Elevator Red

After Marks wedding I was on my way to Georg place for a coffee and I happen to see this rather striking red running all the way up the top of the balcony combined with a very conservative geometry.

















Xiniyi style.

Taipei Visual Nights

For me the best time to see Taipei is at night, just sitting in a Taxi and watching all the bright lights whiz by I think it's a great experience, you just have to look out the window and not chat to you're mates. You really get an understand that this is a 24/7 city and something you don't have back in Europe.

Drive by.

At night Taipei city totally changes and emits a new image, it hides the congested roads and all the tin roofed apartments and concrete jelly molded architecture. You're just left with this bazaar mixture of silhouetted tower blocks illuminated by an array of colour full lights.





















Photos from my Nokia mobile.

Hyper Structures

Ok maybe the tile is a bit exaggerated but this is something which I find always amazing when you can see a building at this stage in the build process, I love it you can see everything go on, how it's built, the inner frame etc.

I do hope when they get to doing the outer surface they use an interesting library of materials and not just pebble dash concrete along side non transparent windows, which I can't stand.

I love the blue construction lifts hanging of the sides, and how they are all evening aligned at the top.

In perspective.

Slightly Different

The has been a lot of peculiar architecture happen in Xinyi which is where the 101 tower is located.




















This is a new development for a financial companies head quarters.

Disney Land

I never thought I would ever go and as a child I never really had the urge too want to go, but 24 years later I decided I should go and take a look and see what it’s all about.
















One of the center attractions of the park is the Disney Castle, it's a bit odd walking around as it seems so miniature.

It was actually my farther who twisted my arm and said I should go too see how professionally the place is run. Apart from finding it slightly tricky to find the Mickey and friends parking tower the rest of Disney was pretty will organized and all creepily too friendly.















For me going around the shopping area is interesting and good fun as the themed shop fronts I thought were amazingly detailed.

I went mid week as I thought the would be less people and only tourists wondering around, but I was totally wrong as it was full of school children who had just broken up for spring brake. Not only that but I had visited on possibly one of the hottest days in California the was not a could in the sky and this made it all very tiring walking around the park as the sun was so intense.
















Picturesque swan lake, I think?

I decided to visit the traditional Disney park as they have two theme parks. The one I went to see was the first park that Walt Disney built and the place is huge and quite good fun just to walk around and see the all the themed buildings and shops they have.








A rather big lake, complete with pirate ship in the back ground, you can just about see the masts!

The was also a museum dedicated too the last fifty years of Disney, this was very interesting to go around as you could see how the graphic style of mickey had changed over the years.

Disney is full of these vast man made structure imitating either the Grand Canyon or some snow ridden Antarctica.

The vast parking facilities, with electric shuttle buses to take us to Disney Land.

Taipei Mega Structures

I love the heavy construction industry in Taiwan, it's always on a huge scale. This is the undercarriage of the motorway just across the river from where I live in Jhonghur city.

I also like the fact that they have been painting the undercarriages of the bridges in vibrant colours.

I'm not sure how true this story is but I was told the undercarriages of the bridges used to be green to show subtle support for the DPP party and the newly elected KMT have been repainting over the structures in new colours.

The photos below should enlarge if you click on them.

Coffee Time 故宮 Rewind

This is the new restaurant right next to the National Palace museum, it's no more expensive than  Starbucks and the coffee is good plus the interior is pretty cool inside.

Image should enlarge if you click on it.

Rita.

Inside, notice a marble ganst* tea table.

Two of a kind.

From China With Love

Over the weekend I happened to spot some really nice old doors which had been decorated with metal embroidery for strength and protection.

The don’t make them like this anymore.

The owner told me that he had bought them from a village in the Northern part of China about 15 years ago and they were from the Ming Dynasty.

Steel embroidery.

I was also told that it’s now illegal to important these kind of artifacts from China. But I thought they were probably safer here than where they had previously come from.

The knocker and lock below.

All the images should in large, if your wanting to check out the detail.

Taipei Architecture Xinbeitou Library

To me this is what new Taipei architecture should be about for houses and community buildings. This is the Library located in Xinbeitou and I think it is a fantastic building for Taipei it blend Asian style with that modern Western twist which Taiwan is after.

The back view of the Xinbeitou library.

Apart from the building been eco friendly it is actually nice to look rather than the concrete monster you can see in the background. The rooms are airy, and the is vegetations such as trees to soke up the heat from air cons units etc.

Front entrance.

Taipei lacks greenery and I don’t want to sound like some eco warrior but I think the government should encourage small tower buildings to incorporate community roof top gardens. Gardens aren’t big in Taiwan, I think it‘s not there thing, but I am sure if they could encourage urban vegetation it would dramatically help with reducing outside heat and the current population problems Taipei faces.

Check out the concreat monster in the back ground! Image should in large if you click on it.

I had done another photo joiner which I wanted to add. All the images should in large if you click on them.

Park Life

This is my local park, which you can just about see from my flat, it’s about a 3-minuet walkway, which is really nice. The park is about 9-10 acres in size, and is normally quite empty mid week and nice relaxing place to go for a drink.

Yongan Park, which is about 4 minuet walk from Yongan Market MRT.

The Taipei national library which is located in the park, this is there new architectural column.

Super Structure

I really like this support structure, which I thought had a wonderful engineering look to it and you could easily see how it kept the outer structure ridged.

MRT stop Beitou.

Check out the structure behind Rita.