Fun Taiwan Chapter 5 - Taipei 台北101

Taipei 101 (台北101) is one of the tallest building in the world; the tower has served as an icon of modern Taiwan ever since its opening. Due to it's popularity, we also visited the tower's observatory while we were there in Taipei.


Taipei 101 features an Indoor Observatory on the 89th floor and an Outdoor Observatory on the 91st floor. Both observatories provide tourists a 360-degree breathtaking views of Taipei city.


We only managed to enter the indoor observatory deck. The admission for the indoor observatory was NT$350 per person. A separate ticket of NT$100 is required for visiting the outdoor observation deck, which is touted as the world's highest outdoor deck.


The steel yellowish pendulum (I call it big ball) in the photos above serves as a tuned mass damper, the ball sways to offset movements in the building caused by strong wind (if you know that Taiwan is prone to high winds from typhoons as well as earthquakes). It is the largest damper sphere in the world, and it is also the one and only damper sphere which is visible to visitors (tall buildings like KLCC usually have a damper sphere installed to offset movements in the building). Therefore, the Taiwanese are very proud of it :)


Here's how to get to Taipei 101 Observatory by MRT:
1) Get off at City Hall Station (Blue Line).
2) You can either catch a Taxi to take to there which will usually costs less than NT$100 or you can walk from the MRT station to Taipei 101 following the google map attached. It is just 10-15 mins walk from the station.


View Larger Map

Here is the MRT map for your reference:


Click on the map to view the full size image.