View of Taipei from Elephant Hill

Taipei Cityscape at Night

Taipei Cityscape at Night

The climb up Elephant Hill was surprisingly hard. It has probably been years since I last did something like this and my body is really out of shape. Having said that, I found the strength to make it to the flat parts of the trail. There seems to be an extensive trail on top of Elephant Hill and it would probably have been a nice experience. I was only here for the sunset photos of Taipei 101 and I didn’t prepare for a full blown hike. There were people here of various ages all making their way up. I was relieved to see younger folks also having a tough time climbing the stairs.

View of Taipei 101

View of Taipei 101

There are several viewpoints here but one just pops out of nowhere. You only realize this since there would be a lot of people there at the viewing deck. What you see is an unobstructed view of the city of Taipei. My first impression is that Taipei is very flat. The buildings aren’t very tall either with the exception of the area around Taipei 101 which seems to have been turned into a central business district. I guess building tall buildings in a seismically active area is a difficult and expensive undertaking. The fact that they managed to build Taipei 101 is a testament to the engineering prowess of the people of Taiwan.

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