Island Amazing, TAIWAN !!

Be a man, again! Fireworks film is coming

2008-11-03T12:51:00.010+08:00

I've been looking for films about Yen-Shui firecracker for a long time since the post released. It's crazy, isn't it? The oringinal post is here: Be a man! Facing millions of explosing fireworks coming to you

And special thanks to Komod's support for these films! More about Yen-Shui firecracker ceremony on his YouTube:komodWang

HD film here.

HD film here.

Besides Hotel

2008-10-25T13:17:00.020+08:00

Taiwanese not only enjoy having a lot of choices available while eating and drinking, but also when they try to find a perfect place to stay for their vocations. Finding a place to stay is the most important thing next to transportation. People usually think about booking a hotel while traveling, but in the recent 10 years, even the 4 star hotels couldn’t help loosing part of their customer to these high flamboyant rivals─motel.

Motels began their transformation about 10 years ago. Owners remodeled their motels to catch tourists’ eyes and it has become a trend ever since. Some of them have fancy interior designs that can beat 4-star-hotels, and some of them have many special offers with acceptable price one many not find available at hotels like Hilton or Holiday Inn.

Common amenities in motel are as follow:

◎40+ inches of plasma or LCD TV and complete Dolby surround sound home theater set.
◎LCD TV within the bathroom.
◎Super Calf. King size mattress with extraordinary bedding.
◎Whole living room furniture set.
◎Cable TV plus latest video on demand, FREE! (Do you think hotel can beat this service?)
◎Karaoke equipments.
◎Plus size Jacuzzi.
◎Free bottle water and snack or mini bar.
◎Most of the room size is at least 100 square meters.
◎Optional private entrance with private elevator form gorage to room.
◎Optional massage chair.
◎Optional sauna inside the room
◎Optional private indoor pool, some located outside the French door, and some located on the 1st floor with bed room on the 2nd floor.

On the other hand, the splendid interior design a motel offers can satisfy any kinds of customer’s demands. Unlike the regular hotels, one motel can offer room with 5-10 different themes of interior decoration. For example, common ones like Bali villa style, Egyptian style, tropical rainforest style, a la mode style, retro modern style, Andy Warhol’s pop art style, and Japanese Zen style. What is more, good news for the movie maniac! Motels also offer rooms that decorate to fit different movies such as “Star War”, “Men in Black”, “Gone with the Wind”, “101 Dalmatians”, and many more for customer to find out.

With gorgeous interior and amenities, the price range for fancy motels located in Taipei or Taichung are about 3,000-5,000 NTD for one night, better ones are about 7,000 NTD per night. But others located at suburb areas are usually cheaper. As a matter of fact, not all motels finish their “transformation” yet. Most of the motels in small towns are still more like economy level resting places for dating couples. If you are interested to experience a luxurious motel stay, the following motel website list has more information. Or maybe you can ask a Taiwanese friend for some help.

Famous motels’ website:
My best choice: http://www.redgo.com.tw/
(Locate in JohnHwa LuGun(彰化鹿港). Pictures above are all from this motel.)
Luxurious motel pioneer in Taipei: http://www.we-go.com.tw/
Pretty famous motel in Taipei: http://www.imore-motel.com.tw/
Finest one in Taichung: http://www.mulan.com.tw/
Premium quality one in Kaohsiung: http://www.hwanah-motel.com.tw/

Motel search engine:
http://www.qk.to/
http://twmotel.com/

Skip water, try hundreds of drinks: In convenient stores

2008-10-24T16:56:00.002+08:00

We exceed our life-time coke drinking quota during our little adventure in Europe due to the very limited (a.k.a. poor) selection of beverages available. Believe it or not, it is unacceptable by a Taiwanese tourist because when talking about beverage in Taiwan; it’s a whole different story.

We are the beverage experts.

Millions and millions of drinks are produced everyday to support our market demands on this compact island called Taiwan. And yet, more and more interesting and maybe even functional drinks are invented on a daily bases to challenge “beverage experts” like us. It is not strange to see people spend more than ten minutes standing in front of the open fridge in the 7-11 to make a final decision of what he or she is going to drink this time. And the premise is: this person have already made a selection from traditional tea houses, modernized beverage stands, frozen drink shops, tea shake shop…et cetera.

In general, there are several main categories for beverage appears in the market here. Coffee, soft drinks, alcoholic drinks, tea, juice, yogurt drinks, sports drinks, and traditional sweet drinks. As you can imagine, under these categories, different flavor, different concentration, or different sweetness that varies these drinks from one to the other.

