I'm back...

BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL

Sorry that I haven't blogged for ages. Hadbeen having too much fun in Taiwan. I seriously put on like 3 kg in less than 4 weeks. My mum determined that she was going to feed me as much as she could while I was in Taiwan as I was apparently too skinny.

Yes, it is true that I lost around 6kg in 5 months. But that's mainly because I wasn't sit on my ass all day long and then have huge steak and tonnes of chips for dinner anymore. Probably walking in the heat for at least 10km a day also helped.

We were really lucky that we missed out on the damage caused by the typhoon in Taiwan. According to Mum and Dad, some places that we visited in Alishan were washed away and some roads up to Yushan was also washed out. Apparently half of Kaohsiung county was flooded, luckily my parents' house in Kaohsiung city wasn't damaged at all except for some minor leaks.

Charles came and visited for 4 days from Australia. It was great to see a familiar place again and to hang out. He got to see how Taiwanese people interact with each other in their daily lives and got to experience the cultural side of things first hand.

We went to Kenting together as Naomi wanted to learn how to make pineapple cakes and hang out with ayi from next door. We went there the day before the typhoon hit. On the way there Charlie was very determined to get a scooter of his own as apparently it was not manly to sit down the back of a scooter. So we shopped around a little for scooters after we got there but unfortunately for Charles, no bike shop wanted to lease scooters to a foreign guy with no Taiwanese or international license. I have these licenses on me either but I managed to bluff my way through and told them that my license was at home.

They said too many foreigners crashed and burned in the past. They even said tourists from HK were the worst as apparently many of them didn't know how to ride bicycles. Mr Egocentric Charles was not impressed at all but decided it was not worthwhile to sit in a cafe all day while I went roaming around places in Kenting. In the end we visited quite a few sights, even the most southern tip of Taiwan. Some of these sites were very beautiful as they were on the coast. We saw heaps of prehistoric coral rocks up in the mountains. It was very difficult to imagine that all those areas were under the water once upon a time.

As it was the day before the typhoon hit, the wind was super strong as were the waves. It was hard to ride in the wind. We were told that 9 people were swept away from where we went to see the waves a few days later. I think Charles enjoyed the sights. He even got to ride the scooter around the carpark. I think the wind must've been too big that day as he nearly crashed into the parked cars.

Beijing, China

I hope the first impression is not a good prediction for the rest of our trip in China. Naomi described China pretty well. It was not what we were expecting at all. I was kind of expecting it to be like Hong Kong or Macau a little, but they are nothing alike.

The social behaviour is poor compared to all the countries that we've visited. I have never seen a taxi-driver urinating from the passenger seat out on to the ground via the inside of the car door in front of the train station before. It was definitely an eye-opener.

I know that China has 1.45 billion people. But I never really appreciated how many it was until I go to Beijing and there were just people EVERYWHERE. Every subway, every bus, every little small thing is full of people. We had to get out of Beijing ASAP before we developed people-phobia.

Beside the historical sites in Beijing, the city itself had not much character. The government seems to firmly believed in the "if you don't see it, it's not there" policy. I saw heaps of pretty 3 metre high cardboard walls all over Beijing. I took a peek inside once and found that all the traditional brick/stone houses were being pulled apart and demolished. We stayed inside this 300 year old hutong that was actually quite a nice experience - but roadwork had just begun. I hope they don't destroy this hutong too.

Oh, what's the go with the government blocking Facebook? It's almost impossible to get in contact with the outside world without Facebook :)

Beijing experience so far: NO signs were in English. Very difficult to get around. Maps in the train station had no English translation at all. Hazy all day long. Historical sights were great though.

We just finished Jinan and are heading over to Qingdao right now. Jinan was ok. We visited this spring park (40RMB). It was pretty even in the rain. We stayed in this hotel "Longqiantan Hotel". It was cheap, elegant and excellent in services. They picked us up from the train station and dropped us off today in the rain. It was only 130RMB for a room including b'fast. We were very impressed by it.

Hopefully Qingdao will be a nice old town.