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| Random street in Seoul. No qilou. |
Eureka! On the airport bus I realized why I think Seoul looks better than Taipei. It's because of the qilou(騎樓) that makes Taipei look awfully messy. Those of us educated in Taiwan all learned that qilou is an unique architectural style in the Southern part of Asia, which can be found also in HK, Singapore, and Southern China; they are built for the convenience and comfort of the pedestrians, given the often rainy and hot weather in those areas.
Undoubtedly it's not easy to maintain a neat look for buildings with qilou, but compared to Taipei, Hong Kong and Singapore are doing much better jobs for the appearance of their city. Take a look of Singapore's qilou:
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| Singapore, I took in 2005. |
And Hong Kong's,
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| Causeway Bay, HK. I took in 2005. |
Lately I also come to find some Seoul buildings that have qilou, and they are fairly well-maintained:
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| A building near Gwanghwamun (광화문) |
I was just talking to Jon that I'd like to visit Taiwan someday~~ Regardless of its awful look, food there makes a reason!
ReplyDeleteDuh. Right now lots of new buildings have no qilou anymore. And I did not mean Taipei looks awful, but awfully messier than those cities without qilou.
ReplyDelete