In celebration of the opening of the MRT Xinyi Line, Taipei City’s Department of Information and Tourism is offering free guided tours of Xinyi District (信義) on weekends until Dec. 29.
The line, which opened on Nov. 23, runs past major city attractions in the district including Taipei 101, Songshan Cultural and Creative Park and Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.
Department Commissioner Sun Ting-lung (孫廷龍) said the department is offering free tours starting this weekend to introduce the district to local and foreign visitors.
The department has set up a visitor information center at Exit 5 of the line’s Taipei 101/World Trade Center Station.
Weekend tours will take place between 10am and 2pm, with each outing lasting about 90 minutes.
The free tours are available in Chinese and English and introduce the district’s architectural specialties, public art and design works. People can try out the YouBike public bicycle rental program, and tour the veterans’ villages and handcraft fairs around the area, Sun said.
Each session is limited to 30 participants, who will receive a gift at the end of the tour, he added.
People interested in taking the tour can call the 1999 Citizen Hotline, ext. 3378, or the MRT Taipei 101/World Trade Center Station Visitor Information Center on 02-2758-6593.
The line, which has seven stations — Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Dongmen, Daan Park, Daan Station, Xinyi Anhe, Taipei 101-World Trade Center and Elephant Mountain — integrates with the Tamsui Line and allows passengers to travel directly between Beitou and Elephant Mountain stations in about 35 minutes. Passengers who use an EasyCard can get free rides until Dec. 23.
According to Ling Chi-yao (凌啟堯), director of Taipei Rapid Transit Corp’s public relations division, ridership on the line was about 180,000 yesterday.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS