A short clip about Happiness

Taipei Zoo (English)

Today I went on my first visit of the zoo in Taipei. The zoo is known as one of the most beautiful and largest of its kind in whole Asia. I have not been to any other zoo`s in Asia, but I must say the price-value relation is amazing. For only 6o NT dollars, (1,50 € or 300 U.S. Dollar ;-) or 30 NT reduced) you get a great variety of animals, plants and great walking paths.

The zoo offers:

· Formosan Animal Area

· Children's Zoo

· Asian Tropical Rainforests Area

· Desert Animal Area

· Australian Animal Area

· African Animal Area

· Temperate Zone Animal Area

· Bird World

as outdoor display areas, as well as

· Insectarium

· Amphibian and Reptile House

· Penguin House

· Koala House

· Nocturnal Animal House

and an

Education Center as indoor display areas.

The great variety and the choices offered make it easy to walk around in the zoo for many hours, letting you loose the sense of time. Every cage or area has clear structured signs explaining the animals name, origin, diet and other interesting information; both in Chinese and English. Another interesting feature are signs with sound, where the voice explains the animals` lifestyle to children, or anyone else interested, also in Chinese or English.
There can be found food courts and vending machines throughout the zoo, and locations to enjoy some pick nick or just to relax in the shade on a bench are numerous.
The zoo is perfectly clean and in a great state.

Taipei 101, the tower can really be seen from everywhere in Taipei

A Formosan Bear, a native Taiwanese animal

What kind of animal is that?
This looks like a monkey to me...

Taipei Zoo II (English)

The old Orang Utang is demanding food from the audience...

Looks like dead, but it was still breathing

The king of the jungle. A majestic Tiger in Taipei Zoo.

One of the silent stars: A cute Koala sitting is his eucalyptus tree. This is a rare picture of the cutie raising its head.

Taipei Zoo III (English)

Oeeeps, looks like I caught the Lama doing it`s business. Sorry!!!!

The Zebra`s holding a conference. They were probably discussing what has to be done next to reach the wilderness.

Family Giraffe. They were licking the rock on the 3rd floor and enjoying fresh grass out of that cage in the back.

Maokong 貓空 (English)

Maokong 貓空 is the name of a place close to Taipei Zoo. It is known for its extra ordinary beautifully and good 24 h tea houses. It is a real pleasure to enjoy your tea in the middle of a wood and eating good food at the same time. Maokong is definitely one of the most beautiful places in Taipei.

The entrance to one of the famous tea houses in Maokong

The Lin Family Mansion and Garden (English)

The Lin Family Mansion and Garden are two relict's of rich family clans during the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911 ACE). And is located in modern Banqiao (板橋) in Taipei county.
The Lin family moved to Taiwan in 1778 they moved to Taiwan from the opposite shore in Mainland China`s Fujian Province (福建省). The Lin clan was involved in trade between Fujian and Taiwan (by the time there was no question about the Taiwan strait), later they were also active in the salt trade throughout Taiwan.
In 1851 the next generation of the Lin clan built the first house on today`s area. They invited famous scholars to teach their own sons and expanded their buildings further. The joint of three hard working generations of the Lin clan made the family the richest family during the reign of the Qing emperors. My source, the tour guide of the famous garden does not tell me why or whether their family wealth declined or not. So I cannot provide that information...

The "Three Courtyard"

Right beside the Mansion and the Garden is the so-called "The Three-Courtyard". The estate is privately owned today, and the owners do not agree that tourists take pictures inside the buildings. The estate owes its name to the fact that it consists of three separate courtyards, two walkways and "protecting dragons", as well as parallel buildings on each side of the house. The entire complex consists of 52 rooms. The buildings are constructed according to some traditional Chinese sayings.
When still in use, every single room had its own function in the strongly hierarchical society. The two Lin brothers were both living in the complex, one on the left side, one on the right side. This explains, why all the rooms look similar, from lay-out to interior design.