For Instance, just the coffee alone, there are more then 10 companies that makes coffee you can easily named. With every individual brand, there are always at least more than three different flavors of coffee for you to choose from, such as caramel, vanilla, or hazel nut. Overall, you get more than 30 different options when you want a cup of coffee! Same as coffee, one can easily find alcoholic drinks that are produced locally or imported from all over the world. From Germany beer to Japanese sake; from French pinot noir to Australian shiraz; there are shops that carry any kind of booze you can think of. If you think this is enough for a customer to choose from, wait until you see the tea category.

Tea is the largest category among beverages. Common ones you may find are: oolong(烏龍茶), pu-er(浦耳茶), jasmine green tea(茉莉綠茶), milk tea(奶茶), chrysanthemum tea, Japanese mocha(日式抹茶) and Black tea(紅茶) like Darjeeling(大吉嶺), Assam(阿薩姆), and Earl Gray. Customers can find these tea from different places of origin, different flush and oxidation. What is more, some merchants add modernized flavors and transformed it totally. Variations like sugarless, diet, honey added, plum added, mixed with juice, or blend with herb are easily find on the market. Recently, tea is also manufactured with “functions” like weight watching, digestive system health promoting, and energy boosting to not only attract people but also add more varieties into beverages.

Last but not least, the traditional sweet drinks. In spite of fancy flavors, traditional sweets have an easier to approach look than the bottle drinks mentioned above. Besides the convenient store, traditional drinks stands are scatter around every city in Taiwan to offer everybody a run-away from summer heat or winter chill.
Ai-yu(愛玉) jelly drink, sweet peanut soup, honey white gourd dew, Taiwanese herb drink, grass jelly drink, sour sweet plum drink, red bean soup, mung bean shake, and mung bean knojac soup are the most common traditional drinks available. If you think the common drinks listed here is all we have in Taiwan, welcome to stop by and discover many more! Besides the huge selections of beverage one can choose from, maybe the customer-friendly price is one more thing you will truly appreciate when you seek for something to drink in Taiwan.

Why amazing?

2008-10-20T11:41:00.011+08:00

We are families and friends. Some of us have gone to schools in the US, some have worked in New Zealand, some have traveled across the countries in Asia for business purpose, and some have fallen in love with the European life.

There are reasons why those countries are attracted to us. Most of them are contained with thousand years of great histories, and they are all very shockingly beautiful in different ways.

After all the places I’ve been to, I still like the life in this beautiful small island where I was born and grew up. If you ever lived here for a while, you will probably feel the same way as I do.

There are so many things to appreciate with in Taiwan. For examples:

1. Taiwan has almost the same living stander compares to those European countries, but the living expenses are almost just half of what you spend in Europe.

2. There food places that opens 24 hours everywhere, and mostly r just in walking distance. It is really convenient. (Read more about foods in Taiwan: EAT this)

3. The public transportations are very convenient as well; and since this is a small island, you can see every city in the entire country within a week.

4. There are just so many types of foods in Taiwan, not even the locals like us have tasted all of them. (See also: EAT this)

5. Taiwan has the most high-tech product production in the world. You get the same thing but cheaper price here.

6. You spend a whole lot of time and money in a continental country and with just a brief glance at a place. With the same amount of time and money you can get to know this place very deeply.

7. Compares to many countries, the ratio of people speaking English in Taiwan is higher, so communication is easy for travelers.

If you are someone who loves to travel, to try different type of foods and seeing various high-tech products, Taiwan is a place that definitely worth a visit!

60% off to Europe, 30% off to US : Eat McDonald's to death!

2008-10-06T00:38:00.035+08:00

I have made trips to two countries in Europe in 2008- Italy and Spain.

Because of the language barrier, it kind of made the life a little tough for us there. When I was in Spain, mostly I just tried to cook my own food. There were times when my friends and I really wanted to try some local dishes, and that’s when the problem comes.

When we were at a restaurant, we couldn’t read the menu; and even if we could pronounce the name of the dish, we wouldn’t know what that is. We usually ended up with frustration and when we got hungry from walking, fast food chains usually became our first choice (at least we know they got pictures!). I got to say hamburgers and fries taste just as good as any western food we have in Taiwan, but the price was another whole different story!

For now just let me do the math for you here: Lets take the common Big Mac combo for example. It costs you 5.50euro(if I didn’t remember wrong) to get a Big Mac meal. With the same price converted to US dollar, you can the same thing PLUS something else (say a shake or a mcflorry).

