Day 3 In Taipei

It's December 31st!! Our last night in Taipei *sniffles*
After breakfast, we took a stroll down to the MTR and headed down to Miramar Entertainment Park.

Corssing the overhead bridge to get to the MTR


Interesting message on the MTR


This is the only time we managed to get seats together on the train. hahaha

We got down and hopped onto a shuttle bus service that will take us to the Miramar Entertainment Park for free!



Here we are!
The department store is notable for its 70 m tall ferris wheel on its rooftop, which is the second largest ferris wheel in diameter in Taiwan, after the one in Janfusan World, which is 88 m in diameter. However, the Miramar ferris wheel is the tallest in Taiwan as it is attached onto a roof, having a combined height of 100 meters.




Baby's queuing up for the tickets for the ferris wheel!


View while waiting for our turn to hop on one of the carriages


Us inside the carriage.

I have fear of heights. Bern was sitting opposite me initially, but he shifted over so we can take pictures together. When he did that, the weight shifted and I stopped breathing for a moment. Hahaha, I don't understand why I'm afraid of heights when I used to get thrown up into the air so often in the past.


Another shot.
It was a pretty slow ride... hahaha


Then we shoot some hoops!
These kinda game stations can be seen almost everywhere. And it's always occupied! They must really love shooting balls alot.

We walked around the shopping centre and decided to settle lunch at T.G.I Fridays! =D



I've never been to the one in Singapore before it closed down, so this was a goood experience. x)




Yeah man, I can use more Fridays definitely :D


Our lunch! x)
It was a place that seem pretty fun. =) The waitresses are pretty/ stylish, well majority of them. hehehhe, took picture with one of them.


I like her cap. hehe


Us waiting for dessert to be served!


We're leaving! I got a balloon =D

After that, we headed down to Ximending. =D Daily pilgrimage you see. It was already quite packed over there, and it's nowhere near midnight man! The people were just standing around, waiting. Walking around with my balloon proved to be very troublesome. So I decided to let it go... Fly balloon fly! Take all my worries in 2006 with you!

We took a cab down to TongHua Street for Ling Jiang Ye Shi. The cabby was really nice, he told us it would be better to walk over to Taipei 101 after shopping there because the roads would be prety jammed up and it would be faster if we walked there. :) He even gave us directions... Nice. x)



Along the way, we saw petshops!



This puppy is so adorable! Its fur looks like the skin of teddy bears =D


Awwwwsh.
Oh yah, Taiwanese loves their dogs. They are everywhere! In shopping centres, at street markets, in doggy carriers on the train, yadayada.

So we shopshopshopshopshop till we're happy and left for Taipei 101.


Had dinner at their foodcourt, which was so packed! People are prolly here to celebrate countdown together or to watch the concert nearby.

After dinner, we went to check out Taipei 101's indoor observation deck at level 89! Purchased our tickets and off we go in batches upstairs. FYI, Taipei 101 is the tallest building in the world as of now. We couldn't go to the outdoor observation deck because it was closed for the day. But we're cool with it because a separate ticket is needed for the 91st storey outdoor observation deck.

Two of the many records that Taipei 101 holds:
- Fastest Ascending Elevator speed: 16.83 m/s (37.5 miles/hour or 60.4 km/h)
- Largest Count-Down Clock on New Year's Eve.

Some facts:
- Building height: 508 metres- World Records in 2004: "Structure Height at 508 metres", "Highest Roof at 448 metres" and "Highest Occupied Floor at 438 metres"
- The building's glass curtain walls can sustain impacts of 8 tons. They are safe and ecologically friendly with heat and UV-filter treatments.
- It's earthquake and wind resistant as well :)


Upon reaching the observation deck, we went to collect the audio guides at the counter. Total duration of the tour guide is about 40 minutes. There are poles on the deck marked with different numbers, and we need to key in the number in order to listen to the scene information.




Audio guide - looks like a phone!




View from the top
We also saw the streets being packed with humans. People downstairs look like ants!!

The deck was closing soon, we made a short trip to the toilet before taking the lift down.

Oh, must talk about the lift. It's damn cool! The lights in the lift dimmed as we are travelling downwards/upwards and this is the ceiling of the lift.




Look! A shooting star!!


=) So prettyyyy.

After that we walked around, before settling down at Page One to rest our legs and read books.


The place was closing, so we headed downstairs to wait for midnight to come.


We decided to join in the crowd, sit down on the road and wait for the fireworks to go off at the stroke of midnight.

It was a long wait, we played silly games like Superheroes and watched people set off mini fireworks. That is literally watching your money going up in smokes. =P

Preparing for take-off


So heartwarming :)

Soon, it was midnight. Hello 2007!




Magnificent aye?

Now, it's the killer part - Getting back to the hotel. The traffic was crrraaaazzzaaaayyy. There were so many people and so many motorcyclists! The roads were congested with people and motorcyclists. People were stopping to take pictures with Taipei 101 as the background, traffic was really chaotic. We walked quite a distance, hailed a cab to get back to the hotel. It took us quite a while to get back. We dropped by 7-11 to grab some snacks and to spend the remaining NT we have =D. Instant noodles was good!

Oh, I hafta talk about their channels. They have so many channels available, you're spoilt for choice. There's this adult channel, which I feel is pretty disturbing. Advertisements of chatlines showing girls in their underwear, squeezing the boobs together, lying on the bed and rocking as if someone's doing her, it's plain disgusting. *blecch*

Next entry on HK!