The Swift Family Blog : July 17

Sunday, September 9, 2018

July 17

Happy Birthday to Rebecca! I know that spending your birthday in a foreign land where you don’t speak the language is probably not the funnest way to celebrate a birthday, but I think Rebecca was still able to have a good day. We tried the biggest thing we could think of – the Taipei 101 building. When it was built the Taipei 101 building was the tallest building in the world. I think it may be the fifth tallest building now. I remember that they had started on it when I was on my mission, but they didn’t finish it until about 8 years later. The building really stands out in the Taipei skyline. Throughout our time in Taipei, the children would often point it out and mention that we were going to go to the top of it. As we got close to it, looking up at it was really impressive and dizzying. I really like the outside design of the building – it looks modern, but also has a traditional Chinese style to it. The viewing deck is on the 91^st floor, right where the small part of the top starts. From the 5^th floor (where we got our tickets) to the 91^st floor we took the world’s fastest elevator. We hardly noticed that we were moving, but there was a sign telling us which floor we were going by and the speed at which we were ascending. My ears popped a few times going up and down. I am guessing the ride took less than 30 seconds. At the top, the first floor that we got to visit was the indoor observation floor. This floor had floor to ceiling windows all the way around and the views were all breathtaking. We spent about an hour just looking out all of the sides across the whole city. Although we were busy looking out, many of the other visitors were busy looking at Agnes and Asher and taking pictures of them. My sister suggested that we put a sign around their neck charging $1 or so for pictures. After the indoor observation floor, we got to go see the wind damper. This was the first time that I had heard of a wind damper, but I guess many buildings have them. This one was basically a giant concrete ball hanging from steel cords and attached to the building with suspensions. We read a few signs about it, but I still didn’t understand exactly how it works. What it is supposed to do is absorb all of the movement when there is an earthquake or strong winds so the building doesn’t really sway at all. While we were there it wasn’t moving at all, but they had a few videos of it swaying slightly during an earthquake and a few typhoons. Then we went to the outdoor observation deck, but since it was so sunny and the walls were built up so high that the children couldn’t see over them, we didn’t spend much time on this floor. After the Taipei 101 building we made our way over to a hike up Elephant Mountain. This is a short hike right at the east end of the city. It is basically a 20 minute walk straight up the hillside using stairs. It was crowded and hot and I didn’t like it very much. It was hard, but since it was right there in the city, it just didn’t seem like a real hike to me. Although the views from the top were great, I wouldn’t recommend it to others – especially since we just had way better views from the 101 building. After hiking down we let the children play at a park for a little while. Our original plan was to go to a night market that evening for dinner, but since everyone was so tired, my sister offered to babysit while Rebecca and I went out for more beef noodle soup.

The view from the bottom.

Getting ready to go up.

The elevator ride was kind of boring. Our ears did pop and the way up and down, but all we got to see was this little picture of which floor we were on as we went up.