White helmet tours

One of the main tourist destinations of Taiwan, I wasn’t sure what to expect of my tour – was it going to be in English? Chinese? A big or small group? After an unexpected but fun ‘yellow hat’ tour with my cousin of the Yellow Mountains in China years before, I was kinda hoping for colorful hats.

Alas, it wasn’t to be, today’s tour was instead all about the white helmets! The tour was a small minivan that picked me up from the hostel, and for $988 included a full day of seeing the sights of Tarako, lunch and a drop off at the train station at 4.30pm. The tour was in Chinese, but as the majority of the others on the ground were from Asian countries that speak both Chinese and English (eg Singapore and Malaysia), I was in good hands.

In our minivan we went around and saw many special spots, including the tunnel of nine turns, the eternal spring shrine and the Swallow Grotto trail. It was on the way to the Swallo Grotto trail that we passed a roadside stop proclaiming “free helmet hire” – our guide stopped and picked up a helmet for each of us, including a tiny one for the 3 year old French boy also on our tour. At the Swallow Grotto trail we put on our helmets to wander along the trail – an area well known for landslides and rockfalls, over the years many have been killed and helmets are now mandatory.

Lunch was a brilliant mix of local foods shared over the table with others from the group. I made friends with a few (very well spoken) young boys when I came across a stamping area (like Japan, many attractions in Taiwan have a rubber stamp that symbolizes it – kids collect the rubber stamps in books). I immediately ran up to start stamping my notebook, when one of the young boys offered me a special kids stamping book instead, so now I’m set!

I’m sitting on the train as we slowly roll into Taipei and back to the hustle and bustle of city life. The guy next to me is playing on his psp, the guys across the aisle has both his iPhone and MacBook air out and the woman in front is playing with an iPod. Sitting here typing on my iPad and uploading via Bluetooth on my iPhone, I can see I fit in with a technology aware country such as Taiwan!

trick

My original plan was to head to Kending from Kaohsiung, but a glance at the maps suggested this might make the day really rushed. The manager of the hostel instead suggested a small “cultural bus tour” of the Hamasen area instead, which the tourist centre at the station failed to suggest to me. At only $30 TWD (about $1 AUD) for the day of travel, this seemed like a great deal.

And so I headed to Sizihwan MRT station to check it out. I found the bus stop, and a bus sitting there with its door closed. I was just about to knock on the window to try and figure it out when a girl came over to me and asked if I wanted to do the cultural tour. She turned out to be one of the leaders, and set me up with a map and a pineapple cake (famous in the Kaohsuing area).

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I saw on the tour. We went to the old train station (the area used to export incredible amounts of bananas to Japan, and the railway was used extensively for this) as well as some old buildings (including the old Japanese consulate), the ferry terminal, the university and a few more. Despite not understanding much of what was going on, it was fun to hurdle around the streets in the bus, and see what was going on down in the back streets.

A "Gulliver's Travels"-esque giant sized teddy bear at the modern art museum...

The ticket allows you to get off on and on the bus, so at the arts centre I did exactly that. Wandered around the centre for a bit, which had some pretty funky modern displays. Back out on the street, behind the arts centre I found a long bicycle lane way which had the strangest statues, man and woman couples, each set painted crazy colors and patterns. Following that for a while, I noticed a big warehouse with an admission ticket window and plenty of young people lining up. No idea what to expect, I paid my admission and entered…

Behind the art museum is this amazing collection of huge larger-than-life colourful statues

It was an interactive art exhibition, called “trick pictures”. Large murals had been painted onto the walls and floors, with an interactive spot for a person to jump in and take a photo. For example, there was a surfboard painted half on the floor and half on the wall, with crashing waves on the wall behind. By standing in the right spot and having your photo taken, it almost appeared as if you were surfing. There were probably over a hundred pictures, all with instructions on how to best take a photo, and stacks of people having a great time!

You can see the 3D-ness of this photo - the painting goes from the wall down to the floor, this kid was taking advantage of the situation!

Caught a whopper! Next to the girl is a little sign explaining just how to take the best photo.

I’ve bought my train tickets (encountered my first and only Taiwanese person who was not a kind and patient soul at the booking counter – grrr!) and I’m off to Green Island tomorrow 🙂

Taxiiiiiiii

My trip to Taiwan has been a momentous one for my traveling credentials – for the first time ever, I have travelled with only carryon luggage (that’s for a 3 country trip!). It’s also the first time I have travelled without a planned itinerary – in the past I have booked all or most of my hotels, and known how I was getting from a to b. Not so on this trip! I had a rough idea of some places that sounded interesting, and I booked the first nights accommodation, but the rest was up in the air when I boarded my flight to Taipei.

