Hollywood Art Deco Walk

Last weekend, Liz and I went on the Hollywood Beach Art Deco Walk, run by the Historical Museum of South Florida. The walk is led by Paul George, MDC professor and local historian. The walk covers the historical area of Hollywood Beach, up Surf Road.




Although less well known than the area on South Beach, there are some interesting examples of art deco buildings on Hollywood Beach, as well as some older buildings.



Unfortunately, the light wasn't really good for taking pictures in the morning, so I didn't get much. But now, I know where some of the more interesting buildings are and I will go back in the late spring or summer and get some more shots.

Taipei 101

Once our group was complete, we visited Taipei 101, for the moment the tallest building in the world. Across the street is a poncy shopping center called New York, New York that's full of American chain stores (and MUJI). There's a ice cream eating statue of liberty out front.




Taipei 101 is mostly an office building, but the first few levels are host to a mall, and there is an observation deck and exhibit hall on floors 97 and 98, or thereabouts.



The day was a gloomy one for the most part. I am told that eventually the clouds parted and the view of the city was good. I did not actually see the view as I was having a bad day and was in no mood to go up to the 97th floor.



Instead, I contented myself with wandering around downstairs and taking some pictures of the building and surrounding area from outside.



101 is connected to New York, New York by a covered walkway.



My camera battery died shortly after this picture was taken, on the walk to the book store down the street. I bought a couple of Taiwanese cookbooks at said store, then we returned to the apartment for a rest before heading to the night market.

The Golf Ball Mall

On Sunday, we relaxed a bit. We spent the morning sitting in the room looking at the internets and looking through our pictures.




Around noon, we set off for the golf ball mall, aka the CPC Center. This is quite possibly the ugliest, and most likely the most poorly designed mall in the world. We had to walk down four sets of escalators to get to the food court, and to get to each escalator we had to push our way through tables of merchandise on a small walkway. I ordered a beef noodle soup from one of the food court vendors and we had an enjoyable, if a bit surreal, lunch while listening to Christmas carols both played over the PA and sung live (we think). Very strange. I think there were two different versions of Jingle Bells sung with heavy Chinese accents. All I could think of was the last scene in A Christmas Story.

After lunch, we saw Ray off. He had to return to Tainan for work on Monday morning.



We took the rest of the day rather slowly. We eventually made our way out to the NTU area for Mexican food.



The Mexican restaurant in question is called Tequila Sunrise and, while not spectacular, is fairly decent US Mexican restaurant fare. I've certainly had worse Mexican food in the northeastern United States and Europe (Ljubljana, Slovenia, to be be precise - I have yet to experience the dreaded "Czech-Mex"). We really just went there because we try Mexican food wherever we are. If you're spending a long time in Taipei, it's worth the visit, but if not, I would recommend sticking with the local stuff.



I also had my second in a series of Kirin brews not available at home. The Bar was a good sight better than the winter brew, and actually better than the Kirin available at home, as well.