Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, is a “must stop” destination for all who travel there. Long ago, the “Taipei Basin” was inhabited by an Aboriginal tribe called the Ketagelan. Later, Taipei became an important port for the trading of tea under the occupation of the Han Chinese. Finally, the city became the island’s capital. No one can visit the Taiwan’s capital without a visit to Taipei 101. According to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, Taipei 101 is the world’s tallest skyscraper. The building has a total of 106 floors, five being underground and 101 above ground. Thus, the name Taipei 101. Since Taiwan is located in an area that is subject to typhoons and earthquakes, the skyscraper was designed to withstand both of them.

The Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall is another popular attraction in Taipei. It is also known as the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall although there has been controversy over the renaming. This great monument to China’s former president Chiang Kai-Shek is located near the Gate of Great Centrality and Perfect Uprightness. The main structure has white walls with an octagonal roof of blue tiles that rises up to 70 meters above the ground. The Memorial Hall contains a library and museum. It is surrounded by a park where a beautiful pond is located..

Taiwan, or officially The Republic of Taiwan, is in addition recognized historically as Formosa, from your Portuguese words “Ilha Formosa” – Pleasurable Tropical isle, the very first words that said to have come out on the otherwise speechless Portuguese navigators upon laying their thinking about sights within the isle. And appropriately so, for the name stuck for centuries to come and until now, quite a few sentimental souls still insist on addressing this gorgeous tropical isle as Formosa.

Having a acreage of 35,980 sq. km., geographical eccentricities awash the terrain of this sweet potato-shaped isle gem. Through the lush and flourishing verdant mountains of Wulai, the scenic ruggedness of Taroko Gorge, the dramatic basalt cliffs of Penghu, for the Taian Hot Springs, Taiwan is fast gaining a reputation as one of the most diverse nature travelling destinations in Asia. The Taiwanese culture can be a sweet brew of Asian mainland and archipelagic ethnic mores and traditions, being at a strategic economic and cultural crossroads between the two. It contains the Chinese culture at its core, attributable to the Taiwanese ethnical origins from the Chinese mainland, with a nourishing spicing of Japanese, Malayan Austronesian and Western cultural influences.

It has been seen that the surging economic increase of Taiwan for the last thirty years or so is nothing else short of a miracle, and indeed it truly is amicably dubbed as “The Taiwan Miracle”, an enduring testament with the Taiwanese patriotic resilience and tenacity. But seeing them up close, the Taiwanese people are affable, warm and cheerful. As a matter of fact, they’re a few of the nicest persons internationally. They’re so packed with renqing wei, translated roughly as “personal affection,” that a first-time visitor would never really feel any bit someone unfamiliar upon arrival, during his stay and definitely upon leaving this beautiful isle state.