5 day scooter tour: Day One (English)

Yet again it was time. The road was calling. We could not ignore our instincts any more. We had to fulfil our own deep desires and go on another scooter tour. The first one was a great success. With a lot of experiences and challenges. But this tour topped everything we have seen before.
This time only Fabian "Atze Tiger vom Kiez" und Florian "Paelzer Atze" were daring the challenge.

The equipment:
- 2 x 125 CC scooter from Taiwanese brands.
- 2 x brand name backpacks
- 1x Panasonic Lumix FZ 30
- 1x Nikon Digital Camera
- 1x Asus A8Js
- 2x Joypad
- 1x Fifa 07 (original version)
- X x a lot of other stuff

The tour of our lives guided us through mountain roads, clouds, some of the highest mountain peaks in Taiwan, tropical heat, and a lot of kilometres on the road.

The first day was about leaving Taipei during the beginning of a monsoon phase and gaining kilometres, leaving Fuxing (復興) and other cities behind us. The rain and the sudden drop of temperature made it hard to start of with our tour.
The sudden lack of gas and the early closing time of the local gas station made us stop in a mountain village in a local 民宿 a kind of pension with nice little rats walking on the ceiling of our room.
We still had a chance to get to know the local people and the Filipino house keeper Lisa aka "Pugi" of our host.

Erster Tag Scooter Tour

打屁股 (English)

Yesterday was a day with a lot of events: First of all was it the last day of Annelies' stay in Taiwan, on the other hand was it the day that Malissa, Suey and their Danish friend arrived to get to know the beautiful island of Taiwan.

To celebrate this special day a group of about 10 people went to the Dutch students' "stamkroeg" 5.11 to play the great game 打屁股 or "hit ya bum".
A game played with dices, where one person starts to roll the dices and checks out the amount shown secretly. After that every player of the game has to say a number or give the command to go back or pass. The one who finally says the number which is shown by the dices will be hit on her or his bum. If the hitter hits not hard enough, the tides change and the positions of hitter and victim change. A great game for those with rather special interests, especially in the combination with alcohol.
Annelies, I hope the marks on your bum shall remind you of the great fun we had here in Taiwan with you!

打屁股

Nieuws vanaf het dak (Nederlands)

Sinds een ruim tijd is de uitspraak "ik ga alvast op het dak" bij ons op de dorm vak te horen en zeker niet zeldzaam.
Als wij op het dak gaan, dan gaat meestal ook een lekkere portie bier en enkele zakjes chips mee. Met een aangenaam weertje (niet te heet of benauwd, en geen regen) is het dak inderdaad de leukste plek van ons dorm. De uitzicht is uitstekend en de rust verfrissend.
Ook is er ruimte voor het een of ander leuk gesprek, en zeker een toplocatie om onze gast uit het verre Beijing een bijzonder sfeer van ons Taipei te laten beleven.

Raining Taipei (English)

This summer is really rainy and hot. It can rain for hours or days, and it always rains heavily...

Annelies op bezoek in Taiwan (Nederlands)

Onze medestudente Annelies heeft haar nieuw thuis in Beijing verlaten om te komen kijken hoe het leven of het kleine eiland Taiwan toe gaat. Gister is zij dus op het vliegveld in Taipei door een delegatie in ontvangst genomen. Wel, naar 1,5 uur vertraging vanuit Macau, van wegen onweer.

Nu heeft ze een week om te beleven wat er te beleven valt.
Ik ben al erg naar haar indrukken benieuwd.

First Piano lessen after about 16 years (English)

Shida offers a couple of rooms for students to practice musical instruments for free. So I asked a friend of mine (a qualified music teacher), to give me some piano lessons. Until now, I've had one, and this great piece of music on the video is the result!
Have a look and enjoy:

Guitar never seemed so hard (English)

Just something I found to be worthwhile putting on this blog.
All references to the artist!!!

glumbert.com - Guitar never seemed so hard

Scooter art in Taipei (English)

Just a random shot of one of the many scooters driving around in Taipei. The owner of the species below seems to enjoy putting a special note to a common thing. He put some small plastic figures around the back light and scooter licence plate.
Ten points for creativity.
Another great discovery today was a scooter with an illuminating installation on the inside of the scooter tire. Only eye catching at night, but then a real threat to traffic safety.

