When you wake up early, you might as well make the most of the day. Sara and Mike went for an early morning run down to Da’an park. It was kind of rainy, but the run was nice because in South East Asia, it tends to be sort of warm, which is great. After the run, we ate our cereal and got ready for the day. We met WenHo at Dogmen station where he had metro cards for us. We then headed onto the metro, which is really clean and nice and easy to navigate (well done Taipei!). We headed out to Taipei 101, which was the tallest, but is now the 4th tallest building in the world. Whatever its ranking, it has to be one of the nicest. The main entrance floors are a giant super high class mall full of top of the line stores (and maybe the biggest Apple store ever built). The elevator to get to the top, used to the be the fastest in the world (going to the 89th floor in 39 seconds). It was pretty sweet. The observation deck is huge and the views astounding. You could see the entirety of the city and the surrounding hills. Of course, the best part were the custom made T-shirts that Andrew and Peter had made. You have to see them to believe them.
Following the Taipei 101 tour, we had lunch in the gigantic food court that was chalk full of people. Most everyone had Indian or Chinese food, except for Peter, who had McDonalds. After lunch, we took the Metro to the end of the line (Xiangshan) and walked to Elephant mountain. On the way, we found a really cool park and Madeline had a ball going down the slides over and over again. The hike up the mountain was about 18,000 steps, which was fun for Mike as he carried the pack and the stroller, but Madeline hiked up most of it without flinching. At the top, the views of Taipei 101 were pretty cool and being at sea level made the whole thing pretty easy. Afterwards, we headed back into town and went to an all you can eat Japanese buffet called Shin Yen with WenHo and Lorene. It was pretty good (the fried chicken especially) and fun to get a little flavor of Japan. The kids all got paper hats at the end too. Afterwards, we headed home and fell asleep hard (on those super hard beds).
Following the Taipei 101 tour, we had lunch in the gigantic food court that was chalk full of people. Most everyone had Indian or Chinese food, except for Peter, who had McDonalds. After lunch, we took the Metro to the end of the line (Xiangshan) and walked to Elephant mountain. On the way, we found a really cool park and Madeline had a ball going down the slides over and over again. The hike up the mountain was about 18,000 steps, which was fun for Mike as he carried the pack and the stroller, but Madeline hiked up most of it without flinching. At the top, the views of Taipei 101 were pretty cool and being at sea level made the whole thing pretty easy. Afterwards, we headed back into town and went to an all you can eat Japanese buffet called Shin Yen with WenHo and Lorene. It was pretty good (the fried chicken especially) and fun to get a little flavor of Japan. The kids all got paper hats at the end too. Afterwards, we headed home and fell asleep hard (on those super hard beds).
TAIPEI 101
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XIANGSHAN PARK
ELEPHANT MOUNTAIN
