Taichung

I grew up in Taichung and still can't clame I know it well. Until I left I didn't know how unique this place is. It has a calm weather, people are nice. Taichungers live a confortable life style, a bit slow tone, aren't as urbanized as people in Taipei, nor as enthusiastic as the southern Taiwanese. The phrase "Taichung" actually means "the middle of Taiwan", which and geographically true, and also shows the city character.

Taichung is a great place to live in, but probably not to exciting for travellers. "Where to go to in Taichung?" That's a difficult one. Taichung has two fantastic night markets that are famous island wide, Taiwanese could come to Taichung just for night markets. But unless you're a true night market fan, the night market in other cities should be enough. We have the Taiwan art museum here. We have the Taiwan natural science museum here. All the mountains and resorts are near. Maybe that's all.

Bubble tea (Pearl Milk Tea) came from Taichung. I think they still have the best here, so if you come to Taichung, don't forget to check it out! Chun-Shui-Tang(春水堂) is my favorite place to go, their website has very little english but at least you have the phone numbers there.

Podcast: What's up in Taiwan

Despite of the beautiness, Taiwan does not do a good job in promoting tourism. I've heard people telling me that they didn't know there were so much to see here, or else they would probably make a longer travel plan here.

This is a great Podcast talking about Taiwan. Henry and Julian travel around the island, looking for foriegners from all around the world, to talk about what Taiwan is to them. The show itself is also fun, no matter you're Taiwanese or not, been to Taiwan or not, it's worth listening, and a great way to know this tiny island.

What's up in Taiwan

If you use iTunes, you could click on this link.

If you don't....well, the shows are also able to be downloaded through it's website, in mp3 format. But iTunes is easiler, just subscribe the show for free, and it would be automatically downloaded everytime you open up iTunes.

New Year at Taipei 101

I went alone. I guess all my friends got scared by the experience for the 2000 count down, so none of them were willing to come out since then. This is my second time to go out since 2000, it is still extremely crowded, but the city has learned how to handle that much people now.
Mobile communication was still busy, too many phones were trying to call, and the cells got packed. But it is much better than 2000. And the MRT learned to control the amount of people trying to take the tube, now the flow was smoother, and I got home before 1 am, pretty quick.
The fireworks were great, too bad no one to share with.