Taipei International Flora Expo

What’s better than a beautiful exhibit of flowers from all over the world? BAZILLIONS of exotic flowers (like lobelia and pansies)! This year is the 100th Anniversary of Taiwan and to celebrate, Taipei put up this massive flora expo. There were packed exhibition halls, huge themed displays, live music, dance, and outdoor gardens stretching all the way from Yunshan MRT station, past the Fine Arts Museum all the way to the river park. It was so massive that they had shuttle busses to take people from area to another. The whole event was supposed to last from November of 2010 to March, but it was so popular that they extended it well into April.


It had been so cold and rainy that we went on the first sunny Monday in mid-March. That was a mistake, as everyone else had the same idea. I think we arrived at about 9am and the cues to get into the exhibit halls were already miles long, so we decided to skip that! No problem, there was still plenty to see outside. No one does over-the-top quite like the Chinese.

Here's the cue at the Expo Dome. No thank you!


Some exotic lobilia! Oooh


Some gorgeous lillies.


Pansies as far as the eye can see....why?


Some pretty cyclamen.


Vertical gardens are very poplular here. This is a display of mostly lobilia and petunias.


The flower expo is a good place to do a photoshoot with your favorite little anime dolls. Yey!


This was an exhibit of poetry about flowers.


Outdoor stage with some kind of Chinese comedy act going on. It was blazing hot in the sun, and you can see people with umbrellas and shirts over their heads, trying to deflect the heat.


One of the beautiful outdoor gardens.


Rhodys! :)


This is the plaza by Yunshan, just one of the 4 areas of the Expo so you can get an idea of how big it was.

A cool arch made from vertical gardens.


This is one of the displays by the Fine Arts Museum where they had flowers represented from different countries all over the world.


This was the expo area by the river. Mostly just big open spaces and then...this ginormous caterpillar tent! WTF?


I think they could have made this bigger...and probably could have put the shuttle bus drop off at least another kilometer further away. If you get irritated at having to park at the far end of the Costco parking lot...forget about it. People here will walk miles for fun, just to see a couple pansies. And that was the flora expo!


Here’s the website for the Expo if you want to explore some more: http://www.2010taipeiexpo.tw/MP_4.html