Night of the Empty Airport

Due to an excellent bout of planning I had the privilege of an eleven hour layover in the Taipei airport in Taiwan. So from the hours of 10pm to 9am I wandered the mostly empty airport and got to do some cool stuff, I actually learned a lot.

This isn't even half of  it, makes Costco look like the Quick-E-Mart

 The Taipei airport is larger than most malls and has way more stores. It can take over 20 minutes of fast walking to get from one part to the other and thats only if there are no people and you know where you're going. To walk the whole airport takes just under three hours. Its filled with a ton of stores mostly selling duty free stuff but also has two playgrounds, a hospital, and about 8 museum exhibits and a ton of other stuff.

Taiwan either has a lot of arsonists or took "Firestarter" very seriously

No one notices this until it is pointed out, there are a compulsively insane number of fire extinguishers... in like every room. It is impossible to walk around for more than two minutes and not see a bucket or closet with three to five extinguishers in it. It's good to play it safe but it's a might bit odd.

Speaking of odd safety measures these two take the cake.

Yes that is a evacuation slide...I'm sure it's safer than it sounds

 So yes this one requires some explaining, this is what happens when a safety exit and a laundry chute have an unprotected night together. Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you the safety slide, so you can awkwardly slide to safety... down three stories.

Apparently escape sling is chinese for zip-line, make your escape fun!  

If you thought the safety slide was a fun way to cheat death, but have trouble on playground equipment they have you covered. There is a safety zip line, only for use in very serious emergency situations. The greatest thing about it is that the english instructions on how to use it make no sense at all. I assume they keep the settlement money for your family in the case chained to the pole.

We actually are just pointing at a wall.

Another thing that is unusual for americans is the astronomic number of cardboard cutouts. They are pretty much 99.99% of almost identical looking airline stewardesses wearing different outfits. If you walk the airport you will see these everywhere... I stopped counting them at 26 and that was in the first forty five minutes.  I asked a few people why there were so many, apparently no one even notices them any more. most of the cutouts don't even point to anything significant. 

Below are just a few of the museum exhibits that are everywhere in the airport. Most of them are about Taiwanese culture and the ancient Formosan tribes who lived there before the arrival of Chiang Kai-shek. There are also exhibits of chinese culture and media

Yeah people seriously get killed for bringing in drugs, but I hear it really works for them. Locals say there is hardly any drug problems at all in the city.

I checked and they really have recently executed people.

The plant wall was really cool this thing is like two stories tall and all the plants in it are real. They even killed a bunch of them to write I *heart* TW in big letters. Now that is dedication.

Yes break out your old saloon gear and your ten gallon hat. Apparently they really do sell sarsaparilla... I didn't know that was even a real thing anymore, or who this guy is. 

Smoke Long Life cigarettes, every drag tastes like self delusion!

Cigarettes are huge in asia, despite the gross pictures of rotting teeth, dead babies, cancer tumors and other consequences on every pack. This brand of cigs is really "long life" I'm starting to think there is no chinese word for irony.


Onwards to Cambodia!