101 reasons I got over my tall building obsession

I've never been able to resist visiting the really tall buildings when there's one nearby. I mean the ones that are or were serious contenders for World's Tallest Building.

I've been up the Empire State Building, the Burj Khalifa, the Petronas Towers, the Canton Tower, the Shanghai World Financial Center, Chicago's Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower), and in Melbourne, our very own Eureka Tower. There's usually a modest fee, a bit of a queue, and spectacular views from the top.

So it was inevitable that I'd find my way up to the top of Taipei 101 while I was there. It's admittedly only the 11th tallest in the world right now, at 509m, but from 2004 to 2010 it was in fact number one.

As usual, there's a not-to-scale wall chart that  exaggerates its size, depicting all the others as smaller, whether they are or not.

The entry fee was a bit more than expected, but the 40-minute queuing time was an even more unwelcome imposition.

The view was a problem for me too. Being in the only really big building in town, there's not much else to look at. I found it difficult to get my bearings. It might have worked better in daylight, when it would have been easier to locate the hills I'd been climbing earlier in the day.





So after 20 minutes I was ready to come down again. Except that there was another 40 minute queue to negotiate!


I did rather like the open access to the wind vibration dampening ball mechanism, hanging down through the centre of the building. It's a 660 tonne steel pendulum, and it's been known to move by up to one metre during typhoons.

World's tallest

The Q1 building in Surfers Paradise was indeed the world's tallest residential building when it was completed in 2005. It's been overtaken by five others since then, but it's still Australia's tallest building overall (though only the 80th tallest building in the world!)

It has a big spire on top, and they tend to include the spires in the quoted heights, which I think is cheating, and the top of Q1's spire is one metre higher than the top of Dubai's Burj Al Arab's spire. I imagine that's not coincidental.

I had to go up to the observation deck of course, and as these things go, it was a pretty good observation deck experience. You do have to pay, but there are no pesky metal detectors or other security checks. You just get in the lift, press the button, and up you go.

And it's a pleasant and relaxing observation lounge too. No time limits, no crowds, and wonderful views of that oh-so-familiar strip of unreal Gold Coast real estate.

The view to the south.













And to the north.







A somewhat optimistic world's tallest comparison chart. World's 80th tallest in yellow.