The Grand Hotel, Taipei

One of the most impressive buildings in Taipei

Part of my Big tour around Taipei was visiting the Grand Hotel, an impressing building in classic Chinese architecture. I really took some awesome photos here and the weather was perfect.

Read about the Grand Hotel here>>

Taiwan: Work hard & live

Is that what Taiwan is all about?

I took this photo near the Taipei railway station

It reminds me of a brilliantly written impression of Taiwan by a Swiss anthropologist named David Signer, who traveled around Taiwan in 2006 for 14 days and wrote about what he observed. His article was translated into English and Chinese by a Taiwanese travel blogger 瘋狂長腳走天下 and I highly recommend you to read it, if you want to know and understand Taiwan and Taiwanese people better. Some quotes from that insightful text:

"Furthermore there are only three countries that have less sex then the Taiwanese, and according to the French magazine "Elle", Taiwanese women are the unhappiest women in the world."

"A Swiss woman who lived in Taiwan for a long time says: 'the only thing that counts for these people is food and making money. Love and sex are not important. If somebody says 'I love you', then it means nothing, but if he gives you a big piece of his meat then you know you are important for him."

"Peng Wu Chih ends the meeting with a short anecdote: Two people die and god asks them what they wish in a next life. The first says, "I want to get lots of money", the other one says "I want to give lots of money" - The first is reborn as a beggar, the second as an millionaire."

Read the whole article here>>

[My TAIPEI page][My TAIWAN page][Photo by MKL, 2010]

Taipei shock! A wolf nearly bit me!

Just kidding! Actually it was a dog and he was too tired to walk, let alone bite

I was just making a short clip of the crazy traffic in one of Taipei's older districts, when a stray wolf dog slipped past me. He looked a bit dangerous from far, but when he came close and snuck around my legs, he seemed rather dog-tired. I asked him Wazzup dawg? but he ignored me. Guess he had to rush home to his wife and was late again. When he finally crossed the road in that crazy traffic, I was totally baffled: How can he cross so quickly and easily, while I sometimes stand for 5 mins and watch the motorbikes pass by like there's no tomorrow? As I was contemplating on the best strategies to cross that road, he was long lost in the concrete jungle.

Lesson of the day: Humans can also learn from dogs, not only vice versa :-)