Let me just briefly state: I am back in the city I like least so far: ChengDu. I could lie and say I wanted to give it a second chance to convince me of its beauties. But as a matter of fact: I am here merely to meet with Payan, the German I had met before in Lhasa (see Future Plans in Lhasa (IV)). He returned here first and expected me to pass through as I had written him. When learning he is here I interrupted my original plan to move directly on to KunMing. Continue reading ChengDu (III) Back we are…
Tag Archives: Taiwan
Taipei (III) 101 and the Leaders
07.07.07…I guess there were many weddings throughout the world today. Unfortunately not including me, I wasn’t even invited to any one, nor did I see any one here. I would probably not even have noticed the rarity of today’s date if not the morning newspaper had an article about a Libanese couple, which wanted to marry on this date no matter what (in fact: the bride wanted, but the bridegroom accepted it so it would be easier to remember the date ;))
Well, the best I have done with this date was to get on Taipei 101’s observation deck, which at least provided me with a dated ticket I will now use forever as a bookmark; it’s print reads “2007/7/7 12:00”. Continue reading Taipei (III) 101 and the Leaders
Taipei (II) National and Palace Museum
Taipei is not a city for sightseeing. And I had mostly come for the Palace Museum anyway. Hence, today was a museum day: National first, then Palace.
Before that I quickly stopped by the Delight Hotel to reserve for the last night. (Their internet site is extremely well done…looking quite a bit better than in reality ;)) In an attempt to save money I had originally reserved my current Sun Dynasty “5-star-on-the-decline” place for 2 nights only and now could not extend by another 2 nights, but only 1 as the place is sold out. It was again a hard time finding another hotel which had capacity and was cheaper than the current. Budget options still fully booked. The Delight Hotel is in an unimpressive side street, but looks quite good from inside, is close to my current hotel (so I will just walk my bag over tomorrow) and even closer to the MTR station “NanJing East Rd.” (南京東路). And surprisingly, when checking personally, the front desk gave me a rate even better than via an internet reservation. Continue reading Taipei (II) National and Palace Museum
Taipei (I) Rain
Taipei (台北)
What an easy going day: The breakfast has a fair cappucchino, you walk out of the hotel door and stumble over a Starbucks (which I haven’t visited yet as I just had a cappuchino), life on the streets is a lot safer than in China’s mainland: Cars actually stop in front of zebra strips and when doing right turns before crossing pedestrians! I got used to that again in a matter of minutes. Hope I can readapt to mainland’s way of traffic once I’m back… Continue reading Taipei (I) Rain