Nice perspective (English)

Taiwanese women do quite enjoy a reputation of being sexy, or at least attractive. That is what the term 辣妹(la4mei4), or hot/spicy girl refers to.
Taiwanese men instead don't really have that kind of reputation. I think this is particulary unfair, and therefore I am starting a small campain to show that even Taiwanese guys have a lot of sex appeal.
One first indicator was found in my dorm today, some really interesting perspectives on the real potential of Taiwanese dudes:

Nice one, these slips will make every woman to make you see naked (a good way to head right to where you want to go...)

Well, if one biking glove is enough, why waste resources and wash both of them?

Wrong, the reddish thing below is not a nice blanket, and whitish thing next to it is not a beautiful towel. The left one is a pant, the right one a short. I know, you cannot wait to see them being worne.

同學們等一下 - or the FarEast Tone commercial shot (English)

A new star is born, or an old star sparkles yet again...haha!
Today was my first TV Commercial shooting ever in my life. I had to get up really early in the morning to be at the set at 8.30. I was there a bit earlier though and changed clothes right away. Today's mission: I am an office guy advertising the great goods and services of the telecommunication company FarEast Tone. I actually have no idea what the advertisment in detail is all about, nor do I know if I will be visible or cut out by the director.

It was a nice experience anyway. Nice atmosphere in a nice office building in the nice and new business district called Neihu in Taipei. But most off all the crew and the other actors were really nice and fun to get to know. One funny thing for me to learn was that the crew calls the actors 同學們 (classmates, fellow students), a way to address a younger person or your students (being a teacher), I thought this sounded quite funny.

The job was really relaxing, just standing around and walking in the right moment, or getting out of a crowded lift. I had no lines, so had no one else any lines.
The best part was that we were done after 2,5 h, instead of the estimated 5 h.



The full album:

FarEastTone_Reklame

Some pictures from Taipei (English)

Today, while waiting for my scooter getting cleaned, I just walked around the Wanlong (萬隆)-district in Taipei to take some pictures of normal Taipei.

The full album:

Taipei

Neuer Laptop, neues Glueck (Deutsch)

Ich habe mir gestern einen neuen Laptop gekauft und zwar von der taiwanischen Firma Asus das Modell A8Js. Mit 2.0 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Prozessor, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB Festplatte, nVIDIA GeForceGo 7700 mit 512 MB RAM und eingebauter Webcam!
Und genau die musste auch gleich fuer einen Feldversuch herhalten.
Erfahrungsberichte ueber den A8Js folgen spaeter vielleicht noch, jetzt aber erstmal eine Kostprobe der Webcam, mit Runzelgarantie:

Dragonboat race (English)

Today was the first day of competition after a period of about 3 months of hardship and concentrated preparation. To be part of the dragon boat team of Shida you have to full fill certain criterias, besides being fit and hard working you also have to love the morning, training starts at 6 AM.

But all the hard times (and fun times of course, being with the team and getting to know each other better) were topped by the first great victory of the mixed team on yesterday`s contest.
I didn`t stay long enough to hear the result of the men`s team, I will update tomorrow. You can enjoy the pictures first.

Team Holland

The winners return

Turning around after the victory

The venue between bridge and 5 star hotel in the Dajia Park (大佳公園)

Japanese power...Ken and Xiazi enjoy it to be back after the hard work on board

The complete album can be found here:

Dragonboat Race

Video of the race:

Being celebrated by the numerous fans on-shore:

German restaurants in Taipei (English)