Personal impression

The garden and buildings look very beautiful. When you walk around there and don`t raise your head, you can feel the live how it must have been a few hundred years ago. Only when you look up in the sky, the surrounding housing complexes will remind you of the actual time period you are in right now. The buildings and park express a great deal of power, money and intellectuality which must have been present there, when the Lin family was still in charge.

Special discovery

When we were walking around in the garden, there was a group of arts students shooting a film. It looked really interesting, so I talked to them. They promised me to send me a copy upon completion of their "comedian look on the old times". I am really excited to have a look at it.

Trip review - a preview (English)

I am back in Taipei. The last few days were very successful and I had a lot of fun. It might still take a few days for me to complete the new articles. For now I upload some nice pictures to give you a short impression about what I saw.

The last days were all about...


...the major sights in Taipei, such as the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall.

...curiosities, such as this coloured dog found in a temple in the famous Taroko Gorge.


... the new High Speed Rail of Taiwan. Here is a picture of me with the Shinkansen in Tainan.

... natural beauty and peacefulness, as well as wilderness.


... a lot of beautiful Buddhist and Daoist temples.

Taipei 101 (English)

For now just a picture of Taipei 101. But later a few picture reports of sights in Taiwan will follow.

Among those:

- Taipei 101
- The Lin Family Mansion and Garden
- Shilin Nightmarket
- Danshui at night

and some more.

Do you want to immigrate to the Netherlands? (English)

The Netherlands used to be known as a very open and easy to immigrate country. Things have changed recently and the society as well as the government has made some right turns in recent years.
There are always debates and discussions going on, how to filter "good immigrants" and "bad immigrants".
Now there was a big TV show with an "inburgeringstest" (immigration test). Check out the link (it is in Dutch, speaking Dutch is seen as a basic requirement) and tell me your score. Would you have been able to immigrate to the Netherlands?
I only scored 3,6, not enough...

Hoofd, schouders, knie en teen (English)

What a lucky guy I was. Right time, right place, to film this example of the great power of the Dutch colonization:
They make Japanese sing Dutch songs for children. Isn`t that great and cute????

Taiwanese people (English)

The rain stopped around 9 p.m. and the hunger in my stomach became so strong that I could not ignore it any more. I really had to go out and find some food. This is really no problem in lively and late sleeping Taipei, there are plenty of night markets and stores close their doors as late as 10 pm, not to mention the 24/7 convenient stores at literally every street corner.
But I decided to walk an unwalked path today, not every single time the same routes. Life needs to stay exciting, even when you are only looking for food.

Chiang Kai-Shek at night

I walked towards the largest park of Taipei the Da´an park (大安公園), which means as much as Park of great peace, I was not heading anywhere, not really searching, just walking and looking around, at the trees, the cars, the few people walking around, the couple kissing underneath their umbrella (they must have started a few minutes ago, when it was still raining, or use the umbrella to preserve some privacy). As I kept on walking I suddenly realized that I had reached the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall (中正紀念堂). So I had the chance to walk around the monument of the "Great Generalissimo" for yet another time. Actually the monument is worth to look at it a few times. I really like the white rocks it is made of and the Chinese style, blue roof. (Whether the person worshipped inside the hall is worth it or not? No comment here)
Later my stomach reminded my again of my main purpose: finding food. There where no decent looking restaurants around, so I cherished a special part of Taiwanese culture: Go to one of the many branches of the many chain 24/7 convenient stores. The closet one was a Family mart (全家). I just had paid for one of my favourites, the Japanese rice, with seaweed and a free Doufu drink. Then two police officers entered the store.

You cannot ask money from the cops...

Their Sherlockholmes eyes immediately spotted the situation: A white foreigner, in the middle of the night buying stuff in the store where the a really shy shopkeeper is working. The cop said: "外國人來了, 有問題嗎?" (Everything alright with the foreigner?) I turned around and said with my poor tones, but yet understandable: 到現在還沒有... (Until now there are no problems). The shopkeeper still could not say a word, but the police men became excited and asked a lot of questions, after they figured out that I am German, they wanted to learn some basic sentences. First I asked for NT 1000 (25€) per hour, but they rejected laughingly, still adding, that this is the spirit Taiwanese are made of. Another bystander, a man, about 80 years old, asked me in English about my age and smiled at me, saying that I was still really young.
After a few basic sentences I left and let the cops do their work.

