Category Landtravel
So, I’ve been in Ireland for almost two weeks and it’s not until now that I have time to write about it. I have been here for work. Basically, my company sold a machine to a company here, and when the customer asked for a modification on that machine, they sent me and two other guys. I have spent most of my time either at the customers facility working, or at the hotel resting (it has been many long days of hard work). However I did get a bit of time to explore the emerald island so I have one … Read the rest
This weekend, me and Yini have done a real land travel journey, the most interesting part of which was the journey itself, not so much the destination. The destination was Erlin and Yini’s parents house. I’ve been there several times before and though it’s nice, I kind of know what to expect by now. Yini’s mom will make lots of food for me, her dad will serve me tea and discuss some topic which is simple enough for my level of Chinese, and her nephews will use me as a sort of toy.
Like I said, getting there was more … Read the rest
I have driven up to the north coast of Taiwan several times the last few months, each time thinking to myself “wow, the coast road her is nice, I must drive it one day”. That one day turned into this weekend, and drive became ride a scooter. Starting Friday afternoon, I picked Yini up at Taoyuan train station. We rode through Taoyuan county, passing Anders street in the outskirts of Taipei and up into the mountains. Normally, it is pretty stressful to ride on the mountain road in the dark, but these were surprisingly easy. We stopped by in the … Read the rest
My brother has been studying in Hong Kong for a few months now and, having some time left by, he came to visit last weekend. Naturally me and Yini wanted to show him around a bit, so we went for a couple of rather long drives, both on Saturday and Sunday. During our little outings we kept stopping here and there to check out some interesting sights. We started with a gigantic Buddha statue by a lake in the Hsinchu mountains. The Buddha is part of the temple complex of a Buddhist organisation called Universal Family. We were shown around … Read the rest
Taoyuan is not all that far from Hsinchu, about an hour and a half by country roads. Having ridden the scooter to Hsinchu on Friday afternoon, I had to bring it back on Sunday because I need it for work. Me and Yini decided to do this as a small trip, going eastward through the mountains instead of the straight road. It turned out to be a bit of an adventure that, including several stops, took us most of the day.
Riding along the winding mountain roads, we first came to a mountainside cafe where we stopped for tea. From … Read the rest
My mom and dad came to visit me this week. Since I’ve spent a fair amount of time driving them around the island to show them different sights, I consider it to be true to the spirit of landtravel. It started the very day they arrived, as me and Yini picked them up at the airport, but instead of taking them straight back, we stopped by at the lantern festival to let them marvel at the myriad lights. The next day we drove down to Lugang in central Taiwan and spent some time walking around in the picturesque old streets. … Read the rest
After a long train journey to Swinoujscie and too little sleep on the ferry to Ystad we are now back in Sweden and our travels are over for now. Despite a few mishaps we enjoyed ourselves but, traveling around like this is tiring in the long run; three weeks is just enough.
During the trip I learned a few things that can be useful to know for future adventures.
- I brought too many things: I had a few items I never used and can further reduce the size and weight of my bag without a problem.
- It is a good
Since it was overcast and raining this morning, the weather was perfect for visiting a couple of museums. It turns out that Warsaw’s museums, or at least the ones we visited, were mostly hum drum. The museum of the Warsaw Uprising however, was great. A good collection of photos, old weapons and so on, documenting the Warsawian’s attempt to cast out the Nazis. It was all displayed in a very moving way. Although a bit off the main tourist rout (we got slightly lost on the tram network) it’s definitely worth the visit.
That’s pretty much it for the day … Read the rest
Warsaw is less overwhelming than Krakow, very likely due to it being a proper city, a metropolis even. Therefore the interesting attractions such as the old town, palaces, churches and so on are all spread out. To see them one cannot simply stroll around, it is a fair walk among modern buildings to get anywhere and public transport would be preferable for the not so young and fit.
For me and Yini, walking along the royal way up past the castle was no problem, so we did manage to see much of old (or should I say rebuilt) Warsaw in … Read the rest
Today we spent more or less the entire day under ground in the Wieliczka salt mine just on the edge of town. We started with the classical tourist rout which, by the looks of it would be very crowded considering the one hour queue for tickets and a further half hour wait to get in. Down below it was not as bad as all that, due to a limited group size.
We descended down a seemingly endless set of stairs. When we got to the bottom we set off on our walk through long, wood lined corridors and chambers of … Read the rest