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.