Late on Wednesday morning I left Taipei for Taichung. On the way to the train station I took a few more pictures of things I had forgotten about earlier. Just east of Ximending and south of Taipei main station are a few buildings apparently from the Japanese period. Some of these are still in use as government buildings, including the Presidential Building. Some early form of Taipei had five gates centred around the same area. According to my guidebook only the North Gate still retains the original architecture, while the West Gate (which Ximending is named after) is gone and the others have been rebuilt or modified. The Presidential Building The North Gate What I think was the South Gate

Another thing I didn't mention in the previous post is that many of the larger streets have overpasses or underpasses in addition to crosswalks. Another interesting traffic detail is that at some intersections there seem to be displays with the countdown for the current intersection state (in addition to the crosswalk countdown). One more random item to mention is that there are a number of malls in addition to the shops on the streets. I didn't look much at these, mostly just because they are largely underground and the entrances are not obvious to me.

Getting the train to Taichung turned out to be easy. I probably could have got a cheaper ticket, but the price was reasonable as it was. The train platform was somewhere in the depths of Taipei Main Station; there must be several levels of tracks there between the MRT lines and the intercity trains. The train stayed in a tunnel for a while after leaving the station, and if I remember correctly there were one or two stops in there. After that there was a while of passing through urban areas, followed by a mix of urban, agricultural, and industrial looking land. Closer to Taichung the ocean was visible not too far away on the right of the train, and mountains were visible on the left. My train arrives Out the train window Out the train window Out the train window Out the train window, possibly near Hsinchu Out the train window, including the ocean Out the train window Out the train window The train at Taichung