TAIPEI - TAIWAN

The contrast between the dirty, horrible, run down city of Manila that I left in the morning and the clean, modern, and safe city of Taipei I arrived at in the afternoon could not have been bigger. 24 hour power, hot water, fast internet and most of all good food were all welcome.

I had people to talk to in the hostel which was long overdue. I would later discover that of the western people I met while in Taiwan all of them were going to teach/had taught or currently teaching English (all from America or Canada). I was the only western person who was going to Taiwan purely to backpack. This made me feel like I was doing something that few others had done.
The first full day I headed out of town to Yangmingshan national park. Like Hong Kong you can jump onto the outstanding public transport, get out of the city and be in green countryside within half an hour. I climbed MT cising but it was so foggy at the top you couldn't see more than about 20 meters.
The second day I headed out to Maokong but the cable car was not running so I walked the 1200  
steps to the top.



 
After that I went to the top of Taipei 101 which at the time of writing is the second tallest building in the world. After all the walking I had done it was good to go to the top in a lift!!!!!!!


The view was outstanding...................................

Had a rest day and had to move to another hostel before heading out of the city. I knew I would be going back to fly out so I correctly left myself plenty of things to see and do while waiting for my flight.