Dec. 20: Taipei 101

The Taipei 101 was the tallest building in the world until this year when some place in Dubai surpassed it. But, it's still super awesome because it's the tallest building I've ever been to.

Coincidently, each segment looks like its own Chinese take-out container. I think this is unintentional.

The building is much taller than any of the other buildings in town and towers over everything else. You can see the 101 soaring in the sky from most places in the city. It was built to look like a piece of bamboo which you can see in the different segments of the building.

Although this was the third time I've been up in the building, it was the first time I went to the outdoor observation deck on the 91st floor in addition to the regular observation deck on the 89th floor. The weather was pretty good so we were able to see most of the landmarks around Taipei from the observation deck.

Looking up at the very top from the outdoor observation deck 

We went during lunch time so as to avoid the place being overrun by Chinese tourists. Luckily, they were all at lunch and the observation deck was relatively empty. Since the last time I was there, they have added an entire maze of little stores with gaudy, over-priced jewelry that you have to walk through to get to the elevators that go back down. Apparently, these cater specifically toward the Chinese tour groups who will spend a bunch of money buying this stuff. The staff at these little stores don't even look up or greet anybody else.

View of Taipei from the top.