Impressions of Taipei

I'm in Taipei to speak at TEDx Taipei on Saturday, and this is my first time in the city. First impressions: vibrant but more laid back than Tokyo or Seoul (can't compare to Shanghai or Beijing as I haven't been to those yet), very warm and friendly people, crazy traffic of course, wonderful stores and markets, lots of high-end shopping, very prevalent Western brands, overall a terrific sense of style and design, and wonderful food.

Here are a few street photos from wanderings so far.

7-Eleven convenience stores are common in Taipei, and in addition to the snack foods that will be familiar to Americans there are some local foods available. This 7-Eleven is inside Taipei main subway station.

Starbucks are also quite common.

Inside a large fabric market

My colleague Chloe Ng and I met up for dinner with a well-known design blogger in Taipei, Han Wu, at the famous Din Tai Fung restaurant, which is well known for its delicious soup dumplings. There is meat and soup inside the dumplings; you bite off the top of the dumpling, suck out the soup, and then pop the dumpling into your mouth. Delicious!

The Din Tai Fung kitchen, everything is made fresh on-site

Han and me. He is super nice, and has been very helpful at connecting us up with the local design community. He is an architect and urban planner by training but just completed his MBA from Duke, and is currently working on a book about design and innovation.

From inside a cab

Some photos from a night market, very vibrant even at 10pm.