast and occasional, right rain.  Back on the ship, we enjoyed pre-dinner cocktails at the Explorers' Bar and dinner at the World Café.  We were both tired tonight and opted for an early evening.  We have another sea day tomorrow before arriving for a three-day stay in Hong Kong.