19 May 2023
Old little America town
Tianmu department stores
From the 1950's until 1979, Tianmu was where the US military bases in Taiwan and the entire American community of colleges, diplomats, fast food shops and streets with footpaths existed. In about 1979, the USA declared the mainland as the one true China and the owner of Taiwan, and that Taiwan would cease to exist and the US establishment left the island. Awkward. Australia and the rest of the world followed our American overlords and pledged allegiance to the communists in exchange for cheap everything.
Today Tianmu has no military bases, there is no official foreign military presence in Taiwan at all. There is still a place claiming to be an American school, and there were quite a few white college aged kids getting around, but many of them seemed to be speaking French or German. Indeed there is an entire bus load of German school kids now staying in my hotel, which causes confusion because I am staying on level nein.
What Tianmu does have, is 3 department stores, all Japanese, including one not seen before on this trip! Read on fans of Japanese department stores in Taiwan.
The rain is gone. Blue sky in fact. Although every now and then a tiny cloud does come over and it rains for 5 seconds.
Tianmu has modern buildings surrounded by gardens.
Japanese department store 1 of 3, Sogo. A very new looking Sogo.
Japanese department store 2 of 3, and their first appearance on this trip, Takashimaya. Looking old and run down.
This is a gogoro battery station. Instead of charging your scooter, you just ride up to one of these and swap your scooter battery over. This is not a new concept, it was very popular the last time I was here, at that time it seemed much move novel than it does now as electric cars were still 'new' at the time.
That is a lot to take in.
Home of the mighty Dragons. A baseball stadium. Baseball is very popular and everyone that spends time in Taiwan says you should go to a game for the atmosphere. Sounds like fun therefore I won't be going.
Here is the inside of Takashimaya. It appears to have 12 levels plus basements, but I suspect some are car park levels.
I had dinner in Taiwan in a Japanese department store, so I had Korean food. My dinner usually comes on a tray, just like in prison.
Department store 3 of 3, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi. A two tower setup, but also looks new.
There are a lot of these sort of places in Tianmu, making similarly ridiculous claims.
Other than the scooters, the whole area looks like an Australian city, wide streets with footpaths, often with trees up the middle, endless repeats of the same chain stores...
And after quite a long walk, I was back at Zhishan elevated subway station, ready to head back to my hotel and continue drying my waterproof shoes that are wet somehow.