Melbourne airport
So at the time of writing, war has not broken out in Taiwan. Surprising perhaps.
Time for the disclaimer: everything I type here is ill informed, insensitive, immature, inappropriate and imbecilic.
As soon as you think otherwise, please refer to this disclaimer.
The risk of me raising the ire of others is particularly high on this trip, given the situation over Taiwan, so I will lean right into that, and say stupid things I will be told to regret at some point in the future.
Now for some other news, camera time. My last few trips all used my beloved Ricoh GR III, the best camera ever made, but also the most prone to failure. I have DESTROYED 2 of them, with water and dust and out of warranty repair attempts that failed spectacularly. I think about how badly I failed daily. They are expensive cameras! I have resisted the temptation for now to buy a third one, hopefully one day they release a new version that is at least dust sealed, and preferably splash resistant too.
In the meantime I have purchased a Sony ZV-1. This is not a great camera. The pictures here will not be as good as my last few trips. The sensor is a lot smaller, it is therefore noisier, which means the photos need a lot more messing around with especially in low light, but it does have a zoom lense! I rarely have a camera with zoom. It is effectively the same camera I had for a few years starting in 2012, an updated version of the RX100. So that is all quite boring, but important, because I will be constantly moaning about how disappointing the photos look.
Now for the going to the airport and pre flight rant.
Because I am a massive tight ass, I walk to the bus station and take the bus. The train to the airport is further delayed by another 3 decades due to rare ducks being in the way. Good news today though, the bus was almost empty, so no COVID from the bus.
This is all really boring as it is airport related nonsense, my bag had to be scanned 3 times and the guy asked me if I had any kind of protective film inside it to block the x-ray. No I do not, and it has never been an issue before on the more than 100 times it has gone through. He was fascinated as to why it would not scan and told me he wanted to try something once more... which he did, then brought me my bag and told me he figured out the setting on the machine that was wrong. Hopefully no one got a bomb through while the setting was wrong.
And now, as usual, I am in the quite disappointing Singapore airlines lounge, in the far far corner away from someone who clearly does have COVID. Yes I still talk about COVID. I know no one else does, the new strain is called Arcturus, the previous one was called Kraken, each new strain is claimed to be over 10x more contagious than the last. We have had about 20 different strains, so COVID is now twenty to the power of ten times more contagious than the original strain that killed everyone. Basically, basic science is beyond the realms of science when it comes to understanding virus's.
The traditional pre departure photo taken at some point during the day before I leave. Rather than a view out of my window, here is the street corner I live on, with trams, scooters and people, all conspiring to get in my way.
Oh look, a different view of a very quiet Melbourne airport.
The pandas are still here. The flight to Chengdu that caused the installation of the pandas has not been a thing for many years.
Final pre flight shot, the food in the Singapore airlines lounge gets more and more basic. They would call it enhanced. Some Australian fried rice and dim sum from the Woolworths mixed frozen dim sum box. I have to flee here now due to the woman in the far corner who I think needs to be put in an ambulance! Next update, more boring pictures of airport carpet in Singapore, where I will be looking at carpet for 6 hours.
Melbourne to Singapore on an Airbus A350
Now I am in Singapore. I have already been here a few hours, and have a few to go, so time to exaggerate and make some stuff up about the flight.
My usual shtick, the mucus games. At first I was a bit disappointed, there was no one sitting next to me on the flight, and the people around me mostly had masks, despite overall well under half the people on the flight having masks. So there was no phlegm hanging in the air at first.
Roughly 2 hours after take off, the lights flicked on and off at full brightness followed by a full hot meal at 2am, just to make sure no one had any chance of getting any sleep. Post meal, still no signs of oral or nasal discharge. Amazing. But then one hour later it was time to turn the lights back on and make a series of announcements 2 hours before landing, waking up everyone who managed to sleep for an hour, that's when the game of mucalinguistics started.
