Taiwan for the 5th time - April and May 2023 - Page 9

The 'hike' started at the Taipei zoo station, same place I was at yesterday, where I was greeted by this statue of a girl suckling a lamb / goat / pony (or are they suckling her?). I have seen these in many countries.

This is the bottom gondola station. I think I called it a cable car above, or is it a ropeway? It is not a funicular railway.

I made a stop here because of their awesome sign.

This is where the stairs start. There are 1000 stairs to the first temple, they are numbered periodically.

Staircase with flags. Very Auspicious. Apparently today a Taiwanese guy won a Taekwondo event in Korea and then decided to be presented with his medal while holding the flag of China, it is big news here, and presumably on the mainland. I just thought I'd throw that in.

What sort of a temple is this? Pentagrams instead of swastika's.

A really great staircase up to this temple, must be good.

At first I was a bit disappointed, sure there is a nice bridge there, but I expected a huge complex, although those stairs going up the hill seem to go nowhere, maybe I will follow them.

Ahh, here we are then, or are we? It is part of Zhinan temple.

It has a nice view, even if it is a polluted grey day.

I actually went back down the stairs, then read the internet that said to go through the temple to continue my journey. Out the back of the bit of the temple shown above, I arrived here. More bigger temple in the distance, lets go.

The main part of Zhinan temple. I keep typing Zhipai which is a pack of cards.

The next stop of the gondola is just past the top of the temple, following the path with all the gold bits of cardboard you pay for to hang in a tree. BTW, today's temple had a sign saying it was the centre of Chinese Taoist culture. So no Buddha.

Crap pic, but instead of riding the gondola, I will walk down, and back up again to the station across the valley there.

The path down was this horrible style, where they construct a stair case, and all the material between stairs washes away or gets compressed, so you trip over the stair with every step. Useless.

A rather ordinary gondola shot from nearer the bottom of the valley. No rain at all!

OK, this little spot here is the entire reason Maokong is called Maokong. The little holes in the rocks in this spot were believed to be made by an ancient giant cat.

Giant cat statues guard the bridge to the area.

Almost at the top gondola station now, and it is a very developed area full of tea houses and cafe's.

I couldn't get me and the gondola in the same shot, but here is my giant sweaty head. People were staying well away from me.

Behold, the upper gondola station.

The 'trail' down from this point goes through a few garden areas like this, with both plastic and stone statues of various things to have your photo taken with. Still no tea to be seen though (in my pictures at least), I had already passed the tea museum.

OK, here is some tea.

Not a great pic, but I left it in as you can see Taipei 101 over on the right.

After wandering through some touristy fields of tea and various other things, I rejoined a 'trail', one last chance to slip over on some moss covered stone?

But wait it gets mossier! But thankfully I did not fall over. All hiking complete, time to clean my shoes with a toothbrush to keep BORDER FORCE!!! happy. Tonight will probably be a shorter outing, but I am still here for most of the day tomorrow before heading to the airport in the afternoon to go to Singapore... more on that, tomorrow.

First up, dinner! A great beef noodle soup. Note the lack of tray, because this is not a food court, but an actual restaurant (near a food court). They were still reluctant to let me despite having small tables unoccupied, I had to reassure them I would eat fast and leave.

The nearby food court was already overflowing at 5:30pm.

This guy is trying to avoid the fee to go up to the top of Taipei 101. But seriously, sadly selling these metal balloons to kids to let go so they float off and choke a dolphin is still a big thing here. I think they are banned in some parts of the world now.

HELL NO! I still have not recovered from paying $7 for one of these.

This photo is here only because it is the ground floor entrance area of a flash department store. Instead of make up and jewellery, people spend their disposable income on bobble heads and pokemon. Like I ranted on already, anime culture for want of a better term, is out of control. Also I am aware there is also a MAC makeup shop in view. But imagine if when you walked into David Jones in Australia you were not greeted by women in lab coats trying to sell you face cream, but instead some kind of blue haired teenager trying to sell you a plastic bikini clad 12 year old girl doll with a sword?

Final Taipei 101 shot? Maybe, I do not know what I will do tomorrow morning.

Some more mall type areas in Xinyi.

Time for some light pollution. Trees are boring on their own, add LED lights.

And while I have taken a shot from the above ground subway stations a few times, here is one in the dark. I guess these are mainly office buildings as there are not a lot of lights on. Tomorrow I do not have to check out, as I overbooked 1 night which I explained earlier, so I probably will go out early, have a coffee or 2, then laze about in my hotel until it is time to go to the airport. Take that as a warning for boring pictures tomorrow.

Dockless bike and scooter hire is evidently banned in Taiwan. Instead you still have docked bike rental like this, which Melbourne used to have before they decided to kill old people and drunken fools by unleashing electric rental scooters onto the public that you can just throw off a bridge when you're finished with it.

Some streets in Taipei are tree lined with a linear park running up the middle of them like this one, generally in areas with a lot of government buildings. The fat cats have heir hands in each other pockets as always.

Bonus Sogo, a mini version near the 2 larger ones just up the street, connected by an.....

....underground mall. Not open yet of course. Note that Daiso Japan is the prominent advertiser, as Taiwan is really trying to be Japan.

And my last pic of the morning, most metro (MRT) stations have a library such as this. No staff. You can go in and burn all the books you want if you're from Florida.

