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Going traveling without doing any homework whatsoever is a strange experience. About six months ago our friends invented us to go on vacation with them over Chinese New Year and we agreed. Since we didn’t have any strong preference, they selected Phuket in Thailand as the destination. During the months before taking off, we were too busy to do any research so when we landed, the only piece of information we had was the location of our hotel. Luckily my wife had booked a villa with a private pool so we spent the first morning relaxing poolside while trying to … Read the rest
A friend of mine named Sofie used to live in Taiwan. During her time there, me and my wife would often take her out and shower her around. To show her appreciation, she invited us to come stay with her on the west coast of Sweden for a couple of days so she could repay the favour. This year we finally had a good chance to take her up on her offer. For those who don’t know, the west coast of Sweden consists of a long chain of islands that stretches from Gothenburg in the South all the way to … Read the rest
My family is fortunate enough to have a cabin by a lake out in the woods. When I was young I always enjoyed spending time there; swimming in the lake, rowing the boat, or going going for a stroll in the woods. It’s not too far from my parent’s house so we never stayed there for more than a couple of days in a row, instead opting for shorter but more frequent visits. It is however a very long way from my family’s house in Taiwan, so when we finally did go back to Sweden this summer, we thought it … Read the rest
One of the first beers I ever drank that wasn’t a boring lager was a blue Chimay. A nerdy factoid I learned while drinking it, is that it’s a special type of beer known as Trappist, which is brewed by monks and is only made in six monasteries in Belgium. Years later my wife’s friend Naomi got a Belgian boyfriend and over the years we’ve often talked about visiting him and going on a tour to the Trappist monasteries. As we were planning this year’s trip back to Sweden, we figured it was about time to make something of those … Read the rest
My passport will expire in a few months, a fact which I overlooked when I was in Sweden last year where it would have been convenient to apply for a new one. Due to Taiwan’s diplomatic status, it’s not possible for me to renew my passport here, I must leave the country. It so happens that the Swedish embassy in Tokyo is the most convenient of all nearby ones, so I decided on going there. Traveling all the way to Japan just for a passport run seemed like a waste of time and money so we figured we could combine … Read the rest
I’ve been living in Taiwan for more than ten years now but funnily enough it’s only recently that I’ve started to discover just how many odd places there are in this country. If you check the Taiwanese map for landmarks and tourist spots you’re not likely to find them, which is part of the reason it took me so long. However, if you take the time to explore the back streets, country roads and other less touristic parts of the country, and you pay a little bit of extra attention to your surroundings, you might stumble on some such place … Read the rest
I intended to make a single post about our trip back to Sweden but it became so long I decided to split it into two parts. You can find the first part here.
After the train debacle that you can read about in my last post, we were really happy to see my parents standing on the platform as the train rolled into Helsingborg station. All the stress from the last two days just melted away as we stepped off the train into their arms. Pretty much as soon as we got to the house, things slowed down and we … Read the rest
When me and my wife went to Sweden in April 2017 we had no idea we wouldn’t be coming back for more than six years. However, due to various circumstances, Covid being one of them, we haven’t been able to go back until now. Last time we had no plan whatsoever on having children and now we have a small boy, and this would be his first trip to his fatherland. We’ve gone on plenty of short trips since Tantan was born but this would be his first long flight as well as his first time in a different country; … Read the rest
A couple of weeks ago my friend told me he had found a bunch of abandoned buildings in central Hsinchu, not far from where I live. One Saturday when I had a bit of time for myself I grabbed my camera and my flashlight and went to check them out.
Since becoming interested in urban exploration I’ve been to all kinds of abandoned buildings; factories, hotels, amusement parks, police stations, military tunnels, temples and so on. This list of course includes ordinary houses but as I started to explore the first one, I soon realized this was more than just … Read the rest
Every couple of weeks I have a Saturday or Sunday afternoon off to relax by myself without having to worry about my son (my wife gets the same deal). Lately I’ve been trying to turn these afternoons off into little adventures by finding hiking trails that are reasonably challenging yet short enough that you can finish them in a couple of hours. As a busy dad, I find that this kind of hike is a perfect way for me to clear my mind and make my body comfortably tired. So far I’ve been on two such mini adventures
The Xianshan … Read the rest