Saturday 10 May 2008

Afternoon in Jinguashu

On the 9th of May 2008, we went to visit the lovely village of Jinguashi, located in the north of Taiwan, close to the city of Keelung. We left our place in Nankan, and took a bus to Taipei, where we went to Taipei Main Station to get a train to the closest station (sorry I can't remember the name). There, we jumped in a bus which went on top of the hills to our destination.

The village of Jinguashu used to be the home of Japanese mine worker during the Japanese ruling of Taiwan. The miners where extracting mainly gold. There are some beautiful architectural prints of the the Japanese time in this place, particularly the 4 joined house which are the only original Japanese wooden houses left in the world (the one from Japan were destroyed during fires and earthquakes).

The visit of the museums are interesting, but the best thing to do is to walk to the Gold Temple, above the village, to see the remains of a Japanese Temple. The stairs to go there are well maintained, but the heat and the high level of humidity make this 550m walk a very "entertaining" walk. The view from this temple is simply breath taking!



Click here to see all pictures

Monday 24 March 2008

Easter at Fulong

For Easter, My lovely wife invited me to visit the most populate summer destination of the north of Taiwan, a place called Fulong. On Sunday morning, we took a bus to Taipei, and then a train from Taipei Main Station to Fulong. We were lucky, we had a fast train which brought us there in less than one hour (it costs NT$132/person).

First, Fulong is apparently extremely famous for its Bien Dan, our Chinese lunch box, which consists of some rice, a piece of meat (usually marinated chicken ou pork), some Chinese veggies or pickles. The best thing about these Bien Dan is that they costs only $NT50, or 1€ !!!

We went straight to the beach and walked in the sand with the ocean as our background music. The weather was already, partly clouded, but with some moment of very strong sun, and a nice strong wind, perfect for windsurfers and sailors.

Something absolutely incredible: We found tens of blowing fishes day of the beach. We don't know why they were all there... very strange, probably due to the strong wind...

After this lovely promenade, we decided to get our room in the official hotel located just beside the beach. The room was GREAT ! The bathroom was amazing ! The bathtub was huge, we manage to have 2 bathes in our one night stay :)

We rested a bit and went for another promenade next to the beach, and went for dinner. The food was 100% Chinese dishes, it was very nice, even if the quantity was really light. The most surprising was that no rice or tea was served ! This is the first time in more than 2 years in Taiwan that we experienced that. It was an incident between a client and a member of the staff which brought down the atmosphere already not that enchanting... No the best dinner...

The second day, we went for another promenade still around the beach, and managed to visit the old town, the port and the temple. I visited many temples, they all have their characteristics, but Fulong's Temple is simply the most beautiful temple I have ever visited, and I will recommend people to go and check it out !

Then, we went back to Taipei with a semi fast train, it took us 1h30 to arrive at Taipei Main Station.

It was a great place to rest and relax. The sea view was great! The walks really help to release the stress and to get reunited with the nature. The air of the ocean was also helping to get revitalised. It was a great trip !

Check the pictures there

Thursday 3 January 2008

Happy New Year from Taiwan !!!

On New Year Eve, my wife and I went to Taipei to meet your friend Jasmine, her boyfriend Jay (Jimmy) and Ema. We went to an excellent restaurant / lounge bar call the Peacot, located near xxx station. The music is simply great, a mix of rock, pop and house music, all this coming with a great selection of real Italian food (the pizza was the best pizza I ever ate outside Italy!) and Idian food (I'll try it soon for sure, the owners went to India to learn the secrets of a local masterchief...)

Then, we went to a Jazz bar nearby, located on the 4th floor of an office building, I never expected to see such a great place in this kind of building. The live band was 100% Taiwanese, composed of a female pianist, a male bass player and a female saxophonist. They played some great tunes for the blue note bible.

Just after 11pm, we left to find a nice spot to see the famous Taipei 101 New Year Fireworks. One word: EXCELLENT !!!

Have a look by yourself:



I wish you a Happy New Year and all the best wishes for you all !!!

Make your EEE more user friendly

It has been now a week that I install Xp Service Pack 3 (Beta) on my EEE as I wass getting quite frustrated using Xandros, and Linux in general. For my every day job, I use mainly Windows compatible applications.

The installation was pretty simple after using nLite to light down XP from 600Mb to 210Mb.

I just discovered RocketDock, a great and simple application which displays a dock bar with your favorite applications, with fancy animations. Also, you can minimize your application to appear on this dock bar.

Here a screenshot of my EEE desktop:


To download this great application, which is 100% FREE, go there: www.ocketdock.com