I launched a drone to take a photo of Taoyuan airport (the Taipei airport). It looks like lego!

Here is the observation deck, from inside the building. They would not let me out there because I had a camera! Never had that happen before. The people out there taking photos with their phone, apparently that is ok, but my little point and shoot camera, not ok, or was it because I was a round eye?

I love Taipei airport, here is the shopping and customs area, well, one of many, this was also a very smooth process, no more than a couple of minutes in any line. There was super extra security for people going to Japan because of the G7 summit that just finished there.

The Singapore airlines lounge in Taipei is closed, and apparently is not going to re open, ever. No problem, I like this airport, time for the giant walk! Just enough time if I walk fast!

There are at least 40 little booths to see with art like this. Well, art, ads for parts of Taiwan.

Here is another for native Taiwanese culture. I have shown some others on previous visits.

This is actually a library of sorts, with traditional furniture that looks quite uncomfortable.

The airport is a big square you can walk all the way around. Pics wont do it justice, but here I am in the middle looking right, through tinted windows I fixed with the white balance slider...

And from the same spot, looking left across the mini train elevated track. The airport bit completing the square of terminals to walk around is behind the tower, so it is quite far. I would say it is further around than Singapore airport, which you cannot quite walk all the way around, but there are less spurs shooting off at the corners at Taoyuan airport, if that makes any sense at all?

This is my tiny 787 Dreamliner, my next flight is apparently on the recently reinstated A380, which is the cause of my flight change which forced me to stay a day in Singapore.

Proof I exited the airport, this is a Singapore MRT station at the airport, and for once, I am not taking this photo after being awake for 36 hours straight.

And finally for tonight, my very basic hotel room, it is an Ibis Budget, about $140 AUD, very cheap compared to nearly everywhere else in Singapore, but it is right in the GAY RED LIGHT DISTRICT. Now I must go to sleep immediately.

This is the area near my hotel, in gay nightclub land. Lots of adult shops, spa's, questionable massage joints, sauna's (just stand outside?), and even a place literally called 'BIG GAY CLUB'. Sadly they were all shut for my early walk.

Nearby of course, the Taipei Buddhist centre. I just left Taipei!

After a brief trip on the subway, I emerged in tall building land.

That is not Marina Bay Sands, just some apartment buildings made to look like it.

The first of many food courts. I have been to this one on a previous trip.

Chinatown. Obviously.

A lot of Chinatown is undercover. It is made to look old, I don't think it is.

More Chinatown. That big yellow building on the right appears to be old apartments. I would like to see inside those.

Last one of Chinatown.

Chickens roam freely in the streets?

Today's open sewer. The pink flowers and reflection look nice, but it is surprisingly full of rubbish.

And final pic for phase 1, some new under construction public housing. The scheme is studied globally, we have similar blocks in Australia, people call them prisons, in Singapore they are an amazing gift to the people that are greatly appreciated?

Sun shining now, no more rain.

Here is Orchard road. Everyone has been here. Not really a place for the likes of me, but I like the buildings. I think this one is Ion centre.

Singapore also has Japanese stores, this is Tashimaya, there is also Isetan.

It is like I never left Taipei! By the way, as soon as I left, most of Taiwan flooded!

My very sad looking but quite delicious Hainan chicken rice lunch.

This is now Vivo city at Harbourside. I have been here before and eaten too much here before. Today I ate nothing. In fact I fled a 7-eleven where I was buying water as the guy serving clearly had covid and took his mask off to cough on my water, and when I told him I did not want it, he got mad at me.

Vivo city roof has drowning pools. You are not allowed in them though.

Over there is Sentosa island, Disneyland lite I think. I will not be going over there, too hot.

There is a monorail to take you across to Sentosa as well as the gondola. Also it appears to be a container freight terminal.

Well, this is a new concept. Clean everything that comes out of a baby off of the pram.

I caught the subway back to Clarke Quay, it seems it is under intense redevelopment, you could have fired a canon.

Annnd, one more of Clarke Quay. Now I will put long pants on in a disabled toilet, check in my bag, and go find dinner.

Here is the Jewel water fountain of doom, as seen from low down but above the drain level.

The fountain is sponsored by Marvel of course, so here is Thor's hammer.

I ascended for more fountain appreciation.

And, oh look! The train goes right past it, through the middle of Jewel.

The above pics were looking down on it from above, now for the drain shots from below. This is the first level below the fountain.

But you can keep going down 2 more levels, and look at a giant lit up drain.

A Food Republic food court! Is there anything Jewel does not have?

Despite there being a Food Republic, I actually went to a real restaurant in Jewel, advertising that they have been doing something authentically impressive since 1941. I got the Dry Hor Fun (I think?). It is filled with various sea creatures. It was very good actually, but too much, however I thought I better eat some real food rather than have a salad or something similarly light and sensible before a 7.5 hours plane flight.

This may be a big flash mall in the middle of the airport, but locals still come here to do their shopping as I explained above. It even has a fairly regular sort of supermarket.

I had dropped my bag off in Jewel, they have an early check in counter there, however you still proceed via an elevated walkway back into the normal check in area, for me that was terminal 3, the check in area looks to have been re done and is large and impressive.

And now possibly the last photo? Possibly not? My long awaited shower in the Singapore Airlines lounge. I was thrilled to be able to take a shower!