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April 22nd 2013
There is something fun about traveling with first timers. They are like babies, curious and easily amused. We went down to Pingshi railway for lantern floating. We got a two-colored lantern for health and wealth, wrote our wishes on it, and set it to fly. That was a lot of fun (that I usually won't so myself).... read more
April 20th 2013
I remember Anthony Bourdain saying, he doesn't come here very often but every time he comes, he is very happy that he did. I feel the same about Taiwan. We started the day with our obligatory 7-11 visit. How to explain to a tourist that we have to visit 7-11.... And Mr. Donut........ read more
April 1st 2013
Taiwan is not a usual tourist place but there I was headed with my colleague and her family for a 5 day trip covering Hualien, Jianxi and Taipei city. At the very start, we struggled with a Chinese GPS followed by an erratic US style driving and lack of familiar sights like petrol stations, restaurants etc. All sign boards were like pencil drawings! I slept off in the car and once up, was looking at bridges and highways and then the beautiful countryside- mountains, seas and islands! It reminded me of West coast of California. We were prepared for “SPRING” but it was 18 degree Celsius. Therefore our socks did more rounds than originally planned. On the first day, we saw a beautiful lake and then settled for the night at another beautiful, white castle of ... read more
March 26th 2013
It was an early morning flight to Taipei, but not a long one, and flying out of Haneda instead of Narita made it seem much shorter. I arrived at Songshan airport with my girlfriend, Miki, and we took the MRT subway to Ximen, where our hotel was. When we surfaced at Ximen, I took in my first impressions of Taipei. The immediate area around the station was a populated intersection, complete with store fronts, food vendors, big screen advertisements, and tall buildings in the background. We had been told this area would be like Shibuya, and so far it was living up to expectation. As we walked toward the hotel, the sidewalk seemed narrow. The store fronts all crowded right up to the sidewalk, and the street was not far on the other side. Foul smells ... read more
Exploring some stunning scenery just around the corner
Published: March 22nd 2013Asia » Taiwan » Taipei » Wulai
March 22nd 2013
Time do go hiking while I still can. I leave the house a little too late in the morning, take the MRT to Xindian, the last stop on the Green Line, which takes me already a good 45 minutes. Then outside the station to wait for the bus to Wulai with a lot of old Taiwanese people, who seem to be constantly hiking everywhere. When the bus comes, they try to do the idiot Chinese thing of pushing in before everybody gets off, but I stand my ground, hop on and secure the last seat. No point in being overly polite and offering my seat to rude, old people who are still fit enough to hike all over the island anyway. 40 minutes later, I'm in Wulai. Lonely Planet describes it as 'rural, bucolic splendour', a ... read more
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March 21st 2013
Back in Taipei, we take advantage of the last few free days before my internship starts. We hop on a local train to the porcelain-producing little town of Yingge. We visit the Ceramics Museum, where several exhibitions of artworks of budding sculptors and artists from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, China and Hong Kong strike our interest. The main reason for us to make the trip, however, is Yingge Old Street. There we find pottery and ceramics shops in abundance, selling everything from bowls mass-produced in China to locally crafted goods. After browsing for a few hours, we finally decide on a tea cup, a few bowls and one fine clay pot made in Japan. One thing that we appreciate most about Taiwan is the night markets. Shida district boasts one of the most famous and dynamic ... read more
March 8th 2013
We cruised into Huang Pu one smoggy morning. This is the port city for Canton which is now called Guangzhou. It is a huge industrial port and Huang Pu is all business. The Academy Awards were going to be broadcast on the ship that morning so we decided to stay on board to watch them instead of taking a tour into Canton. As it turned out the signal wasn’t very good…maybe we were being jammed by a certain government. So we went ashore for a walk about and to grab a bite to eat. Most of the restaurants were already closed for the afternoon but we found one Chinese restaurant which was located in a parking garage, of all places! The food wasn’t bad and we were the only gringos in the joint. The local officials ... read more
February 23rd 2013
I love salt. I eat so much of it that my partner Emily says my hair will fall out. But I don't generally plan holidays around it. Until recently, that is. Staying in a countryside township in Chiayi County for Chinese New Year (read about it in my blog A Traditional Chinese New Year with my Taiwanese Family), we were able to escape all the drinking and Mahjong games one afternoon to do a little sightseeing. I'd heard about Taiwan's salt mountains from Taiwanese people before, but I never realized that Emily's family lived so close to the most famous one. The Cigu Salt Mountain and Salt Museum are quiry sights that draw (excuse the pun) a sprinkling of mostly domestic tourists to Cigu, the center of a 7200-hectare area of salt production just north of ... read more
February 17th 2013
First of all, let me apologize for the seemingly cheesy title. This slogan was actually not my idea but it is the contemporary tourism branding line of Taiwan, issued by the government. Contrary to other marketing efforts such as 'Beautiful Bangladesh' which might seem dull and (maybe) not entirely appropriate, this time the tourism board has probably hit the spot. The best way to explain this is by telling you a little story of what happened to me and THH in Suieshe, a small touristic village next to Sun Moon, the island biggest freshwater lake. There is really nobody to blame but oursevles anyway. I should have learned during my long trip in Mainland China a couple of years ago that travelling during the Chinese new year is not a good idea.. especially in destinations which ... read more
February 13th 2013
There is a place in Taiwan where things are different. There is a place where the grey concrete of Taipei seems so far away. There is a place where the blue is bluer, the green is greener, marble stones shine in all the colours of the rainbow and the clouds hang lower. I am not talking about Neverland and I am not Peter Pan or Michael Jackson for that matter... What I want to talk about in this entry is the wild east of Taiwan, a rough landscape with towering peaks of more than 3.000 meters and crystal clear water meeting the rocky cliffs of the coastline. According to popular belief is is this part of the island that has given birth to its alternative name 'Formosa', i.e. the beautiful island. Portuguese sailors centuries past are ... read more
