Blogs from Taiwan, Asia - page 117

I have now had some pretty weird encounters with the stray dogs of Taiwan! The other night as I was scooting out my gates of my peaceful Villa and as I was going around the corner - passing a grassy knoll area, I was chased down by a pack of stray dogs. Now you may think these were large fearstly beasts, but NO, they were small little punks---who SCARED the crap out of me---"bark bark, run run, snarl snarl' the image plays over in my head everytime i turn that corner....I have learned to lay on the horn-sending out a warning to them that I will be coming around the corner--this time no stopping--they will be hurt!!!!!! The next morning on my way to school I was at a stop light and turned to my ... read more

It was my n-th time visiting Taiwan (Taipei), yet probably only the 2nd time having the opportunity to relax and rewind - the other times were all purely for work! Thanks god, for this trip: despite working till 12am on the second day, I was able to treat myself to some personal time, some strolling along streets and "doing nothing"... which was great fun, for a change! And I also took the opportunity to meet up with my friend Shane - Shane was there on a special mission, an inter-goverment exchange program. Good luck, Shane, with the rest of your Taipei stay! And thanks for taking those photos!! :-)... read more

There isn't much to be said to sum up an overnight flight to Taipei except.....UGHH. All I definitely can recommend to anyone flying EVA Airlines is no matter how cheap the flight may be it definitely pays to get the upgrade to their Evergreen Deluxe Class. Although I must say our flight was pretty painless “well… the Ambien really helps with that” when we actually boarded the plane and saw that there were no screens on the back of the seats and just a shared monitor for each section we were both a bit frightened. Excellent we get to try and learn Taiwanese while watching their blockbuster movies for 13 hours…FUN. It really wasn’t that horrible, they were actually English movies with subtitles so we got the better end of that deal. I powered through “Hoot” ... read more

Hua Lien is located at the east side of Taiwan. Sort of in the middle of Taiwan. My train departed from Taipei Station at 8.00 am sharp and arrived in Hua Lien Around 11.15am. Daniel and Nicole was sleeping all the way to Hua Lien as I was enjoying the scenery. We passed by the Pacific Ocean on my left and on our right were many many big mountains..... I love NATURE!! However, I did see some pollution near by as there are a few factories doing different things like mining coal and marbels. The tour that I joined was literally half day tour. We set off straight to Taruko Museum to have a quick look. We then get to know the natives (eg. Taruko Race) culture and life style a little. The musuem also highlighted ... read more

Continued from Taiwanmex So that day I have to leave Kirin Hotel to Taiwanmex - my hostel is behind Zhong Shan Station. I must admit the location of the hostel was pretty good as it is very close to Taipei Main Station and it is literally one minute walk from Zhong Shan Station. Since I was new to Taiwan, I haven't got a clue on how the address works... so it took me more than 20 minutes trying to find the hostel and finally I gave up and rang up the hostel. The hostel owner, Magos was well nice, she came down n took me to the place. I was scolding myself for being so stupid not to walk that way...grrrr! anyway, Taiwanese are generally very very kind and nice to tourists. Thumbs up for ... read more