One of the things I spent the end of last year preparing for was a trip to Taiwan to startup my new project at work (yes this now makes me an -international- cog in the corporate machine). I've prefaced this series of posts with a picture of Sisyphus, since his fate accurately sums up every moment I've spent working on the aforementioned project. But I digress ..The flight to Taiwan took all day, and due to the time differences, I ended up leaving Saturday morning and arriving Sunday night. I got bumped up to the 'elite' class somehow, where each person gets tons of footroom and a totally reclining seat. I must have temporarily held the gods' favor, because the hotel also bumped me up into one of the nicest rooms I've stayed in. The pictures below show the office/lounge area, bedroom, and marble bathroom in my suite.
Once I arrived, a typhoon decided to blow through the island, leaving the weather pretty wet and grey for a few days. The view out my window faced directly at Taipei 101 (currently tallest building in the world), which looked pretty slick despite the rain.
Work was pretty intense the first couple days, so didn't take many interesting pictures. Eventually the weather cleared up and I got some shots out the window and around the hotel.
Breakfast was always the hotel buffet, where we would stuff ourselves on fruit (esp. dragonfruit), waffles, donuts, eggs, and this banana-nut oatmeal stuff. We were taken out for lunch almost every day by Quanta. Despite my dread of being served jellyfish or boiling blood sauce, the places we went were all pretty safe and tasted great. Typically we would order all share a 'set' - a lot of courses with a little bit of everything. Dinners were usually KFC or Domino Pizza due to late hours and the need to keep plugging away at things. We did go out with some coworkers to a famous dim sum place, and were given gifts of bell fruit to take with us (basically tasted like a bland apple).
Finally, here are some pics of the Quanta building taken from our taxi. We would see this sight each morning for two weeks, and almost always leave each night feeling depressed.
