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Taipei 101 certainly doesn't stand in isolation with regard to shopping, business, entertainment, and living space. It's a swanky area with very expensive real estate...might be compared to Times Square or Fifth Avenue in New York City. But the billboard seen here is undoubtedly much bigger than anything that can be found in NYC, or anywhere else for that matter.
These were captured on the first floor of the mall...
The huge mall at the base of 101 is just as much an attraction as the observation floors atop the building. This is a ceiling shot from one of the levels below; the tower itself can be seen through the glass at the top of the frame.
Think I've posted a pic of this building before, but don't remember the concentric circle patterns on the sidewalk below. Then, during post-capture, I got to looking at those blue curvy lines at the top along the highway; what could they be? Thanks to the Bigger Cahoona's awesome full-frame, 48MP ability to crop WAY in, they are revealed to be barriers to prevent debris from ending up on the buildings nearby, and possibly to dampen highway noise as well. Just a guess...
Our good friends the Bishops came up from the Philippines to spend a few days, so it was an opportunity to show them the sights. Naturally Taipei 101 is a must, but so many pics from up there have already been posted that I didn't bother to take many on this excursion. This I considered a keeper, however, because of the weird twisted building to the middle right and below:
We were up early on our last morning at the hotel when I went back to our spot to see how 101 was doing. This is sort of a silhouette shot and sort of not. I liked the picture, but didn't know what to do with it really, so fiddled with a couple of the settings per below:
As we were walking the property admiring the nighttime scenes of the surrounding city, I was ecstatic to see that 101 was actually unobstructed by clouds or fog. Holding the Bigger Cahoona as steady as possible, planting my elbows on top of the property's stone border wall, I went crazy trying to capture a clear, non-blurred image. What I would have given for a tripod then! Zooming all the way in and holding my breath as I snapped the shutter (a practice I learned in competitive rifle shooting as a kid), I managed to extract the passable picture above. Still, it required heavy sharpening and only a very small amount of rotation, but nothing else. I'm happy with what we see here.
Since the Grand Hotel is relatively isolated from the hustle and bustle of the city (though it's smack dab in the middle of it), night shots were easier to capture without nearby distracting lights and activity. After snapping the entrance view posted yesterday, I turned around to get a night shot of what is, indeed, a grand hotel.
A view of the hotel entrance in the daytime above, and night below:
