And College Street is just like Hell's Kitchen.

Apparently:

East Taipei is Taiwan's version of Manhattan. For the rest of
Taiwan, this is the epicentre of fashion, the playground of the stars,
the mediator between Taiwan and the rest of the world. A boutique in
the southern city of Pingtung calls itself "East Taipei/Paris",
proclaiming its connection to all that is good and beautiful.

And East Taipei really is different from the rest of this fiercely
provincial island. You can walk for blocks without being able to find a
betel nut vendor, goose meat stand or raw ginger. Pretentious lounge
bars are packed with well-heeled hipsters, sports utility vehicles
parked outside. Everyone has either just returned from Los Angeles or
is off to Shanghai tomorrow.

Unabashedly a materialist paradise, East Taipei has always been about
shopping. It is bounded on the east by the new mall at Taipei101 (the
world's tallest building), the Core Pacific City Mall on the north and
the Breeze Centre on the west.

Outside the Breeze Centre two Saturdays ago, I had a very East Taipei
moment. I had stopped by an outdoor concert and was listening to an
Argentinian blues singer lead an enthusiastic crowd of Taiwanese and
expatriates in an old American gospel song. Behind the audience, a
massive second-level outdoor Starbucks was bathed in the light of neon
signs for Japanese cars and French perfumes. This is the way East
Taipei likes to see itself - international, reasonably sophisticated
and comfortably postmodern.

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