新年快樂 (Happy New Year!)

This New Year's Eve we went down into the Xinyi District of Taipei City which is home to a variety of new, shiny buildings including Taipei's tallest building, the Taipei 101. Taipei 101 was the world's tallest building between 2004 and 2010 until the Burj Khalifa overtook it (it has now dropped to number six). It's an impressive building which definitely helps define Taipei's otherwise almost non-existent skyline which is hindered by the potential for earthquakes and typhoons throughout the year.

Every New Year's Eve there is a fireworks show which takes place at the Taipei 101 so we headed downtown to check it out!

Taipei 101

As we walked along the street, their were hoardes of photographers lined up at vantage points with their cameras set up and ready to photograph the event.

My friends and I initially had planned to climb up Elephant Mountain (象山), which is famous in the city for it's great view of Taipei and Taipei 101, but the majority of the people we were with decided against it at the last minute as we'd left it a little late and we were told it would be extremely difficult to find a spot. However my workmate Eliza and I decided that we'd give it a go anyway and headed up the mountain. As we headed up, there were huge crowds of people both heading up the mountain and also heading down, which was a little discouraging! When we got to the top, it was very crowded with hundreds of people lined up to view the fireworks. However, we managed to find a small spot on the edge of the mountain where we both were able to get a great view of the city and also make sure we were not blocking anyone else's. The firework show itself was great and pretty reminiscent of the one's I've seen in Dubai at the Burj Khalifa (I.E. fireworks coming out of the building), although at only four minutes long, it felt a little short! Nonetheless it was definitely spectacular, and the whole evening was almost worth it just for the incredible view of the city.

People lined up on Elephant Mountain, waiting for the fireworks. We sat around here, a little in front of everyone and slightly closer to the edge of the hill.

The view of the city was incredible.

After the fireworks, we headed down and passed a temple which was open near the bottom of the mountain so we had a quick look inside.