I have decided that humans have devolved to the point of communicating with phlegm gargling. There is the hacking up hello, the uncovered sneeze to express surprise and delight, the cough of agreement (not to be confused with the cough of discontent), the snortle of ridicule and of course the gargle of amazement. Entire conversations were had with people 50 rows apart, everyone on board got to know each other through their salivic salutations.
Now to address the title. Between the seats I could watch what the man in front of me was watching. For 7 hours he put movies on fast forward until any kind of sex scene occurred, then repeated each scene 10 times, sometimes in slow motion. Wait until he finds out the sorts of things you can see on the internet.
As soon as we landed in Singapore, I headed straight to get some free water from the very quiet lounge. I had the whole big bench area to myself and drank 3 litres of water.
There were a couple of other people around at this time, I am back here now 3 hours later and it has quite a few people, but still nowehere near full.
After re-hydrating thoroughly, it was time to walk to every corner of the airport. The gardens are really just smoking areas, and still mostly dead. Here is a view from the cactus garden soon after dawn. They go to great lengths to make it hard to appreciate any kind of view from any of these smoking gardens. Also my camera was fogging up due to the high humidity after exiting the air conditioning, so if the outdoor shots are blurry upon closer inspection, that is why. I can't tell because my glasses are completely fogged over, I am taking photos blind.
The cactus garden is particularly disappointing, mainly a slab of concrete and a few ash trays. Worlds best airport though!
This is the discover garden. You can discover it is mainly a walkway above some ash trays on a piece of fake grass.
And for my last shot of the airport, my usual carpet appreciation. I mentioned it above, I am fascinated by how much carpet is in an airport. I should have bought a tape measure. My mental estimation is 225,000m2. It is of a high quality, loop pile, stain guard, high wear, I estimate with a bulk discount they pay about $30 per m2, so $6.75 million, not including underlay or installation. Less than I thought. See, not only did I deliver a picture, but I made up a heap of info about the airport carport. Where else would you get something like this?
Arriving in Taipei on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner
Well I am here now, I think. It took a really long time to get here. Felt a lot longer than getting to South Korea even though Taiwan is closer to Australia than Korea, this is due to the longer stopover in Singapore.
Anyway, flight 2 was only just over 4 hours, but the 35 minute taxi from the terminal to the runway was very long, other people were getting mad about it, we seemed to turn around and go back the other way at one point.
Lunch on the plane was actually great, some sort of chicken with noodles, the noodles were excellent.
Again I had a spare seat next to me which was unexpected.
So all plain sailing and I am too tired to recall anything interesting enough to exaggerate into a funny story. Now we wait to see what diseases I caught from the sputum Olympics.
Once off the plane there was a bit of chaos in Taoyuan airport - which is the airport you use for Taipei even though it is the next city over.
Recently they introduced an electronic arrival card, but not everyone was told to use it, Singapore airlines sent it to me. Other people were filling out manual ones, mainly Japanese and Korean people based on their passports. This then caused quite a few people who had filled out the electronic one to leave the line to get a manual one to fill out, and then try and get back to their position in the very long line. It got a bit heated between a few people. I will admit that I was not 100% confident my online card would be correct, so when people asked me I said I did not know. If my electronic one was incorrect I probably would have left the window, filled out the paper one and re-joined the back of the line, then complained about it here. Unfortunately it worked so I have nothing to complain about.
The train into the city is new to me since I was last here, it takes only 36 minutes and my hotel is very near the main station, but I exited on the wrong side and it was already dark, yet I was bravely confident I knew where I was going, I was wrong, I became discombobulated, I had to go back into the station and start again! But now, here I am, in my tiny hotel room, full of salad.
This is me looking thrilled to be on the train, after 36 hours of no sleep. I look a bit like the new downs syndrome barbie doll that was in the news earlier this week.
