Matts blog

Unfortunately I’ve not got to see very much of Taipei at all, and the bits I did see where either from car windows or during dark after work The city is beautiful, mainly low rise offices and apartments, sourounded by hills covered in dense bush and bamboo, and in the center Taipei 101 (worlds tallest building) sticking straight up in the air. Its much more westernised than anywhere in China, with a mix of Japenese, Euopean and American cars, and a tendancy towards lowered suspension and big exhausts. The use of push bikes seems almost none existant, the ones I have seen have been very nice modern designs from the likes of ‘Giant’ which I think are made here, there are, however, mopeds EVERYWHERE! The biggest difference has to be the quality of english, every meeting, every hotel staff, even the staff at the local printing shop all speak and understand english fantasticly, even with me speaking at my normal speed, the training I’ve been here providing took about 65% of the time I’d allocated, as there was no communication barrier. The only slightly confusing thing is that some places still use wade-giles romanisation rather than pinyin (like taipei vs taibei), but thats a very minor niggle, and I understand the government are in the process of changing this anyway After this week as a taster, I’ll definately be back, and wouldn’t be offended by living here… Photos, as usual, here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 13th, 2005 at 8:32 pm and is filed under China life.