When we visited Taipei, Taiwan earlier this year, we had to do the thing most every tourist does: make a trip to the top of the 101-story skyscraper, located in Taipei’s Xinyi District.
While visiting tall buildings is often mostly about waiting in line and taking a fast, ear-popping elevator ride, Taipei 101 has some unique points of interest. One example: the building is located just 660 feet away from a major fault line.
Taipei 101 was designed to be flexible as well as structurally resistant to withstand gale winds as well as strong earthquakes. To offset up to 40 percent of the building’s movement, Taipei 101 has a 728-ton steel pendulum or “damper” (pictured above.) Visitors who reach the 87th to 91st floors can view the mass damper’s 18-ft-diameter sphere.
Taipei 101 dominates the landscape view most anywhere in the city of Taipei. The main tower of Taipei 101 features a series of eight segments with eight floors in each. While the repeated segments were designed to look like a stack of ancient Chinese money boxes, many U.S. visitors note the building resembles a stack of eight Chinese food take-out boxes.
When it opened in 2004, Taipei 101 was the world’s tallest building. This distinction didn’t last but the 1,670-ft. tower did become the world’s tallest and largest “green” building in the world in 2011 when it was awarded the LEED platinum certification. The building’s water recycling system provides 20 to 30 percent of Taipei 101’s water consumption.
Getting to Taipei 101
The easiest way to reach the tower is by taking the Red Line (Xinyi) Metro to the Taipei Metro Taipei 101/World Trade Center Station. From the Marriott Taipei, we took the MKT Brown Line (#1) from the Jiannan Road station to the Daan station, where we transferred to the Red Line (#2) heading toward to the Xiangshan station.
Directions to the Taipei 101/ World Trade Center stop on the Red Line are well marked in English.
When you get off of the Red Line subway at the Taipei 101/World Trade Center stop, you simply follow the signs to Taipei 101. Exit 4 connects directly to the basement of Taipei 101.
As you come outside from Exit 4, you have to look straight up for an up-close view of Taipei 101.
Go Early to Avoid Crowds
Although the Taipei 101 Observatory is open daily from 9AM to 10PM, we followed the advice to go early. Arriving around 9:30am helped us avoid any long lines to buy tickets or to reach the Observatory.
Within an hour, this lobby area looked very different as the bus loads of tourists had arrived.
The Taipei 101 elevators take 37 seconds to whisk visitors from the fifth floor to the 89th-floor observatory.
As long as the day is not too windy, visitors can take the stairs from the 89th floor to reach the outdoor observatory on Taipei 101’s 91st floor. The weather was overcast and hazy, so the views weren’t that great.
Still, the view looking down from the Taipei 101 observatory gives one a sense of just how high you are above the rest of the city of Taipei.
We found the views of huge mass damper to be the most fascinating. This “damper” is designed to reduce the movement at the top of Taipei 101 by as much as 40 percent, key during times of high winds or earthquakes.
The damper has a mascot: the Damper Baby, with its own comic book and website. Visitors can buy four versions of Damper Baby souvenirs in the Taipei 101 gift shops, although not as big as this one that is more than 6 feet, 6 inches tall. 
Our take on the best Taipei 101 souvenirs: mailing postcards from the 89th floor post box.
If you want to visit Taipei 101 and eat the famous Din Tai Fung dumplings in a brief amount of time, check out this Taipei Night Tour & Din Tai Fung Steamed Dumplings tour from Get Your Guide.
We used this guidebook to help plan our trip to Taiwan:
Have you visited the top of Taipei 101? What did you enjoy most about your visit?
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Other posts on our visit to Taipei:
- A Ferris Wheel on Top of a Shopping Center in Taipei, Taiwan
- Exploring Local Foods of Taiwan With Taipei Eats
- Visiting the Raohe Street Night Market in Taipei, Taiwan
- Riding the Maokong Gondola in Taipei, Taiwan
- A Cheers Bar in Taipei, Taiwan
- 18 Fun Facts About Taipei 101
- A Peek Inside Suite 829 at the Taipei Marriott Hotel