A quick layover in Hong Kong was extended when my next plane was delayed, and the gate changed from one end of the airport to the other. But no matter, we were soon up in the air again. Arrival into Taipei was surprising – coming out of the arrivals hall I was greater by a mass of faces, and not one pushing and screaming “taxiiiiiii”. Much of my trip was like this – you hear the Chinese being spoken and see the signs everywhere, but then notice that no, people aren’t trying to get you to buy their products or no, people aren’t trying to scam you, a bit hard to get used to!

At the airport I quickly and easily organised a sim card and a bus to town. My hotel was easy to find and easy to check into. Exhausted from travel, I wandered around till I found an ATM that would accept my MasterCard (luckily I had bought some TWD in Melbourne). Grabbed some 7/11 food for dinner (an amusing mix of Japanese and Chinese konbini foods) and crashed for the night.

Escalators in Taipei

At this stage I was still considering just getting a tour package, and have someone organise my travels for me, so the next day I set off for one of the travel agents in town. Navigating the metro was simple (similar reusable token system as Bangkok), and using google maps on my phone (best invention ever!) I quickly found the travel agent. I was able to organise a tour for that night to see one of the markets and do Mongolian BBQ, but unfortunately there was only one tour running that week. It wasn’t really what I wanted to do, so I left it for now.

I wandered around the town for the rest of the day, until the taxi picked me up for my night tour. We went and collected another girl for the tour before meeting up with the “big bus”. A total of 6 on the bus, we had 2 Australians, 2 Japanese, a French and an Italian in our group. Most had been in Taiwan for a few days at least and were all due to fly out in a day or so. Our first stop was Mongolian barbeque – once again proving that Mongolian/Korean BBQ has very different meanings in different parts of the world. Here, we lined up and chose our choice of thin (raw) meats, vegetables and sauces. Into a bowl they went, and then were handed to the chefs, who fried them up on the spot for us. There was also a selection of salads, fruits and drinks. The middle of the table had a bubbling pot of water that was available to be used for shabu-shabu style food as well. The restaurant appeared to be catering purely towards bus groups, and the food was just mediocre, but the experience was amazing!

Pork for all!

Our next stop was the Snake Alley street market, culminating in the Long Shan Temple. To be honest, if I had of realised the street market we were going to was Snake Alley, I probably wouldn’t have done the tour. Snake Alley is known for its shops selling snake blood – they cut and bleed the snake in front of you, and then you can do a shot of this lovely concoction. HOWEVER I saw none of this – we arrived in the middle of a huge street festival, celebrating the goddess of the sea. There were people everywhere, and men dressed in scary devil costumes. Our poor guide was terrified he would lose us (he said when he has a group of 20 or 30 it is horrible), but we had a brilliant time, weaving in and out of the procession. We beat them to the temple and had a quick look around before attempting to find our bus again.

Taipei Longshan Temple, all lit up for the street festival

The last stop was Taipei 101. It was a clear night, and the view from the top was flat out amazing. When it was built, it broke all sorts of records – check out Wikipedia for more info. The Italian guy and I attempted to get a photo of each other in front of the mascot – trying to get in between the mainland tourists was challenging – mum had to take a photo with son, son had to take a photo with dad, dad had to take a photo with daughter, daughter had to take a photo with aunty, grandma had to take a separate photo with everyone! The Italian guys hasn’t been to China, so was a bit bewildered by it all. On the other hand, I got a photo with grandma!

Whilst we were up Taipei 101, I rang around and tried to book a tour to Kenting for the following day, but I was laughed at and told everything was full, so I’ve decided to catch a train and do it myself. My tour mates were very apprehensive about this (they had all done 3 or more of the tours), which in turn made me a little apprehensive, but with no other options, that’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow!

Following the Beatles in Liverpool

Europe ~ United Kingdom ~ Scotland ~ Edinburgh & England ~ Liverpool

We’ve been on holidays these past few days – decided it was time to take some time off (… being a tourist in Edinburgh…) to be a tourist in Liverpool, home of the Beatles. Elysha is a huge fan, so off we jetted. Liverpool is an interesting town, used to be one of the bigger ports for England. Nowadays the port doesn’t get as much business, and you can tell. The town has a lot of deserted and run down buildings. On the other hand, Liverpool boasts a University with 70,000 students – pubs everywhere! Stayed in a fantastic hostel, after walking in, Tash pointed out the smell. ‘What smell’, I asked, immediently worried. Turns out she was happy about the lack of smell… Elysha was a bit disappointed over the lack of Beatles memorabilia (we brought all our souvenirs at the airport, better and cheaper!), but Tash and I thought it was tacky and great fun! Went on the Magical Mystery Tour – a tour bus that stops at all the houses where each of the Beatles were born, everyone troops out of the bus and takes photos of the houses and then troops back onto the bus. The poor people that now live in these houses – I feel sorry for the people who will eventually buy our house back in Toomuc Valley. Imagine all those people that will stop to look at the house because the famous Bobbi once lived there… hehe

