Adventure is out there!: Taipei 101

Taipei 101 is the tallest building in the world from 2004-2010! (Curse you, Dubai...)

Outside, with some fun shrubbery


It's tall!

Outside the building are a lot of interesting sculptures and topiary.

"Damper baby" is Taipei 101's official mascot. More on that later.

stay baaa-ck, they're feral

I waited for several minutes trying to get
the fountain to look impressive on camera

much water

This building is really tall

I really wanted to touch the giant spinning sphere but you can't

I think this says 101

The old elevator cord. It serves as a warning of what may
befall new elevator cords if they start getting cheeky.

The first 6 or so floors are a very fancy shopping mall. Most of the floors are offices after not open to the public, but the main attraction is the trip to the top of the building. There's an elevator that will take you to around the 88th floor, where you can walk around a 360 degree observatory deck. You can't go higher than that; according to Andrew, the top 20 floors are government research.

Daria Morgendorffer: If you play that John Lennon song
backwards, it says, "Imagine all the people, browsing in a mall."

Me with my true love (naan) at the food court on the lower level

This sticker makes me feel much better about
pressing elevator buttons

Taipei 101 is also the home to the world's fastest elevator!

Top speed going up was around 1000 meters/minute

There were pretty constellation lights on the elevator ceiling

And then we were at the top! The fog made it a little difficult, but you could still see some really amazing views of the city.

From the observation deck, you could go down a level to see the damper, which acts as a counterweight to stabilize the building when it suffers earthquakes or high winds. The "damper baby" (that red thing pictured a while above) is the cute-ified mascot version of the damper. It has eyes and a nose in the shape of the numbers 101.

thank you, damper

Damper with baby

The last stop on our way out was the gift shop. Remind me to come back here if I ever become extravagantly wealthy. There were so many beautiful sculptures made out of jade and coral.