Now, You take the same amount of money to McDonalds in Taiwan, You get triple Big Macs! Yes I am talking about the whole meal, not just the burger!

Plus, There are so many other fast food chains in Taiwan that you don’t see in Europe (see the Hamburger amaze too post). So how about it? Take a tour to Taiwan and you can save lot of money on the food and spend more on shopping!

WORD OF THE DAY:
McDonald- Mai Dang Lao (It was translated directory from the sound)
麥- sounds like the English word “My”
當- sounds like the English word “Down”
勞- sounds like the English word “Loud” without the D in the end

It’s really not necessary to say it in Chinese, because McDonald is a internationally known word!

Be a man! Facing millions of explosing fireworks coming to you

2008-10-06T00:13:00.029+08:00

Looking for excitement and adventure in Taiwan? Yen-Shui firecracker (鹽水蜂炮) ceremony is something you could never missed when you are here; however, I have to warn you, if you are not the adventurous type, I strongly recommend you not to attend this traditional activity.

YenShui (鹽水) is the name of a town in Tainan (台南) located in south of Taiwan. It only takes about an hour train(HSR) ride from Taipei. Every year on the February is the famous Lantern Festival in Taiwan. Besides lanterns, firecracker is another component during the festival. In YenShui, in order to attract more tourists, local government decided to make a special firecracker ceremony during this time of the year; therefore it is called YenShui firecracker ceremony. The whole ceremony is so big and it usually last for two days. Every year in YenShui people are gathered from all over the world just to witness and enjoy this special Taiwanese traditional experience.

Now you may wonder what exactly is so special about this whole firework thing? The fireworks we usually see, they are shot into the sky then popped with various color of sparks to create a beautiful image. The YenShui firecrackers are not as pretty in comparison. Instead of shooting the firecracker up into the sky, they fire the shots straight at you. That sounds really crazy right? The firecracker they use is the kind called “Fon Pou” in Chinese. It is about a size of a pen. When you fire the shot, it goes straight out then explode after travels a certain distance. Of course, the fun part is not to just to look at it. You have to be in front of the shot to let it hit you!

In order to prevent from getting hurt, people wears protections like helmets, raincoats…etc, pretty much just try to dress as thick as you could. Ever seen the movie Iron Men? It’s something like that. But no matter how many layers of cloth you have on, there are still chances that one of the million shots are going to slip into you cloth or go through it. The craziest guy I’ve ever witnessed: He wore only t-shirt and a boxer and just holding a plastic board to cover his face. The guy, of course, ended up bleeding all over the body. That is something you definitely do not want to try, but something you’d only see here during the ceremony. It is dangerous in a way, but it is certainly going to be an once-in-a-lifetime experience for you.

If you are interested, you can visit the official local county site for more specific details:

Tainan County Government-Yanshuei Firecrackers Ceremony (English site)

WORD OF THE DAY

鹽水蜂炮(YenShui Fong Pou)
鹽- Pronounces “Yen”. As in Japanese currency Yen. Means Salt in Chinese.
水- Pronounces Shui, meaning water in Chinese.
蜂- Pronounces Fong, meaning bee in Chinese.
炮- Sounds like “Power” without “er” in the end, meaning fireworks.

There are more fun stuff to do and tasty foods in Tainan. We’ll post more later.

Pepper + Fried almost everything

2008-10-06T00:06:00.031+08:00

You gotta eat this if you come to Taiwan. It just tastes so much much better than the fried chicken in every possible way!!

Yen Sue G (鹽酥雞) literally means "salty crispy chicken in mandarin.In the food stand where they sell YenSueG, there's not only just chicken. You can choose vegetables, squid rings, fish, cookie with taro, sweet potato, corn, and many many others to fried, plus salt and pepper, comes out this good stuff. How good is it? Me myself for example, since I were borned till today, almost every 3 days have this once.

Oh, hold hold hold, you don't have to fried by yourself. You can find many small carts with these 3 big words "鹽酥雞" on top in night markets, maybe just in the corner of the street. Just go ahead, start to pick whatever you like to fried. Price? Don't worry! Everything is incrediblely cheap in Taiwan including this. 3 USD = 2 EURO = 100 NTD can get you a big plate. 6 USD? Get ready to party!

Only one thing to be aware of: don't get fat!

WORD OF THE DAY:
鹽- sounds like the Japanese currency "Yen" , means salt.
酥- sounds like her name "Sue", means crispy.
雞- sounds like "G", means chicken.

Say Yen Sue G to a Taiwanese friend, I bet you will get a suprise face: How did you know that!?