Taipei, Taiwan

TAIPEI, TAIWAN | "臺北 — The Northern Capital"

Taipei is the most underrated city in Asia — a capital of 2.7 million people that combines the Confucian cultural depth of the Chinese world with the democratic openness of a modern island republic in a city of night markets, Buddhist temples, Japanese colonial architecture, and the most sophisticated tech economy in the world outside Silicon Valley. Taiwan produces over 90% of the world's advanced semiconductors and the TSMC fabs that underpin global technology are located 75 kilometers south of Taipei in Hsinchu, but the capital itself is experienced through its extraordinary food culture, its mountain hiking trails accessible by MRT, and the National Palace Museum that houses the largest collection of Chinese imperial art in existence — 700,000 artifacts moved from Beijing to Taiwan in 1949.

The colors are the specific Taipei palette of subtropical urban life: the warm terracotta of the traditional temple rooflines visible from the Taipei 101 observation deck, the brilliant red of the Longshan Temple against the grey sky of the typhoon season, the deep green of the Yangmingshan volcanic mountains visible from every elevated point in the city, and the extraordinary neon amber and white of the Shilin Night Market at 10 PM when the density of the food stalls and the crowd creates the most atmospherically charged street scene in Northeast Asia.