Sometimes you cannot help, but have to go back to your roots. This can be done in several ways, one is to go somewhere, where you expect dishes from back home. Taipei offers a variety of German style restaurants. Today I checked out the Goethe Gourmet Gasthaus, close to the National Taiwan University and the Gongguan shopping area. I went there during tea time, so there was no great variety in German foods offered. Instead there was a choice for 2 people including 2 pieces of home-made cake, 2 drinks (from a choice of different coffees or teas), two sandwiches with German sausage and two sandwiches with something like Saumagen (pig stomach) for 420 NT (excluding service fee of 10%). The taste was not real German, yet close enough. Generally prices in the specialities restaurants are on the higher side, so is the Goethe Gourmet Gasthaus. Yet some teas are offered with free re-fill or the re-fill for half the price. The atmosphere is not like you would expect it to be in a German Schwarzwald restaurant, but also not really intellectual as the name Goethe might suggest. There was no real flair in my eyes. The service was proper, yet cold (haha, at least some German atmosphere, one might believe).

Goethe Gourmet Gasthaus
No. 11, Lane 283, Sec.3, Roosevelt Rd., Taipei
Tel.: +886-2-2362-0060, 2362-0124
Fax: +886-2-2362-0164.

De traditie van de kolonisatie op het ijsland (Nederlands)

De Nederlandisatie van Taiwan gaat zijn gang...steeds meer mensen hier op het ijsland "lijden" onder de nieuwe kolonisators.

Pics: From the dorm's roof

The highway close to our dorm. There happened an accident tonight, followed by a huge fire, which could be seen very clearly and even smelled in my room.

Taipei at night, and in the center: Taipei 101 - a really gorgeous building, which I love to take pictures of and simply watch. There was luckily no smog and there were no clouds, so: picture time!


The other side of the river, all built full of large apartment complexes.

基隆之旅行(中文)

我今天跟我的室友馬克去基隆跟她的女朋友而一些別的朋友們玩.我們從台北公館搭乘巴士到基隆市.45台幣買一張單程票,要坐大概40分鐘.
基隆市在台北的北部,有一個很大的港口但是感覺比台北鄉下多了.我們先去義試餐廳吃麵.然後決定去看很好笑的 <豆豆> (Mr. Bean) 的電影.
看完電影之後我們去酒吧,喝醉之後還在BURGER KING 吃一些東西然後再一次搭乘巴士回台北.

Video: Floating Supermarket Fight II (Vietnamese)

A fight between two sales people of the so-called floating supermarket in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. They argued about the younger lady ripping off tourists on our boat by selling cookies for 5 $ US.

Video: Floating Supermarket Fight I

A fight between two sales people of the so-called floating supermarket in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. They argued about the younger lady ripping off tourists on our boat by selling cookies for 5 $ US.

Video: Old Vietnamese Lady talking to me...

...but I have no idea what is is all about.

Introduction to Water Puppet Theatre Hanoi 2

關於 <壓力> 的演講 (中文)

以下之電片為我今年<新聞選讀一>課的期末考試的演講 (請大家注意電片快二十分鐘):

Little sales girl in Sa pa from Black Hmong tribe (English)

Motorbike in Hanoi (English)

The best way to get around in the Vietnamese capital is the motorbike, noisy, stinky and very dangerous - just as the traffic itself there. Being back in Taipei makes me actually think that traffic here is boring and well organized. HAHA. Who could have thought?

Water Puppet Theatre Hanoi (English)

The first introductory piece of the famous water puppet theatre in Hanoi. The water puppets are a Northern Vietnamese speciality and quite nice to see.

Pics: Back to Hanoi

Hanoi2_Return

Another few days back in Hanoi! Museum of Ethnology, Mausoleum of Hoh Chih Minh, and just walking around the city. Later back to Taipei, via Hong Kong.

Pics: Sapa and Cat Cat

Sa pa_Cat Cat

3 days, 4 nights to Sa pa and Cat Cat. Hiking, night at the Homestay. A lot of fun and a lot of tribal people helping you to get ahead and trying to sell their handicrafts!

Pics: Ha Long Bay, Cat ba Island

Ha Long Bay_Cat ba island_Monkey Island

A 3 days, 2 nights tour to the 3000 islands of Ha Long Bay, one night on the boat! Very fascinating.

