This Wednesday I wrapped up a month and a half abroad in Asia starting with Japan (a tour through the country with my roommate adam. I wrote about it earlier in this blog.) Then I moved on to:

• Taipei, Taiwan for 4 days
• Shanghai, China for 3 days
• Hong Kong for 9 days
• Singapore for 8 days
• Taichung, Taiwan for 6 days

I have been a solo traveler, and this was no change. However, I had never stayed abroad for so long before - nor have I hit so many cities in such a long period of time. Luckily I did not miss any flights and for the most part stayed on schedule.

Now that I am back in America, I thought that I would write a bit about my thoughts about Asia before it all flows away once I get back into the flow of life.

This is part of a series of posts that I hope to get out in the coming weeks, all about different thoughts I’ve had during my travels. In my last post, I had talked about the food. In this one, I am going to focus on the architecture - buildings and the general feel of the locales.

Architecture

Shanghai has simply three of the most awe-inspiring buildings I have seen in person with the three supertall towers - Shanghai Tower, Jin Mao Tower, and Shanghai World Financial Center.

These three buildings are just three in a forest of skyscrapers in that part of Shanghai, but they tower over everything else. Shanghai Tower in particular is just a stunning piece of architecture, with its impossible curve and lustfully smooth skin. Supposedly the curve of the building’s shape helps dissipate wind speeds at the building’s great heights (it is the second tallest building in the world at 2,073 feet tall).

I recommend seeing this one in person. And when they finally let visitors go to the very top, I recommend that you go to the top too.

Taiwan’s Taipei 101 remains a stunner no matter how many times I see it. It has this feeling of traditional elements enbiggened in a way no other ordinary building can match. It just feels to me like the world’s biggest temple.

Otherwise, the rest of Taiwan is surprisingly earthbound. Taiwan is said to be one of the densest countries on earth - 23 million packed onto a tiny island. However, Taipei is still a rather low to the ground city. It retains that “Japan” feel - a vast sprawl of blocky aged, 7-10 story buildings. Many consumer areas have this sort of ‘mom and pop shop’ feel that definitely takes influence from Japan.

This is a huge difference from Hong Kong, which is magnitudes more dense than both countries and shows it. HK has truly mastered the art of making the most out of every piece of available real estate. Buildings go straight up, but are also super thin and super close to each in addition to being super tall. It is like a concrete forest.

Hong Kong has the most “urban” feel of all the cities that I went to. There is a layer of grundge on all the buildings and the chaotic nature of each building contrasts with the clean, glass feel that Shanghai and Singapore have (but is shared by Taiwan and to some extent, Japan). All the buildings have the same-color palette, drab and depressing. It is like watching the movie Blade Runner.

There is a famous lookout sight at the top of Hong Kong island called the “Peak”, where you can then see the dazzling display of lights from Hong Kong’s spectacle of skyscrapers.

It is pretty cool but not really worth the mosquito bites. Don’t trust Google Maps’ path because it might route you through some damn shady paths.

Singapore is famous for being centrally planned, which allows them to hive off all the business boxy buildings into one area and leave a place for some nicely cultivated “nature” gardens. There is a distinct feel of “control” here. This is a very sort of “controlled” nature, in that nothing is left to grow on its own. Everything is boxed in with concrete or steel just shunted off out of visitor view. And when nature fails to properly astound, they just build it themselves.

Asia has some of the most urban cities in the world and they are on the cutting edge of the construction business. Coming back from Asia, I feel that the styles of architecture in the US is staid and overly conservative. They are all glass boxes without personality … when they get built at all nowadays.