After being a victim of my own stupidity as I may have accidentally left my wallet in the train station or (some say) a pick pocket victimized me, I really don’t know but safety really depends on us so lesson learned be extra careful next time.
I decided spend the remaining few hours that I have in Taipei at The Taipei City Hall Bus Station 市府轉運站 , It is actually an inter-modal station where you could transfer from maybe a train to a provincial bus, a city bus, a cab or just like in my case a bus going to the airport.
All I had was NT$ 200 where about $145 would go to my bus fare to the airport. Nothing more to do I opted to hang around the station and watch people. Tell me who doesn’t love people watching? ha ha ha!
A mom with her daughter (not seen) waiting for a bus going home
A couple that I watched for about thirty minutes, I think they are lost and doesn’t know what bus to take
A city bus, buses here are quick and doesn’t stay long picking up passengers.
A lady selling some stuff outside of the station
But watching this lady made me realize that not because you are in a first world country you automatically become rich in the sense that the struggles of being in a third world country, just like where I live in right now, would go away. It may actually be a lot tougher than what we imagine. Some cities’ environment may be more cut-throat than what we are complaining about right now, anyways my point is where ever we live we must never stop fighting for a better life!
Her scooter with her merchandise
the city hall station was built to ease the traffic that the Taipei Main Station gets specially during rush hours. Taipei Main Station is a pretty big place but it also gets huge traffic as all of the lines of the MRT and the HSR (high speed rail) and all Buses converge at this place. I say the City Hall station is a pretty station and I guess my own city could use a similar infrastructure. Oh this is privately operated and will be transferred back to the government after quite some time something that we are familiar with as a BOT project or a Build Operate Transfer project.
It has a shopping mall, a hotel and of course the stations so if you are waiting for some one to arrive you wont get bored or if you are a traveler who wants convenient access this is the place to stay almost everything is at the tips of your fingers.
Stairs going up to a open veranda
I like the fact that the station is friendly to everyone including people with disabilities their washrooms, walkways and stairs are all properly marked!
My favorite feature of the station is that you can leave your things in a locker right at the station where you could just comeback and get it less hassle of bringing your belongings with you specially if you are backpacking!
Instructions on how to use the lockers
The mall’s main entrance that will greet you upon reaching the top of the stairs.
My heart was really heavy over the fact that I had to leave Taiwan in a few hours, not fulfilling the things that I wanted to do like go outside to the nearby rural areas and going to the top of Taipei 101. But I guess its because Taipei wants be back sometime so that I could fulfill those on my list. But for now I decided to just hangout at the plaza on the upper floor of the Taipei City Hall Bus Station with a magnificent view of Taipei 101.
