Taipei, Taiwan

For once things went to plan and we arrived in Keelung, the port serving Taipei, on time. Again, it was an interesting sail in passing mile upon mile of dockyards, cranes, ships and warehousing before berthing alongside our sister ship, the Sapphire Princess (cue lots of jokes about getting back onboard the right ship later on.)

The drive into Taipei city centre took about half an hour and dropped us off at our first goal, the Taipei 101 Tower. The timing was perfect with no queues and we got straight to the observation deck on the 89th floor quickly. There was some haze and smog, but the views were still good. The building itself is meant to resemble a bamboo stalk and was, at one time, the tallest building in the world at over 1,600 metres - I think it might now be the second tallest, I'll have to check when I get home!

Returning down to street level we got the metro across town to the Chaing Kai Chek memorial. This was a nod to my great Uncle Wilf who, family legend has it, had afternoon tea with the father of the nation when he was stationed out in the Far East at the end of WW2. The memorial itself is huge although much of it was hidden behind scaffolding as it undergoes cleaning and maintenance. In the same area was the national theatre, another magnificently ornate building built in the style of a temple. 

Next stop was at the Sun Yat See temple for a brief walk through the gardens and a little late lunch ( which included a very agreeable Taiwanese beer.) we also spotted koi carp and turtles in the lake, egrets, herons and moorhens on the shore and a squirrel on a tree trunk.

Unfortunately the clock was against us yet again so there was a short time to have a look around the vast shopping mall that lies underneath the Taipei 101 tower before having to get the bus back to the ship.