My room. It is a room from a well established hotel chain with no fewer than 5 hotels dotted around the station. Because it is well known and near the station the rooms are tiny. But not as tiny as this picture makes it seem, there's more to the room along the window along the left, where I am sitting now. Also a window. But a bit of road noise. Working out the shower resulted in a combination of burns, and flooding the room, but it is ok now.
The world is scooters now.
I wanted a quick dinner and to get back to my hotel, type this and go to sleep. So I headed to the main shopping part of town, Ximending, where every restaurant had long lines. So I had to walk away from this area a bit.
A bonus street scene in Ximending. Mask wearage is pretty good, despite the dude in the yellow shirt here being maskless.
I found a good option, tofu poke. I was still full of noodles, rice, dim sum etc. from the various airports. This was pretty good. In excellent news I can tap and pay with my phone here. The internet suggested foreign cards still do not work. I think perhaps Americans that still want to swipe and sign are out of luck.
There are currently 3 comments - click to add
David on 2023-04-29 said:
Probably, I try not to look in mirrors, in my mind, I'm Fabio, before he got the bird in his face
adriana on 2023-04-28 said:
Is that a magnifying mirror in your hotel room?
mother on 2023-04-28 said:
the snortle of ridicule is definitely my favourite
Hiking Jinmianshan from Wende MRT station
Time for the first hike, a short hike, in the heat. Clearly I need to acclimatise because I was sweating rivers. My gusset filled with sweat on the first climb. Meanwhile the locals have on long sleeves and and look cold. I have not really noticed such a large variation in my ability to force salty water out of my pores compared to humans with slightly different DNA previously.
As for today's hike, it was a Saturday, also I am probably still tired, so a shorter less popular hike was in order to avoid crowds and avoid dying of exhaustion.
It was only 2 hours, but very sweaty. I started my route from Wende MTR station, walked past a lake which has a public pool where apparently someone released a cobra as a joke that was a news story for weeks. Cobra's are not native to Taiwan either.
The hike is famous for the instagram view of the Songshan airport (domestic flights and charter flights to the mainland) with Taipei 101 in the background. The view today was of course, pollution. I stared at my photos for a while, lightroom did not enjoy the skies at all, need more dynamic range damn it! What the hell am I even talking about at this point?
Also the internet in my room is weird, super fast, but then drops out, and at the same time my bluetooth mouse starts glitching. I am being bombarded with an EMP weapon! It is the only feasible explanation.
My day started walking underground to the Taipei main station. Here is the main hall. It is vast. A few homeless guys have made it their home.
I had to go outside to find my train.
Here is the outside of the station, it is much bigger than it looks here, perhaps from the other side, so more pics of that another time.
I had to change from the subway to the overhead tyre monorail thing. I have taken this photo before on a previous trip. Sky looks blue from here still.
My hike started at the lake, nearby the famous cobra pool. I did not see the cobra.
I had chosen a less popular route to go up, longer, easier, and the more popular shorter rock filled rope climbing course to go down. The way up still had people, but not too many, they way down had thousands.
Much of the path today was landscaped like this, but then occasionally there were dangerous bits with no ropes or markings of any kind, plenty of small children were out hiking so I am surprised they do not finish it properly.
There were quite a few view spots, not a great view, not high enough, and a bit polluted.
The locals built a lean-to half way up to smoke and play cards. People were keen to ask me if I needed directions, despite my sweatiness. I did not need directions. Old men like to take their shirts off and do a few stretches for the ladies. I joined in.
More view in another direction.
Here I guess is the top. The instagram spot. I think a lot of photos are also taken at night. There were too many people for me to climb up to the best spot to see all of the airport so I moved on.
Very busy.
There are lots of viewing decks below the rocky area.
I stopped for the shot. That is a vein on the left side of my forehead. Impressive.
Small children, rocks and ropes. There were some kids who could barley walk climbing up the rocks.
Crooked picture so I dont plummet, also for effect, I am tired of straightening horizons. Actually I probably pressed the shutter when I did not mean to.
