My journey across Asia — Taiwan Part II
My fifth day
My host still seemed to feel bad because of the incident happened the night before. He had left me a post card with a written apology on my bed. I was now heading to Taipei 101. It is one of the highest buildings in the world and I was really excited to go there. After taking the bus I arrived at this imposant building which was really outstood beside the other buildings.
I had an appointment with Ying at the reception inside the building. As I already mentioned, she works for Google Taiwan whose headquarters are located in the remarkably-looking tower. Just as I went towards the reception, she picked me up. She had already organised an ID card which allowed me to move around in certain areas within the building. We then went up by using a pretty fast lift in order to arrive at the 73th floor. We went past another reception and it seemed that plenty of other companies shared the same floor with Google. Ying was talking a bit about her work until we reached a door. By the door a small sign hung and says: Google. Since she told me that she worked for Google I had been thinking of how it could be like and my expectations were at the pinnacle of excitement. What would it look like and does it look like in the photos of the headquarters in California?
She slowly opened the door and I could see…
an ordinary office with 3 tables and laptops on them.
“You must be joking… this is the Google headquarters of Taiwan?!”
I never expected that sort of thing… and I was too stunned asking out loud.
We stayed there for a moment and then moved on to the cafeteria, which was two floors above us. I was fairly disappointed until we reached the 75th floor. In front of me, an entrance which could have right come from Jules Verne’s mind and what’s more huge letters which say: GOOGLE. So now I was brave enough to ask Ying the size of Google and she quickly replied: “a couple of floors.” The office we had first been was additionally rented because of lack of room in the main floors of Google. I felt relieved that my first impression had turned out to be wrong.
We moved on to the Google cafeteria, in which they served a variety of food based on healthy principles. In addition to the healthy aspect, they tasted delicous! While we ate, I enjoyed the breathtaking view from the 75th floor.
Although I had just arrived I could smell the Google atmosphere. It is described as friendly & birthplace of innovations. In fact, it impresses me a lot. My highlight was the arranged pitch with Ying and her collegue Wen. Wen was a friendly Taiwanese who had studied in Germany for several years and now deals with the marketing at Google. They were working on a project related to German clients and asked me for support since they had to prepare a presentation in German. It was loads of fun & facinating at the same time to help them by giving them language and a bit of marketing know-how. During the meeting Ying stood up and asked me whether I want an ice cream. I nooded and followed her to the freezer which was full of ice cream! A sweet dream came true. I grabbed green-tea flavoured cup and went back to the meeting room. Afterwards, both showed me around the office. I saw a billiard room, leisure room and a library. Wherever we went, there was such a relaxed and chilled atmosphere. Wen and Ying explained to me that beeing helpful, kind, transparent and being risky and allowing mistakes are values of “Googlers”. Nobody I met there wore a suit.
Then Ying and I went out for a bubble tea and returned to her office where I could stay the afternoon preparing my papers for my following travel destination.
In the evening we visited a famous night market and I tried different sorts of food.
We went back to Taipei 101 where I left my luggage. The reason I put the baggage there was that my flight departed in the middle of the following night and so there was no point in staying another night at the hostel. First we milled around and after a while I took the chance and started rearranging my lugguage. The days before I had just always stuffed my belongings somewhere. Now I could arrange it properly. I took every single piece of stuff out of my backbag and put it down on the floor.
“If Google knew what I am using their office for”
All my stuff was spreaded accross the office and we both laughed. Then we sang “I am from Austria” (The inofficial Austrian hymne). After finishing packing the luggage I set off to the airport. I scheduled the time quite tight and so I had to run to the bus station. When I arrived at the bus station I realised that the bus runs from somewhere else. Actually about 20min far away. As a result, I speeded up, running like lightning to the supposed bus stop — getting lost again — asked police officers the way — ran again — and eventually managed to get on the bus. Bangkok I am coming!
You want to know what’s happing in Bangkok? FOLLOW this link to Day 6!
