Taipei November 2012 Part 1

Taiwan is a place that most Chinese from Mainland are longing to visit due to historical reasons.  Ever since the National Party went to Taiwan with their army and families in the late 1940s, mainlanders have not been able to enter Taiwan freely. Well, actually, ever since Mao and the red army took over, mainlanders are not allowed to visit any country without a visa. I finally got my Canadian passport this year. To celebrate the freedom of mobility, I decided to visit Taipei.

After almost 13 hours of flight, I arrived Taipei at 7 am in a chilly morning of November. Despite the fact that my hotel, Eclat, has rooms available, it refused to check me in without charging me $110 USD for half day. By the way, I only paid about $170 a night at Hotels.com. What a piss off! Last time when I arrived around the same time in New York, Intercontinental checked me in right away without any additional charge. That was definitely a bad start. 

So I decided to check out the area around Taipei 101.  Too early, most stores were not even open. Luckily, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall was only 10 minutes away. A good place to kill time and force myself to stay awake.

The garden in front of the Memorial Hall

Statue of  Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the George Washington of China, one of the greatest men in Chinese and world history. Here is a link to his wiki page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yat-sen

Silver dollars issued by Nanking Mint in 1912 in honor of his great contributions to the establishment of the Republic of China

A shot of Taipei 101 from the Memorial Hall

A closer shot of the tower

Finally stores opened.  An inside of a handbag store at Att 4 Fun shopping centre nearby Taipei 101.  I thought the lanterns are very cute.