Taiwan
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Kaohsiung: Another Taiwanese Adventure
Taiwan has still been lucky enough to avoid any kind of lockdown. So with the yearly Tomb Sweeping Festival coming up, it was another chance to explore, but where to this time? Jess and I had to start getting tactical with our adventures. We’d have an extended break in summer, so we’d leave the big trip until then. But where should we go in the meantime? We had 3 days to play with, and thanks to the High-Speed train anywhere in Taiwan was within reaching distance. It was probably best to go to a city, and there weren’t much left for us to hit. Except for one big one, Kaohsiung.…
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Alishan: Into the Misty Mountains
Xin nian kuai le and Happy Chinese New Year! As countries throughout Asia welcome the year of the ox, it marks the beginning of the busiest travel period of the year for this part of the world. So why not join in the fun? As both Jess and I had more time to play with, we looked for a more thorough adventure, something a little more challenging. So this holiday, we headed for the forest-clad mountains of central Taiwan to Alishan National Forest Park. A Furry Welcome After a quick dash on the high-speed train, we arrived in Chiayi and quickly hopped onto a bus towards the mountains. On…
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Hualien: A Day on the Farm
You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy. Since I was 18 I’ve been living in big cities, from Cardiff and Beijing to Taipei and Kyoto. To be honest, cities have always freaked me out. You can walk across my hometown in 10 minutes, yet here in Taipei, it takes me just as long to walk to the subway every morning, madness! I’ll always be a country boy, and this upcoming holiday, I was looking forward to getting back to my bumpkin ways. So for our first trip of 2021, Jess and I would be spending the weekend on…
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Jiufen: Being Spirited Away
There are a couple of places out there that you’d want to visit JUST because they’re in a movie. Everyone wants to be Leonardo Di Caprio on the beach of Koh Phi Phi. In Taiwan, one place has been the ultimate destination for movie buffs, Jiufen. People believe this town inspired the critically acclaimed Japanese anime movie “Spirited Away”. Well…that may not actually be true, but that doesn’t matter. As far as everyone is concerned, this is Spirited Away and the home of No-Face. I’d only seen the movie since being in Taiwan and instantly fell in love. With Jiufen only being an hour away from Taipei, it made for the perfect little…
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Sun Moon Lake: A Cultural Rollercoaster
Though the border was still closed in Taiwan, a national holiday was quickly approaching, and I’d be damned if I missed an opportunity to travel! There were still plenty of places in Taiwan itself that I was yet to see. The question was, where should we go? Jess and I ran through our options until we landed on the nation’s all-time favourite holiday hotspot and one of the country’s biggest highlights, Sun Moon Lake. Running to the Mountains First things first, we had to head out of Taipei and travel right to the center of the country in the middle of the pristine untouched mountains. We caught a high-speed…
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Ludao: Prisons and Paradise
Many countries around the world have their tropical paradise islands. America has Hawaii, Spain has Mallorca and Japan has Okinawa. For Taiwan, it’s Ludao. After spending the last 3 days on the island of Lanyu, a place which holds true to its traditional aboriginal ways, it was time to travel to the island which it could have turned into. For better or for worse, Ludao accepted the change and influence of mainland Taiwan. Therefore, the island is more of a tourist-ran industry, with only 1/3 of the inhabitants being local aboriginal tribes. It was time to find out if its had a negative effect. Hunting Down Nature Just like…
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Lanyu: An Aboriginal Way of Life
With the world slowly recovering from the lockdown, borders have only just started opening again. Sadly for many, it’s still a little soon to return to travelling normality. Luckily, Taiwan has managed to avoid the worst of it, completely evading any sort of lockdown. With that in mind, and my annual summer vacation quickly approaching, it was the perfect time to travel again. As such, this summer would be spent exploring the rest of Taiwan. It really is quite a mysterious nation. Little did I know that there are a handful of smaller islands surrounding the mainland. As well as that, only after arriving in the country did I learn…
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Tainan: First Taiwanese Adventure
I have never seen the purpose of planning too far into the future. Fate is a mysterious creature that can change your path in an instant and without warning. Taiwan was only intended to be a stepping-stone on my adventure, a quick detour off the path. Little did I predict that Taiwan would become yet another nation added to the ever-growing list of countries I have called home. The difficult time that the entire world is currently facing has been especially difficult for travellers. Ironic how the entire world would shut down once I decided to start backpacking again. Regardless, being locked in Taiwan isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It…