Magical Mystery Tour Bus

Apart from that, we’ve just been doing the same old same old. Elysha and I ventured out the other night to find some-where new to eat, ended up at a quaint little Italian restaurant, very cute, although the waiter left us a little perplexed. An Italian accent is hard enough to decipher on its own – try throwing a bit of Scottish into the equation as well, absolutely impossible! After dinner I tried a fried mars bar – didn’t need any vodka that night – I was well and truly high after the layers of sugar and fat. Not bad though 🙂

Totally used to life at the hostel now. Spend most evenings with the crowd in at reception, listening to music and talking general rubbish. The other night, one of the girls commented that when we all get home, we are going to wake up in the middle of the night and want to have a conversation about nothing – and have no-one to talk to. At the hostel, there is ALWAYS some-one awake, always some-one to talk to. Have mildly been discussing setting up a phone-club, so once we’re home we always have some-one to call in the middle of the night, to talk about nothing at all. Dealing with everyday things can be tough, I constantly dream about being back home, in my own kitchen, when finding a bowl for cereal is not an ordeal. Was eating brekky the other day, when one of my friends came in, and sat down. Placed his pint glass of tea on the table (no mugs left), and proceeded to take a handful of cornflakes from the box, followed by a swig of milk from the carton. “No bowls” he grumbled as he grabbed the paper…

Elysha & I at the hostel

I’m nearly on the move again – I booked flights over to Ireland for the week after next, so excited. I’ll be flying over there, traveling for two weeks, then back to pick up the girls, then onto Paris. Woohoo!! Am madly planning out an itinerary for Ireland, will be flying into Dublin and out of Shannon. Must try and get to a good Irish pub and grab a pint of Guiness, yum yum. Wonder if there is a brewery tour for the Guiness brewery, or even the Kilkenny one? Must find out. If you know of anything I must do whilst in Ireland, let me know!

xo Bobs

Riots in Edinburgh & Bombs in London

Europe ~ United Kingdom ~ Scotland ~ Edinburgh

It’s been an interesting week in Edinburgh, I’ve participated in my first big protest (the one that was on Saturday, see the previous post…) and I’ve watched a number of more violent protests – or riots if you will. On Monday, anarchists turned the city into mayhem, causing police to come out in their hundreds. The riot police were particularily worrying – they came out with their sheilds and batons, forming a line to block off protesters. We were blocked in the Princes Street Gardens for several hours, whilst police tried to defuse the situation. Some of the more interesting protesters included a giant bunny rabbit who tried to feed the police horses carrots (I talked to him for a while, ashamed to admit he was Australian), a completely naked guy running around, many many clowns and a heap of anarchists with black bandanas over their mouths and noses. The protesters with their faces covered were by far the scariest, not something you expect to experience, being surrounded by black-bandana’d protesters. The police dogs were impressive, very scary looking. I didn’t see them actually being used, they were just brought out and all the protesters backed off immediently. They had a pretty terrifying bark… Not too many injuries, it was reported that there were 21 people admitted to hospital, and 90 people arrested. Since then there have been several protests, a couple more on Monday, some on Wednesday. Of course I’ve been down there in the middle of it all, with a couple of others from the hostel.

Posing in front of the police

This past week, Tash, Elysha, Mike and I also went on a ghost tour. Very exciting, we were lead down to the underground vaults by our guide. Apparently Edinburgh is full of these underground vaults, in the good days they were used as wine cellers and cobblers basements. Soon after using them as storage rooms, it was discovered that, 3 days after raining in Princes Street, the rain would seep through to the vaults. Consequently, they were used as housing for the poor, as many as 15 families would cram into a room. The vaults that we saw were owned by the tour company, there are many more that have been turned into basements, nightclubs, music rehersal areas and bars. Our guide walked us through the vaults, explaining ‘spirits’ that they know to lurk in the particular rooms. After the vaults we concluded the tour at midnight, in the Cannongate Graveyard. I didn’t get any ‘ghostie’ pictures, but did get some photos that have ‘orbs’ in them. Who knows?

Telling spooky stories at Cannongate Graveyard

Wow, just got woken up this morning to a text message from Laura, saying that bombs had gone off in London and she was just checking that I was ok. I started to write back, saying that she was wrong, nothing had happened or I’d know, when Ryan came racing into our room, yelling at us to get up and come watch the news – 6 bombs have gone off in central London. Since then another bomb has gone off, all have involved the transport system – busses, tubes and stations. Kind of scary. We’re not sure if it’s to do with the Olympics (London has just been named the winner of the 2012 Olympics) or G8, or even something else. A good number of London Police are up in Edinburgh dealing with the G8, I’ve just heard that they’ve headed back to London to help out. I’m still crossing my fingers and hoping that mum will still get through – she has to fly through Heathrow to get here today, not sure how the airports will be affected. We’ve had two bomb scares in Edinburgh since the attacks – one on a bus, where the police did a ‘controlled explosion’, and another suspicious package around the corner from the hostel. Both were reported as just suspicious packages and nothing more, so we should be fine.
Take care everyone xo Bobs