Well, not exactly from the sky, but from the Taipei 101 building. It was a beautiful day today, so we went to the observatory on the 89th and 91st floors. The elevator takes 37 seconds to go from the 5th to the 89th floor, which I found amazing. The 89th floor is the indoor observatory, while the 91st floor is outdoors. Luckily, it also has a big fence around it, so it wasn't too terribly scary. You can see what they call the "Super Big Wind Damper" on the 88th floor. It's the world's largest wind dampler, and is what keeps the building from swaying like crazy. (They've also made it into a marketing ploy, by having 4 little creatures called Baby Dampers that they sell in the gift shops. Think Teletubbies, but not quite as annoying.) The building was designed to withstand the strongest earthquakes of the last 2,500 years. Hopefully, they won't be testing it anytime soon!
Heres the circular walkway next to my hotel. The
hotel is to the right of the walkway.
Taipei from the 89th floor of 101.
Another shot from 101.
The top of this buildings has "Welcome" cut into the grass.
Because today was Taiwan's national day, they
had a military fly-over of the city. This group
of jets is trailing red, white and blue smoke. The
photo was taken from the 91st floor, and is a
little hazy because of the telephoto lens I was using.
Some people posing in front of the wind damper.
They're standing next to the silver Baby Damper.
Wow! Those are some dizzily-beautiful photos.
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