Blogs from Keelung, Taiwan, Asia

Tour Day 137, Cruise Day 35 – "The Best of Taipei" Shore Excursion – Keelung (Taipei), Taiwan – Take in Taiwan's incredible history with this visit to some of Taipei's most extraordinary sights. Your journey commences with a relaxing drive from Keelung City, Taiwan's second-largest port, to the slopes of Qing Mountain. Here you will visit the Martyrs' Shrine -- a stately monument constructed in 1969 to honor the 330,000 brave men who sacrificed their lives in key battles. With a style reminiscent of Beijing's Taihe Dian Imperial Palace, this stunning shrine is surrounded by more than eight acres of grass and features a bright red main gate guarded by white-uniformed officers. Back on the road, head through the bustling city of Taipei. Explore the Lungshan Temple, built during the Ching dynasty and devoted to worshipping ... read more

Gray skies today as we headed out for our excursion but luckily it never rained. Apparently we missed an earthquake a couple of days ago. Pretty common here so we have been told. First stop was the National Palace Museum which houses all the treasures that Chiang Kai-shek took with him when he left mainland China. It houses some beautiful artwork. The place was totally mobbed mostly by Chinese coming to visit what used to be theirs. Went to a Michelin-rated restaurant featuring soup dumplings in the basement of the Taipei 101 building which was the tallest at one time. They make the dumplings right out where everyone can see them behind a glass partition. There was a market in that building and Jerry managed to buy a case of beer. He was the hit of ... read more

So after my whirlwind tour of Taipei; which will be continued later, Amy and I headed out to Keelung. Keelung is a port city and it's a cheap hour train ride outside of Taipei. The college student at the Information Desk in Taipei booked us a room and then wrote down the address in chinese so that we could tell a taxi where we needed to go. Not speaking any Chinese was pretty difficult on this trip. I haven't been to a place where I didn't speak the language for a while now, so it was interesting and sometimes frustratingly funny to communicate. As we arrived at our hotel we were pretty confident until we got to our room....our room with only 1 bed. Amy and I just shrugged and went with it, dumped out stuff ... read more

　　以為可以坐一下長途火車，豈料來往台北與基隆的列車和地鐵沒有什麼分別。白撞了大半天。 　　全程焦點：拜會誠品書店，竟然發現"Before Sunrise/Before Sunset"「劇本」，二話不說立即據為己有。 　　穿著Torsten Frings走在台北夜市很是愜意，因為台北沒有人會穿球衣，四天行程內我只在路上遇見過一件巴塞隆拿。走進百貨公司，我覺得有點像日本。... read more

Saturday May 1st Lhasa – Chengdu I woke early as the taxi to the airport is coming at 730am. It was another restless night’s sleep for me, I woke in the wee hours and had trouble breathing, nose all stuffed up I look forward to our return to a lower altitude and fewer red corpuscles! The taxi arrived at 715am but we were ready, Tony was concerned as there were two men were in the taxi, one of the golden rules of travelling is to never get in a cab with someone other than the driver, as the hotel had arranged this cab, we hoped it would be okay. It turned out fine, especially as the other guy slept all the way. It was a beautiful morning in Tibet, blue skies everywhere that seemed to bounce ... read more