I went to Taipei last week for a short work week. Taipei is a crowded Asian city that has a more worn-out feel to it than Tokyo. The little neighborhood directly behind the Westin Tokyo was very quaint, well-maintained and pleasant. The little neighborhood across Nanking East Rd (A major thoroughfare) in front of the Westin Taipei is a shitty run-down rickety crap neighborhood. So is every other neighborhood we've seen.

One night we had a bad dinner in a really great restaurant. We decided late in the afternoon to go to CompuDex, a big electronics show in the convention center. Coincidentally it is right next to Taipei 101, currently the tallest building in the world when counting floors and not antenna height (in which case the Sears Tower is taller by a few feet). It has a shopping center on the first 5 or 6 floors and also a bunch of restaurants. We had in tow a sales representative chick from Phillips that one of our the guys in our party had mislead into believing that we were interested in buying her tuners; he bailed on us after a while so the remaining of us asked her to dinner.

We ended up at a traditional Chinese place - very nice looking, very elegant and classy. We had one of our colleagues order the set menu for 4. This meant a bunch of small-portioned things; two soups, vegetables, steamed white rice, a platter of chicken and beef, a plate of some sort of organ and a whole fish (they served the head and tail, too). It was a bit "off" for Simon and myself; the chicken had been cleaved into medium sized pieces from a whole chicken. They consisted of skin, bone, ligaments and meat. The chicken in the soup was still on the bone, too.

I ended up eating my rice, the vegetables, working my way through the first soup (which was pretty good) and the chicken soup. That was it, though; I was starving this morning.

Another night we went to "Snake Alley" which is officially called "Tourist Night Market." We looked at all of the stalls and I took a bunch of pictures. We ate at a really good Chinese seafood restaurant and I ate everything (clams, crab, prawn, soup) and really enjoyed it. I bought a feng shui energy detector. I'll have my pal Wendy Tse translate it for me when I get back to the office.

We also hosted the entire organization at a really fun "Las Vegas Style" buffet lunch at a local hotel. The food selections were outstanding and everything was really great.

It was oppressively hot and humid and the rains poured down every morning, but it was a good time and a very interesting place. I'm sure I'll be back and very soon as well.

Photos here.