Focus on the moment...

Focus on the moment...

1. Taipei

See one of Asia’s lesser-known capitals as it takes on a confident new character, where revitalised spaces hum with inventive start-ups, and there’s always time for a snack

HIGH ABOVE THE CITY, an elephant stands watch, with a lion, a leopard and a tiger by its side. That, at least, is what Taipei hiking maps say. The eastern hills reach four arms out towards the city, each named for a wild creature. It’s easy to imagine one appearing suddenly out of the steamy forest. Beneath Elephant Mountain, streets spread across a plain nine miles wide, surrounded on all sides by more hills, except for a gap where the Tamsui River escapes to the nearby sea.

Taipei’s setting is a bonanza for citizens looking for outdoor pursuits. But until quite recently the city had the feel of an accidental capital, with not much time for leisure. Half a mile west from Elephant Mountain lies 44 South Village: a gaggle of humble, tiled roof houses surrounded by the high-rises of the Xinyi district. Like similar settlements across Taiwan, most now vanished, it was built for evacuated soldiers of the Chinese Nationalist army, after their defeat by the Communists in 1949. For the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, Taiwan was to be a temporary base from which to ‘retake the mainland’. The island had just emerged from 50 years of Japanese rule, when Taipei was a city of showpiece official buildings on grand boulevards. This vision was almost lost in the post-war years, as first survival and then economic growth took priority.