Vietnam Pics: Hanoi First day

Hanoi1

Home sweet Taipei - Resume on Vietnam (English)

I am back. Home sweet home, Taipei. My city of the moment. It is a good feeling to be back. A place where I know how things work, how to get around. I can speak with the people here in their language and I feel a lot more relaxed.
The trip to Vietnam was great though. I had some less positive experiences, but these were mainly related to the state of developement of that country and its people. The countryside itself is not only beautiful, but astonishing. I still cherish every moment I spent sweating and hiking in the Sapa mountains or relaxing on the boat in Ha long Bay.
Another great thing about Vietnam is the tasty and cheap food. The ingredients were always very fresh and tasteful.
About the service in Vietnam? I figure things were the other way around, the customer, not the salesman or service personell are responsible for the mood. So, as soon as you greet first, are very polite and open minded, the Vietnamese mostly reacted in the same way. But don't try to ask someone for help when you are in a bad mood or feeling down, they will directly reflect on you and this creates a vicious circle.
Whenever travelling to a country or dealing with people from other backgrounds you do of course have to be aware of some historical facts. The Vietnamese people were not actually very lucky in terms of strangers in their own country. They were ruled by either the Chinese or the French and we should not forget the not so long ago war with the Americans.
Now every foreigner is welcomed as being a cash-cow to pay back some of the debts from the past. Which is of course not very comfortable for the individual.
But that definitely is only half of my experiences there. After only about 10 to 15 years of opening to foreigners again, the country is already showing that they are very good at what they are doing. Tourists can already get around really easy and there are a lot of interesting sights in Vietnam to see and discover.

And another plus are the toilets (you may laugh!!!), but I really think that good toilets are quite important for your success of travelling. No one really likes dirty and smelly places, that barely offer any privacy. And in terms of that the Vietnamese toilets set an Asian standard for me. I could neither in Taiwan nor in China find so wide-spread, good quality wash rooms as in Vietnam.
The Vietnamese economy is following the great country at its northern borders and is growing rapidly. I am sure, the next time I have a chance to travel to Vietnam I will not recognize a lot of it any more and will be astonished by the new standard there. Vietnamese people seemed to be, though not really hard-working, yet very eager to reach their goals and they are tricky and smart enough to reach them with not the most effort.

Back to Hanoi (English)

I came back from Sapa this morning at around 5.30 with the night train. The trains are quite comfortable, even in the 6-people soft-sleeper. After breakfast with some people from my Sapa trekking group I headed out to search for a new hotel; this time a somewhat more expensive and better 2-Star hotel for 20 $ per night. But I feel that it is worth it and I want to enjoy my holiday, so don't think to much abou the $.

After showering and resting for a while I went to see some sights in Hanio with my new Vietnamese friend Hanh (who I met on the trip to Sapa). She took me all around the city on her motorbike, and so I got to see the Ho Chih Min Mausoleum, bot only from the outside, as it is closed on mondays, the zoo and the temple of wisdom (some kind of Confucius temple and the oldest university of Vietnam, dating back to around 1076 AD).

Later I met my Dutch friend Leonore and her colleauge Jurgen (?), who both do an internship here.

That's about it for the day, time to go to bed and relax...

Sapa 2 (English)

The second day of the Sapa hiking tour was just as great as the first! The great group of 7 people from various countries and our tour guide were pretty much aware that when we got up at 6.30 AM due to the sounds of the local cocks that the nice temperature then will not last.

And so it was, after a nice breakfast with pancakes (or crepes) the group headed out to discover more little villages, get to know more rice fields and loose another 10 liters of sweat during the day. We were of course followed by the tribe ladies and their children, with their deep desire to sell their handicrafts to us. Most of us resisted their attempts and bought nothing, which let to some curses and unfriendly ladies, who finally left after the 4km trail. Back in the hotel we had the chance to enjoy a nice and refreshing shower, as well as exploring the local market in Sapa!

No it is time to take a rest and get enough energy for the night life as well as tomorrow's hike!

