Taipei revisited

As promised and traditionally coreographed, here are some pictures from our Taipei-weekend. To start off and to fill some gaps of recollection: Taipei probably resembles more of a Mainland Chinese or South Asian city than Hong Kong in a lot of aspects, but one of the most visible differences is the traffic. Traffic is a lot of little motor cycles. A lot... really! And that is why, they have proper traffic lights over there. Below, the first light tells you the remaining time to cros the street-from turning green the clock counts down from usually 60 or 70 seconds when until turning red again. The funny part about this is (and I have a video clip to prove it, although I cannot upload it here and you won't probably see it from the picture) that the little green man actually walks, i.e. moves. When there are only 10 seconds remaining, the guy suddenly starts running. Running really fast! I thought that was hilarious. Never seen anything like that before!A lot of things in Taiepi are very monumental and the city is clustered with various memorials and squares. I always wonder, what must have been there before, and how come, everything can be torn down from one day to the other, without leaving any traces in the surrounding area. The newest of these monumentas is Taipei 101- the tallest building of the world. Unfortunaely, the weather was not too good when we went up... looks like bamboo?
The CKS Memorial- this is truly monumental and massive and was not built until the 1980s. Reminds me of East Berlin, although the connection is probably more "sentimental". What I mean that for me it was more a similarity in atmosphere or the way an ideology is manifested in architecture, spilling over into ...everything.

"My American Team", Margo and Mike, climbing up the roughly 4700 little stone steps to the top of Mt. Cising (1120m), northern Taiwan's highest peak- while others climbed in pro-clothing, we had flip flops... it was fun though!

Glimpse of the nature.... the landscpaes are amazing!

Here we are walking down from the peak- it is a mixture of grassland and highland bamboo plants. The mountains in the north of Taipei are inctive volcanoes, but the soil is "thermal", with little cracks of hot air and sulfur...

And the last but not least: the signs. Signs are everywhere and for everthing.... and they do not only cover what not to do, but to a great extend what to do or how to do it. Even worse than HK!

This sign was at the park of the Sun Yat-Sen memorial. The park was full of kids flying kites. So much for rules.