Taipei doesn't top most travelers' must-see lists, but if there WERE a booming tourism industry, Taipei 101 would be on the standard itinerary. Currently the tallest building in the world—not counting the antennae on the Sears Tower—Taipei 101 stands at 1,671 feet, features the world's fastest elevator and of course, has 101 floors.

View from Taipei 101

The extremely modern Xinyi district is home to Congress and City Hall, as well as a cosmopolitan collection of shops. More than just another office building, Taipei 101 fits right in the area with its high-end mall and a renowned food court. The medical conference organizers were taking my father to the Chinese restaurant, so our friends took the rest of us to the Italian restaurant on the same floor.

My feelings about going up skyscrapers can be summed up with "meh," but as we were already here, we paid our NT350 ($10) to pile into the elevator. Exactly 39 seconds later we were on the 89th floor indoors observatory deck. The 91st floor outdoor deck actually requires an additional fee, which seemed unnecessary. The views were great, as expected.

Explaining the "damper" with cutesy characters

The most fun discovery was that in typical Chinese fashion, the folks at Taipei 101 had created an adorable character out of their massive wind damper (a huge ball that offsets building shakes). All of the Taipei 101 paraphernalia was really cute—from cartoony playing cards to mod color-blocked coasters to notebooks featuring "Damper."

The stores in the Taipei 101 mall are way out of my range: Chanel, Gucci, Prada, Lagerfeld. The layout is a little inconvenient, with one floor's escalators not connecting to the next. While many people seemed interested in browsing, the prohibitive prices meant few were actually buying.

Browsing the food models

The food court was an incredibly sensory experience, with a wide varieties of cuisines represented... many types of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese quick eats as well as weird fusiony items (Chinese + cheese = Italian, natch). Everything looked so appetizing compared to the usual American mall food court, with the help of food models attractively displayed at each of the almost 100 stands.

Dinner was at Diamond Tony's, where our friend knew the chef. We were intrigued at the concept of Italian, Chinese style—not fusion, but Italian as Chinese people believe it should be made.

We were served banquet style, with waiters doling out portions before placing the serving plates on the table. Apps were all pretty good: eggplant parm, fried calamari, and a crab dip served with distinctively Chinese-esque focaccia.

Entrees included fish baked in pastry, garlicky shrimp coated in breadcrumbs, pork filet in a very Chinese black pepper sauce, and linguine which was probably arrabiata but far too spicy for Italian. Another concession to the Chinese palate was that none of our dishes contained much cheese or cream.

Dessert was fruit—guava, cantaloupe and very sweet oranges—followed by ice cream with mangos, and a sort of odd cheesecake on Oreo crust.

I wouldn't go out of my way for Chinese Italian again, but it was certainly...interesting.

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