It's the Republic of China!

Okie dokie, so this time I'll write about my not so recent trip to the capital city of Taiwan, Taipei! I've been to Taiwan 4 times already and today I would like to share you my experience when I first set foot on Taiwanese soil in 2013. Honestly, I've always thought that Taiwanese are like Chinese - because of the Chinese ancestry and they used to be a part of mainland China. What I can conclude is Taiwanese are indeed "Taiwanese", a culture of their own but seamlessly blending with other cultures especially Japanese! If only they have their own language (other than Chinese), I might consider them different. It's still hard to adjust the fact but yes, I gotta admit they are really different from mainland China and they have this similar accumulated style from the Japanese. Just imagine a Japanese speaks Mandarin and there you go!

This is Taipei. The roads are very wide,clean and neat. The public transportation is not bad either. Taipei has an efficient Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system and the block by block arrangement of buildings certainly helps in reducing congestion. They've planned everything accordingly and by that you can see why they've built the Taipei 101 building far away from the city centre in the Xin Yi District. KL certainly needs to keep up the pace especially in the public transportation sector if they want to be a global world class city by 2020.

Another one special thing about Taiwan is this,SCOOTERS! Yeap!During my stay, I rarely seen a motorcycle or a super bike on the road except for scooters!

I have no words to describe this picture! hehehe

Taiwanese also have the "let's cycle" attitude. Even in the city, you can see lots of bicycle lanes and ample parking spaces. In order to encourage more people to use bicycles, the Taipei City Hall had introduced a bike rental system called U-bike in 2009 and in 4 years alone, more and more stations had been built around the city to cater the people's need. You can use it for free up to 30 minutes. I've seen a similar system like this in Busan, South Korea and Hiroshima, Japan but those are mainly targeted for tourists to enjoy the city landscape and not locals.

U-bike rental system in Taipei.

Block by block arrangement of buildings enable a steady traffic flow because of the wide road lanes. A straighter road also helps in diffusing bottle neck jams. For instance, from the picture above, because of the neat road belt, straight elevated track beams can be built, thus reducing construction costs.More over, trains can move faster in straight tracks and carry more people because of higher frequencies per headway. Plus,theoretically,it is also wayyyyy safer to travel straight right! =p

The best part of traveling is meeting new people in the way. I've made 2 new friends from this trip. Andy from Germany and Roberto from Spain!

This is Amir, my high school classmate of 2 years! Who would ever thought us meeting in Taipei after 5 years! LOL- Beets me either! Actually, My original plan was to travel to Taipei alone but Amir got caught up with my plans from Twitter,he then showed sudden interest to the trip and yeahhhh so, the rest is history!haha

Longshan Temple!

People praying inside the temple. I've been to many countries where Buddhism is the main religion and to tell you the truth, it always have a different feeling to it.=)

This is Ximen, a fusion of Harajuku in Japan and Myeondong in South Korea. The main junction from the above picture really reminds me of Shibuya,Japan. A must visit place to Taipei!

Putrajaya!! Naaah, this is the "new" modern Taipei in front of the Taipei City Hall,Taipei 101 and the Convention Centre in Xin Yi District. It's like putting the Petronas Twin Towers in Putrajaya Boulevard and puuuh!