Happy new year 2013!

 

Frohes neues Jahr!

 

I will soon continue my story of travelling in Taiwan with my boyfriend. First however, I have to tell you about New Year’s Eve in Taiwan:

Magalie, Clint, Martin, Julian and me decided to get the “real” Taiwan New Year’s Eve experience: Watching fireworks at Taipei 101! We took the bus  from Taichung to Taipei at 16:35. Traffic was a bit slow but it only took 30 minutes more than the usual 2,5 hours to arrive at the main train station. While in the bus, Julian arranged a meeting with a guy from the club “mi casa” to buy tickets for the new year party.

Advice for anybody who wants to spend New Year’s Eve in a club in Taipei: Book your tickets in advance!! All the big, popular clubs were already sold out or only offered really expensive tickets for that evening… Mi casa only costed 500 NTD for girls and it was open bar! So that was at least a good price.

At our arrival at the train station we bought the party tickets and then took the MRT in the direction of Taipei 101. We had planned to get out at the city Hall station, but that was closed because of the event at Taipei 101. We got out one stop earlier than planned and went to search a restaurant. We found a nice restaurant with korean BBQ, that was really yummy.

After dinner we moved through the crowds to check out the area around Taipei 101. Directly in front of Taipei 101 it was so crowded we could hardly move forward anymore. There was a stage with some kind of show. But we couldn’t get close enough to have a look at that. So instead we moved back to find a good place to view the firework.

We found a great view but the road with the good view was packed with people sitting on the floor. It looked as if it was impossible to find a place there – well nearly impossible. We walked in the middle of that area, found a less crowded area and sat down.

There we waited about an hour sitting on the cold floor. At 12 there was no countdown as we had expected, instead the 188 seconds of firework just started. The firework was very impressive but a bit short. At CNA I read that there had been a countdown at the area with the stage, they also had music fitting to the firework. Unfortunately we didn’t hear any of that. At CNA I also learned that the firework had actually been shipped from Spain! The design of the show was by Groupe F from France.

Afterwards we walked from Taipei 101 to mi casa. It was a bit of a walk in heels but easier than trying to find a taxi in that crowd. There we danced the rest of the night. The next morning we took the bus back to Taichung.