“Haven’t you noticed I ate the Lotus?” – R.E.M. OK its hardly gonna shoot at you out of the blue, and its doubtful that many readers of this blog will read it consistently enough to notice recurring themes, BUT for some reason, REM songs kept coming up during my first week or so in Taiwan. Read more about Backpacking in Taiwan: Touring Lotus Lake, Kaohsiung[…]
Two firsts happened for me on the same day, here in Taiwan and on my first few days on this beautiful island. One is I first swam in the South China Seas. Two is I was on a motorbike. I didn’t expect either to happen, but what a fantastic day we had in Tainan City! Read more about Backpacking in Taiwan: South China Seas and Motorcycling Through Tainan City[…]
OK, so Tainan City was the former capital of Formosa. Formosa was the former name for Taiwan. This city was not one I’d ever heard of, ever dreamed of seeing or would ever have believed I’d be in. But there we were backpacking in Taiwan, Natalja and I, bang in the centre of Tainan City. Read more about Backpacking in Taiwan: Tainan City By Night…[…]
After backpacking through Chiayi it was time to head south and check out all the big/tourist places down there – Tainan, Kaohsuing, Kenting, Eluanbi which we’ve done in the last week or so. Neil and his friend Eva (from Taiwan) played a big part in our next move, as they invited us to a live Read more about Backpacking in Taiwan: Anping[…]
After spending our first 24 hours in Taiwan getting buses, acclimatising and checking out the city of Shinying, it was time to head north on the train to the larger city of Chiayi. It’s pronounced “shy ye” in Northern Irish English, which I enjoyed. Neil had some time off that day and accompanied Natalja and Read more about Backpacking in Taiwan: Chiayi City![…]
Ask an average traveller where Shinying is and they probably won’t have a clue. Spelt in many different ways by different people, I’m not even sure if my spelling would be understood by the locals here. The city itself is situated on the south west region of Taiwan, it is in between the mountains and Read more about Backpacking in Shinying/ Sianjing/ Shinjing/ Xinying, Taiwan[…]
It was fitting and sentimental that I listened to REM’s 1998 hit “Daysleeper” as our aeroplane soared through misty smoky skies and landed on the island of Taiwan. The band I had forgotten about suddenly became the most important one on my iPod dukebox. I delved into the “Monster” album once again (“you know with Read more about Arrival in Taiwan: “Hong Kong is present, Taipei awakes…all talk of circadian rhythms”[…]