Sapa! (English)

Modern technique is great! I am sitting some 380 km north of Hanoi, very close to the Chinese border and can have Wireless Internet access. The wireless is not referring to a wireless laptop or comparable, but the whole connection is wireless. That way it is possible to enjoy the beauty and information of the web in a village, where there are no pavements, roads are muddy and children only go to primary school and have to stop after that to work and support their family with work.
Well, this was the introduction. I am happy today. I finally got to know the nice side of Vietnam. Besides the great scenery here in Sapa (with great valleys, rice fields and water buffalos), I finally got to know nice Vietnamese people.
I was trekking today a trail of about 14 km from the city Sapa through several small villages to get to the "homestay" place for the night. The trail was tough, though not too steep. The sun was burning and we had to walk "ueber Stock und Stein". We were followed by natives of the local tribe, chatting wiht us about their lives, assisting us to get through more dangerous situations and most of all trying to sell us their handmade products. In the end the attemps to sell us more and more got a bit annoying, but they mostly remained very friendly.
On the plan for tomorrow is another 10+X KM trail and then I will stay the next night in a 2star Spa-Hotel....

Vietnam after 4 days and 3 nights (English)

I am dissapointed. Though Vietnam might rather be famous as a holiday destination for backbackers and the rather inconvetional tourist, a lot of things here are not right.

There is no feeling of warm and heartful Asian spirit, everything is about money and how to get it from the foreign visitors. There is no smile, no "hello" or other form of human interaction not attached to the question of a certain form of consumption. This has already left a bad impression on me here in Hanoi.

The past two days (I came back today) were spent on a 3 days two nights trip to Halong Bay. There are numerous cafes attached to hotels which act as travel agencies and offer this kind of packages. What I found out on the trip was that prices for 100% the same package differ for more then 100%. Depeding on where you booked you paid between 25 and 75 Us Dollars. Luckily for me, I booked at the lower end of the scale.

Everything seems to be arranged, but nothing works out. I got to know about 5 tourguides during the 3 days and was mixed with new people for every event I took part in(the latter is no problem, btw.), the tourguides' English is really poor, just enough for very basic communication. The general attitute of people working in the hospitality business here is. as described above, "rip the foreigners off". As long as you are of no use for them, they are unfriendly and simply not willing to offer something close to service. But as soon as it appears necessary for them to find an ally in you (some people actually decided to complain about the poor situation), the guides became nicer and tried to persuade you (with one bottle of free beer, instead of the booked and paid for night on the boat in the bay) not to complain at the agency.

Another example is that a Vietnamese salesman in lack of proper change, would always change negative for the customer and during the package trip there are for sure no free gifts or other extras. Instead things that were promised in the nice folders (scuba diving, going to the National Park) were simply not done.

Complain right there is of no use at all, the guides simply have no means or will to change anything to comfort the US dollar paying customers.

I have to add that according to travel mates, who have been travelling in the South of Vietnam, this is only a Northern phnenomena and the South must be totally different.

I already complained about the locals I met here (and I feel utterly sorry about having such a bad impression at all, but it gets renewed over and over again as I go on spending my time here) they really have no interest in anything but your money and no means to communicate with you (due to my not existing Vietnamese and there barely existing knowledge of English). But the down point of experiences with locals was an occasion on one of the islands in the Bay, where we spent our first night: Walking around a lake, we were greeted by a group of about 3 to 6 year old boys, we friendly shouted back "Hello, how are you, I am fine" and kept on walking. Suddenly we realised that the 7 man strong group was running behind us and coming closer, we did not expect anything to happen, but suddenly one of the "the kids" grabbed in the bag of my pants and tried to steal something or at least play. But there was nothing to find, I did not react except for a shock on my face, as he prepared for a bunch and hit me right in my balls, so hard and unexpected that my beloved camera fell on the ground (luckily it still works fine, great Japanese quality). Well, you can imagine, I was not pleased, but still did not react in a harsh, yet rather surprised way and told them to go away. What they did, just to get some little rocks to throw them at us. Nothing happened further, but I am really dissapointed about my experiences here so far.

The only reason until now to come to Vietnam I discovered so far is the beauty of nature.

