Taipei 101 stands tall at a hundred and one floors (I know, who knew) and is visible throughout Taipei on a clear day given the smog isn’t too heavy. A spire that jets out in the middle of this giant city, it was once the tallest building in the world and was also awarded the title of the largest and greenest building in the world. It resides in the center of the financial district in Taipei and was at one point the pinnacle of architectural ingenuity.

When you walk into the lobby and purchase yourself a ticket, you are treated to a wild ride in an elevator that will take up a hundred floors in under a minute (45 seconds if my memory doesn’t fail me). One can feel the gravity being left behind as their stomachs feel a light strain that illustrates the speed at which they are hurtling upwards towards the top floor. Unfortunately on my second visit to this wonderful skyscraper, one of the passengers had a few too many dumplings for lunch. The moment the doors opened up, the man leapt out only to drop his entire lunch on the ground.

Skirting around the regurgitated lunch, I like to take a quick look at the giant ball that is centered within the upper levels of the building. It is a tuned mass damper according to the internet, but my friends and I called it other names that wouldn’t exactly be appropriate for a blogpost. It is there to stabilize the building against strong typhoon winds and if one has spent enough years around the Pacific Rim they will understand the sheer power of these tropical storms and the damage they can do. Add on devastating elements such as readily active tectonic plates and constant erosion due to humidity, it’s amazing that any feat of architecture is accomplishable in this part of the world

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Humans can do amazing things. To create a skyscraper to this magnitude in a region that has so many devastating natural elements and to have a Two Michelin Star dumpling restaurant under the same roof, well that’s a miracle in my book.