One awesome day in Taichung
Traveling around in Taiwan is great, very good train service and with a high speed train from Taipei it is only one hour to Taichung and what an amazing day I had there …
Arriving at the train station the temperature showed 27°C. Yeah finally FLIP-FLOP Time! After checking in the hotel, I meet Irene from Couchsurfing and she picked me up from the main train station. Then a great 30min scooter drive with Irene to a place where a veteran was painting his house. Very colorful and interesting to see. Then back to Taichung city where she showed me a great bakery and we tasted some delicious cakes *Yummy* What a great trip with Irene, thank you!
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- With the high speed train to Taichung
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- Yeah finally it is getting warm 🙂
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- Main train station where Irene picked me up
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- Thank you Irene for showing me around in Taichung
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- Very colorful paintings
Next to the bakery was an ice cream shop with a long queue and so I queued for some ice cream, mmmhhh Yummy again 🙂
As it was very crowded I didn’t get a table to sit outside, but there where two empty chairs. So I set to one and after a couple of minutes offered the other chair to a woman. Then next to me a table was getting free and after a short small talk the couple invited me to join into the table and I invited the woman to join in. And from there on we had an amazing conversation for 2 hours. I love those coincidences where you meet people and they turn out to be amazing people. Roslyn, for instant, is a car racer and loves surfing, scuba diving, sky diving and other crazy adventurers. Amazing and you get to know those people just on the street eating an ice cream in the center of Taiwan. Amazing! Maybe that’s it, what I love the most about traveling 🙂
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- Nice ice cream selection in Taichung
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- Wow it was so delicous and with all those toppings
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- Thank you for the great conversation. Great to meet you!
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- Surfing with Roslyn 🙂
One awesome day in Taipei
My trip continuous this time to Taiwan. And as Surfing is a big motto for this around the world trip I was looking forward to try out couch surfing (https://www.couchsurfing.org). Simon was my first host and I must say it was an awesome experience.
Simon showed me around in Taiwan and we went to a night market where I tried out food I wouldn’t otherwise (1st language barrier, 2nd food wise I’m not very experimental). Then he helped me to organize my Awesome day in Taipei.
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- Welcome Flag at the Airport
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- Taipei 101 Building
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- Ok this restaurant is crazy from my point of view you fish your own fish and then they cook it for you
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- Thank’s to Simon I tried out some very delicious food
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- Very friendly food vendors who created …
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- … this delicious desert
First off to the National Palace Museum with amazing jade craftings and paintings. Amazing! And on the bus I met two girls from South Korea and we had a nice chat. In the museum I met two ladies from Japan ( I told the one who was doing the talking, that her english is very good and she said yeah 24 years ago she retired as an english teacher) And still she is traveling: Awesome!
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- Off to the National Palace Museum
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- where there were queue inside the mueseum to get to the most famous jade sculptures, very impressive craftwork
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- Yeah this was great Museum trip
Second stop was a hot spring (Beitou Hot Spring). As the weather was a bit cold for me hot spring sounded like a great thing to do. And it was awesome! I went for the Public Hot Spring Bath (entrance fee was 1€). They had 3 pools from 35 to 43°C and after 10min in a pool you went to a cold pool. Somehow like Sauna 🙂 And the awesome thing was I met so many people there. A couple from Japan. Two guys from England living in Taiwan and teaching English and otherwise traveling around the world. A retired Taiwanese man who lived in Europe for some time and we had great chats. People are very friendly and helpful even if I couldn’t understand them they tried to help me in multiple situations, awesome!
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- Yeah it is finally getting warm 🙂
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- Well maybe a bit to warm as this water has 90°C
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- The scenery was very nice to watch
Third stop was the night market in Shiling. A huge market with a lot of delicious food mmhhh yummy 🙂
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- On the way to the Night market
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- Simon, thank you for the great couch surfing experience
After that thrilling day I met Simon again and he drove me with his scooter back to his place. He then showed me his 35min video he has produced (Awesome dude keep it up!) and then helped me to organize how to get to my next destination Daxi for some surfing …