PS: The travel agencies which cannot be recommended for booking packages in Hanoi for trips to for example Halong Bay are Sinh Cafe and Kim Travel. This is at least the experience of at least 20 travellers I talked to these past 3 days.

Well, this is actually another reason to come to Vietnam, you get to know a lot of nice and quite interesting backbackers and other travellers, mainly from Europe and Australia, but also from Korea.

My next trip (also booked at Kim Travel), as I wrote earlier, is about to start in 1 hour. Let's all cross our fingers that it will be a better experience in terms of the guiding. The destination this time is Sapa, about 380 km north of Hanoi, really close to the Chinese border.

Later more...

Hanoi (English)

Yeah, I am here. The first day of my trip is almost over. Time to look for an internetcafe and type some words.
When I arrived I could not believe that none of the stories seemed to be true. The airport was silent, almost boring, though I really liked the Asian-style architecture of some of the airport buildings there. There were also no Taxi drivers yelling at me, trying to pull me in their car.
I just choosed the next best one and asked him to use the meter. The 30 km ride from the airport to downtown was not very stressful, considering that I am used to some Asian traffic by now. Though I have to admit that you feel and see right away that there is quite a difference between Taipei and Hanoi. The "freeway" was in some parts not completed yet and scooters are allowed to use it (without helmet of course). The whole car traffic is packed to the left lane, as the right lane is occupied by slow two-wheelers.
Entering the city by taxi was a good choice, having windows around you makes it a lot nicer to be around here. Traffic is chaos and everyone honks his car or scooter horn as often as possible.
People here definately look poorer (as expected) and there is a lot more life on the streets. Some really nice Mediterainian feeling, with small bars offering chairs outside to take a rest and have a drink.
My experience so far is that people here a open-minded towards white foreigners, they like it to talk to you. An old man (maybe 70) sat besides me on a bench and told me about his children, in French (colonial influence, which is also captured in the architecture here and makes a lot of buildings look nicer then in Taiwan), and you see a lot of white foreigners walking around (most of them look like properly tanned tourits).
People's spoken English is a lot better in Taiwan, but here they try to speak it with a lot of passion as well.
You get offers at every corner and every minute; people trying to sell you fresh fruit, books or offer you rides on scooters or rikschas.
A book vendor was not satisfied with my offer for his copied version of the Lonely planet and actually threatened me after a while, that I should not meet him again, or he would hit me. That is something I never experienced in Taiwan and the general attitude of vendors here seems to be a lot more aggressive, or desperate.
But my general impression is still positive. I booked two trips out of the city and my hotel's travel agency, totalling about 100 US Dollar for 5 nights and all transportation and accomendation. I hope that the money is properly invested and I will experience a lot of interesting sights with my properly tanned travel mates.

I arrived in Hanoi! (English)

Only a few hours later and I am here: Hanpi, the capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. I did not do much yet, except for booking a 10 dollar hotel and arriving here.
I live in the old city centre and will get to know the area now...

Vietnam, I am coming (English)

I will be in Vietnam for a trip from next Monday till the beginning of June! I hope that I can shoot some nice pictures and find some great curiosities to share with you.
Vietnam must be a very beautiful country with a very friendly population.
My home base will be the capital, Hanoi. From there I will start my discovery of that fascinating country...

"Remodelling" (English)

Due to some unexpected road conditions it was necessary to get my scooter to the garage trust and get the front of my "knight rider" remodelled again...The good thing about Taiwan is that the total damage of the "remodelling" was less then 25€. But definitely no reason do look for another similar reason...

Combat the negative stereotype of Germans (English)

The text below is written by my Irish friend Duncan, as he put it on youtube.com:

In 1983 the German Government, in an effort to combat the negative stereotype of Germans being no fun and too serious created a special 20 year program for recently born babies to make them grow into more fun adults. Recent graduate Mr. Florian Gobel was the 26th baby selected for the program. Dr. Helmut Kohl, the German Chancellor at the time, still speaks of it as his most worthwhile contribution to the German Nation and humanity itself, even topping the destruction of the Berlin Wall, which also occurred during this period. Some might argue otherwise....