Almost back down. More of the airport visible here.
But still more ropes. Actually got this little bit to myself.
At the bottom is a temple, more of a shed with this incense burning area. Nice garden though.
And for my final pic, a variation on the tsunami shelter. It seemed to be some guys basement. Perhaps a variation of the candy van.
Taking the train to Taoyuan for dinner
Tonight I took a TRA train to Taoyuan, most known for being the city where Taipei airport is. I had never been there before. It is a city of about a million people, enough for there to be a few department stores, plenty of colourful streets and the usual brightly coloured temples. In Taiwan it can be difficult to know where one city starts and another ends, and even Taoyuan is not actually currently connected to the Taoyuan MRT (subway) line, but the neighbouring city of Zhongli which is part of Taoyuan province but not Taoyuan city, does. Taoyuan city which is also in Taoyuan province does however connect to the TRA inter city train, which is better than the MRT, so that is what I took. It takes about 40 minutes on the stopping all stations local train.
Once you arrive, it is clear it is a city of one half, as there is no way out the back side of the station. Also, the station is being reconstructed with what looks like a 40 level space age all white curvy concrete mega mall. Work does not appear to have actually started, so it remains to be seen if this progresses beyond the cool looking drawing phase.
The underwhelming current Taoyuan MRT station.
Out the front it is chaotic. There is no bridge across the road, there perhaps once was as there seems to be a detour in place that might remain the detour forever.
I thought about getting my nails done.
That is one of 3 shopping malls near the station, I have taken photos of 2 of the 3. Standby for the other one a few pics down.
At the end of the main street is the main temple. Getting to it is difficult, as it is an island with a road around it. There are pedestrian crossings, the main purpose of which in Taiwan is to inform the drivers of the hearse where to pick up dead pedestrians.
Earlier today at the end of my hike I took a photo of the incense burner. Here is another. Smoke is everywhere in Taiwan. A lot of shops burn paper offerings all day long in little burners, just to make sure the air never clears.
Now for some random street scenes. This one is a bit before dusk. It has not rained at all today, but got very grey this afternoon. This made it a lot cooler which was good.
I descended into the mall basement for my dinner.
Since it is a Japanese department store basement, I decided to have Japanese curry... well that is what the picture showed, what I actually got was a bit different. Complete with very burnt french fries x 3 and a tiny sausage. Also 'beef'. I should have gone to Coco, I passed one, they have them in Taiwan, just as they have most Japanese chain food places (mister donut, Mos Burger just to name a couple more).
Now for some night time shots. Here's some night.
A bit more night at a busy intersection. There is no pedestrian street I could find, and no actual night market, I think the night market is over in the next city of Zhongli, but I could be wrong. There will be visits to the various famous night markets of Taiwan on other nights.
I like to hang out with the scooters.
Here is the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, who's basement I ate omurice curry 'beef' in earlier. It is located directly opposite the station and seems quite new.
The inside of the soon to be replaced (maybe???) Taoyuan TRA station. The toilets seemed very new. I report on toilets before the questions come.
And finally, lets all wait for the train! They come about every 10 minutes and go all the way down the west coast of the country on two different lines abour 20km apart, the mountain and coast lines. These are separate from the High speed line, which stops at only a few places, generally outside of city centres. There is also an east coast line, which I rode on last time I was here, and will do a bit of again next week. The trains on the east coast are more like once an hour though. Tonight was very informative if you like trains.
There are currently 3 comments - click to add
phil on 2023-04-29 said:
Add some costs and room shots in your photos.
山雪 on 2023-04-29 said:
我 喜欢 有 花园 的 建筑。
jenny on 2023-04-29 said:
some nicely framed shots. You look like you're abut to die. Hope you took lots of water.
There are currently 1 comments - click to add
jenny on 2023-04-27 said:
well the photos so far look pretty colourful, so pretty good in my view.