Taiwan Storyland: The Lamest Place You'll Ever Go?
it would take a fool to come up with the concept of a multifunctional museum-theme-park-restaurant; or a visionary.I vote for fool, since I considered this to be multi-dysfunctional. Now I know the Taiwanese love obscure themes for museums, and I haven't managed to go to the paper museum, the water museum, the tea museum, the hot spring museum, or the miniature museum, but I have trouble believing they could be more half-assed than Taiwan Storyland (although they could be equally half-assed). Struggling for visitors they have bought or begged a feature article in the May-June 2006 issue of Discover Taipei, which is a publication of the Taipei City Government.
-Mark Caltonhill, Discover Taipei, May-June 2006
The theme of Taiwan Storyland is 1965 Taiwan. There is a small replica of a 1965 community. Perhaps this is to show how much Taiwan hasn't changed in 40 years. The classroom looks remarkably like a modern day buxiban classroom with the exception of chalkboards, an organ, and the fact that it’s clean. There is really nothing here that held my interest. The article says they are relying on their restaurants as their primary source of income. The restaurant I ate at served very ordinary Chinese food, and I certainly would not pay a cover charge to eat at this restaurant.
The only thing they have going for them is location. It is located across the street from Taipei Main Station. The address is B2, No. 50, Sec. 1, Zhongxiao West Road.
The website is www.taiwanstoryland.com.
Taipei Site Seeing Index:
http://taipeiguide.blogspot.com/2006/05/sites-in-taipei-city.html
Comments
1. Discover Taipei was not "bought or begged" (don't be so cynical of journalists), though i have no idea what it has been up to after it went private.
2. I suspect foreigners are not the target market of this business. Rather, it is a walk down memory lane for Taiwanese, and those that i saw seemed to enjoy it.
3. "mark" is not me; myself, i did'nt dislike my visit, but the fact that i have not been back in 3 years probably speaks for its self.
In fact, I wish there more places like this in other parts of the world. It is kind of like a small scale colonial Williamsburg, unless you call that lame too.....
The fact that you say Taiwan hasn't changed much shows how much you haven't seen. Yes, there are some places that haven't changed, but Taiwan is now a bustling metropolis and it has changed a lot. I have never in all my years of traveling around Taiwan both to local and tourist locations seen anything like the buildings in Taiwan Storyland. I didn't even eat at the restaurant and I thought it was nice attraction. Being a person who visits Taiwan yearly, I found this to be a worthwhile visit.