Travel - Taiwan

TAIWAN
30 Mar - 11 Apr 98

With just an EOS 100 body and a 28-105mm lens , that's all my photo gear for the trip.
This was my overseas reservist training and was lucky to have a few days of R&R.

Pingtung Country

With some soliders training in Taiwan

Shell-pickers along the beach

Kaohshiung

Sign boards along the street

After staying more than a week in the rural mountain and beach area, Kaoshiung looked so vibrant to me. The city were colourfully brightened up by all the signboards hanging on the shop-houses along the streets.

Hawker stall

The night market at Liu-he Road became vibrant once dask fell. The whole street was filled with rows after rows of hawker stalls selling a wide variety of food. To savour the best food, I patronized the stalls that were most crowded with customers. This was a good indicator as I couldn't go wrong with the crowd.

Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village

Colourful garden

Roller coaster - SCREAM !

Women at work - bamboo basketry

The name 'cultural village' was so misleading. A more appropriate name should be Taiwan's Disneyland! No wonder there were signs along the way that said visitors need not visit Disneyland once they had been to village.
A nice thing about this village was visitors only need to pay once for the entrance fee. All the rest of the games and attractions inside the park were free! But I had only tried one and the only Mayan Adventure. It was actaully a roller coaster ride that seemed like child's play to me initially. Never had I expected so many twist-and-turns and balls-in-the-mouth during such a short ride. I wobbled my way out after the ride. Luckily my lunch was not too heavy and the game warrant had earlier forbidden me to carry my camera during the ride. Else it would had likely slipped off my hands and smashed into pieces.

TAIPEI

Taipei has recently been cramped down on prostitution and crimes. No more prostitutes come knocking at your hotel room to offer sex nor tiger show. It is not even available upon request. And in the sunna health center, massage has to be done openly without any hanky panky. What a big disappointment for me - should have been to Taiwan during my younger days for the tiger show! :-)
Lonely Plane has particularly mentioned the cheap backpacks and hiking equipments. But when I visited the shops, I found that the brands are limited.
There is a row of camera shops cencentrated in PoAi Road. The prices, like all other goods and services, are just about the same as Singapore. But what attracts me was the availability of grey market Canon lenses at attractive prices. And there goes the dip of my bank account for the 17-35mm L lens.

YangMingShan National Park


Waterfall

I would least expect myself to be trekking in the mountains in heart of Taipei city. But this was exactly what I'd done!
I boarded a public bus near my hotel and in less than 45 minutes I was up in YangMingShan mountain. I did not realise that this was actually a volcanic mountain until I visited the park centre. There was a bus service that went round the mountain bringing you to most of the scenic spots.
As I saw so many trekkers trekking up the highest Seven Star Peak, I wanted to join them too. The summit seemed so close but I turned back after just after a short trek. Some trekkers informed me that it would take me about 1.5 hours for the to and fro journey. As I came unprepared without any water supply and also due to the lack of time, I decided to give it a miss.
I 'surfed' several other attractions, in particular taking a short trek to one of the waterfall. An excellent place to escape from the city and a taste of the mountain.