Category General stuff
Recently my good friend’s father passed away in cancer (my condolences Kai) so on Saturday me and Yini headed south to meet him up and comfort him in these hard times. We arrived in his hometown of Tianzhong in the evening and spent a couple of hours with him. Knowing that he felt comparatively good, we said good bye and went out to find a hotel. We ended up in a kind of motel where I promptly burned my lip on the what looked like a drinking fountain but turned out to be a hot water dispenser. Not the nicest … Read the rest
Last weekend some of Yini’s old friends had organized a short trip to have a chance to see each other and visit a number of interesting places. We joined but took our own car and made our own hotel booking for convenience.
The trip started with a short drive to Miaoli where the group gathered for lunch and the girls ended up chatting for a long time. Due to my still rather poor Chinese, I was not really able to join the conversation and ended up reading blogs all the while. We left the restaurant and planned to take a … Read the rest
This weekend we are visiting Yini’s parents. Normally that means staying in their house and playing with her nephews but this time Yini and I decided to go on a small outing instead.
We started by driving to Beigang and had a late lunch nearby the kind of famous Mazu temple there. After lunch we took a stroll through the temple area and the market there. There was a big pedestrian bridge spanning the nearby river and two huge temple guard statues at the bridgehead, which was pretty impressive, but nothing overwhelming.
The bridge 
Yini taking a rest under part
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything because it’s been too cold and wet to really go anywhere. Last weekend however, it was nice and sunny so Yini and I took the opportunity to go out with the motorcycle. We rode east out of the city, passed through the little town of queerly painted houses that we visited last year, and on to the Five Fingers Mountains.
At a small temple we found an fairly steep little walking trail that we followed. It was a bit of a struggle for Yini and I got pretty tired as well but … Read the rest
Last weekend, me and Yini visited her parents. Since we do this quite often, I normally don’t write about it, but this time was somewhat different. We left home on Saturday afternoon, and headed south along the highway. Around Sanyi we left the highway and followed some fairly small roads out into rural Taiwan. A short while later we came to a place called Zuolan, which does not look like much to the world. However I found it could well be worth a visit, at least if you are passing by the area.
Stopping by the side of a small … Read the rest
When I woke up this morning, I felt like going out to do something, but at the same time didn’t really have any plans for where to go. So me and Yini took it easy for a little while, then took the lazy mans option, and drove out in the car instead of with the motorbike. We headed east towards the mountains with a semi clear goal in our minds but no map. We followed road signs in roughly the right direction but took a wrong turn somewhere and ended going more or less the wrong way. Luckily we found … Read the rest
Now, I do not condone people pulling up their smartphones and filming the scene of an accident rather than helping the victim (this is a real problem, look it up). However, I do understand people engaging in disaster tourism, such as the people going to see the wreck of the Costa Concordia; destruction is exciting, like an action movie, the problem is that real disasters often entail real loss of life. When there are no people involved however (Mythbusters blowing something up, an abandoned house deteriorating and so on), I enjoy a bit of destruction as much as the net … Read the rest
I have been reading a bit about several abandoned amusement parks in Taiwan, and I would dearly like to visit some. The most famous one, katoli world, was taken down some years ago but a place called Encore Gardens was rumored to still exist. Me and Yini managed to find it on the map so we took the car and headed out. We did eventually find the place, but it seemed the owners were planing to do something with it because there were some workers there preventing us from entering. Since we were in the area we decided to check … Read the rest
Spring in Taiwan happens to be the season for two things, namely Tong flowers, the Taiwanese counterpart to Japanese sakura, and fireflies. Despite a slight drizzle, me, Yini and our friend Kai decided to go out hunting for both. We started by driving north east until white blotches among the green of the mountains told us tong trees were abundant. We got out of the car and walked around for a bit, finding the ground littered with white blossoms.
A couple of the flowers 
They are everywhere 
Someone had made a heart, I’m not romantic enough
Having strolled around for … Read the rest
A few days ago, my old friend Johan Svennung contacted me, wishing to visit me in Hsinchu. We already had a dinner planned that day but welet him join in the fun. Since there were no good buses back to Taipei in the night, he slept here, suggesting we go to some hotsprings the next day. So, when we woke up, we borrowed Yini’s car, and drove up to the mountains in search for a wild hotspring (wild as opposed to a hotspring resort). Eventually we found the road that we thought it was on, but saw no signs of … Read the rest