Why do I tell this story? It is a typical example of an experience you can make in Taiwan, being a white or Caucasian foreigner: The shopkeeper did neither dare to look in my eyes, nor was he able to speak to me, while the cops "crabbed" me immediately in a very nice and friendly way, to get to know this weird person standing opposite of them. Adding the old man, using the best English he could find in his mind to ask me a question and then just keeps on doing his business (buying a newspaper) as if nothing relevant had happened.

Dinner with Lin laoshi, 跟林老師吃晚飯 (English, 中文)

I met up today with one of the best teachers at our Insitute of Sinology in Leiden, the great Lin laoshi!
She is in Taiwan for a few days and I was smart enough to figure out that the sms messages without name came from Lin laoshi ;-).
So we met today, as she was close to the Mandarin Training Centre and had some nice talks about those days back in Leiden and the life in Taiwan. Her good friend Pipi (?) went out with us to have dinner in the famous Yongkangjie (永康街).

我現在也應該用中文寫一下. 我今天碰到了我可愛的林老師.對,她現在在台灣.我很高興收到了她的短訊,可惜她忘記了簽名所以我先考慮了半天這可能是誰寫給我...
我發現以後就馬上給她答案,今天有機會跟她還跟她以前的同學聚餐. 好快樂的事情...

Happy New Year 2007 (English)

2006 is history. 2007 has begun.

There is a lot to write about it, but I just upload my film of our new years celebration for now. We partied in front of Taipei 101 (the world tallest building, until they are finished with the new one in Shanghai) and then on the rooftop of Ashwin`s house.
The movie shows the fireworks coming from 101, the traffic after the estimated 500.000 visitors returned home and pictures from the Kraut (say: crowd) partying to welcome the new year!

Watch and enjoy:

Happy new year 2007

Frohes Neues Jahr 2007

Gelukig nieuw jaar 2007

Bonne année 2007

2007 新年快樂

Longshan Temple Taipei (English)

I went today to see the famous Longshan Temple (龍山寺). The temple was build in 1738 and is located in the district of Wanhua (萬華). The central hall of the temple is to honour the goddess Guanyin, the other halls are to honour Mazu and various other goddesses.

Elf yourself (English)

Nothing to do?

Just do it as I did and morph yourself to become an Elf.
No idea what I am talking about? Just click here and you will know...

Life in Taipei III

Life in Taipei II (English)

As promised the first second episode of Life in Taipei. This time I went to a performance of my sign-language club. On the way to the venue I stopped by at the famous Shida Nightmarket and had a snack....

A movie about life in Taipei (English)

I just experimented a bit with making these .gifs a bit more interesting. It is a beginning, maybe not the end. Watch and tell me what you think about it.

Christmas Dinner (English)

I went out with a group of friends to have our traditional Christmas dinner at an American Steakhouse, called "Ponderosa Ranch". You pay a maximum of ca. 16 Euros (depending on the type of meat you choose) and get a free buffet with free refills, salad bar, dessert and a lot of other goodies.
My meat was really soft and very tasty. We had nice conversations and enjoyed it to be together. A Yan and Boukje just came back from their trip to Alishan (阿里山) and a native tribe, they had to tell a lot of stories...

The Holy Evening (English)

Picture: My Christmas gift: A red Ferrari! Yeah, you have to be humble these days, right?

Yesterday we were celebrating the Holy Evening. We first went out to a traditional Taiwanese restaurant and tasted the 5 great specialities, which were, 3 cup chicken, 3 cup beef, fish, some hotpot, beef slices and chicken slices. Very delicious!!!!
Later we went yet another evening to the bar 5.11 and had some drinks.

Heiligabend in Taiwan