I had a hard time believing that it had been 5 years since we visited the Google Office in Taipei 101, but sure enough, it was. I was a bit sad that we went through so much of Taiwan then, and didn't get to visit all those HTC now Google offices, which weren't part of Google back then.
As part of a 7H layover in Taipei on our way to Palau, I figured it'd be more fun to spend a bit of time around Taipei, than to spend the 7h getting drunk in some lounge, so we took an uber bright an early to New Taipei City/Bitan.
Then, we went to visit the couple of HTC buildings there. They were very empty when we arrived as we got in before official work hours:
ZXG88 is a big building, although either all floors were not accessible to Googlers or not part of Google
The HTC buildings didn't really have snacks in microkitchens during HTC days, and still don't today, so people brought their own
badge scanner inside the walls, first time, this faked me out as I didn't know where to badge since the reader wasn't visible
I hope the safety nets were only there to catch stray objects that might fall
5mn away was the Gigabyte building that has a small google presence on 3 floors, mostly wireless hardware testing from what I was able to see:
we mistakenly entered the gigbabyte lobby, the Google entrance was around the corner
it was still early in the morning (engineering hours-wise), so the floors were bone empty
lots of testing equipment, including this bad ass shielding room
After being done in New Taipei City, we went to Taoyan City, 45mn away by uber, somewhat in the direction of the international airport:
likely for historical reasons, there is a 7-11 inside the building
the google building is next to the HTC lobby
nice decors, but the first floor was also the only place where guests were allowed without written prior authorization
the upper floors were mostly seas of cubicles and not that interesting for guests anyway
nice view, lots of scooters
Jennifer made do in the café while I quickly walked the upper floors
big café, the only google café we saw in the 4 locations we saw
the gym was also quite well sized and equipped
Last, and in this case also least :) was RNGAN68, which was easy to miss, even when in front of it:
it's a very small building with a few testing labs and no pictures allowed
3.5H, 4 new building locations, a bit of a travelling, but interesting to see. Definitely better than just aimlessly spending time in a lounge.
