Sheraton Taipei Hotel Taipei

Today, I tried to wake up early as I felt I'm missing out on too much by sleeping in - so much for "I'll sleep when I'm on holidays". As I write this, it's 1:30am so it's better as the previous night's I've been sleeping at 3ish. I skipped breakfast thinking I'll just get something along the way, but instead I finally remembered that I needed to change money so I stopped by the HSBC. In hindsight, I probably should have chosen a Taiwanese bank as ...

... time on TV was once devoted to a theory that the moon landing was a hoax, and those people are not stupid, however misguided. I got sucked into the notion myself, for a day or two. But the transition from reality to fantasy is rarely shown in the movies, nor is the act of conspiracy ever revealed in real life. Both depend on a leap of logic to retrofit the past to fit present circumstances. I've lost friends to the warm fuzzy ...

... bawling once I got to sit down and read them. Which unfortunately was while I was waiting for the plane to leave and I was sitting next to the Chinese Pilots. Although I might not understand Chinese, I can tell they were either shocked that I could read Japanese, or laughing at me for crying so much >.< Takato's letter was full of comedians and even pictures of his favourite foods, Akari's on the other ...

We went to Taipei for the day and stumbled upon Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial. According to Wikipedia he, "was a Chinese revolutionary and political leader often referred to as the "father of modern China". Sun played an instrumental role in the eventual collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. He was the first ...

... who owns the rhythm ;) I recommend everybody who meets him to give him some drums in his hands and you won't regret it. But the best thing was that he gave me a homework, which is to write a draft of a new script about this place. The idea for a new movie has been born right here. Let's see if that trace keeps on existing even when I'm down under. Michael, our photographer for that weekend, comes ...

... rocks where softer rock has been worn away, leaving balls of harder rock sitting on thin 'necks', chess board type squares where cracks have been caused by pressure in the rock, honeycomb rocks, where again softer parts have been eroded, leaving lines of hard rock, and a lot of other things i don;t know the name for. The spit was vary flat for the first 600m or so - this is where the famous "Queen's Head" rock is as ...

... which I can avoid politely. Another man talks to me in English. He is the primary school teacher in a village in Miaoli and joins the 2-days trip to Jiaochi. The trip is organized by the local farmers' association in Miaoli. I tell them that I had been in Miaoli's Nanchuang, Donghe and Ponlai with a Brazilian samba drummer a few weeks ago and now walk around Taiwan. They are surpised about what I do, as almost everyone is, and wish me luck and ...

... checked out and found an internet cafe. I assumed we'd find another hostel in Taipei and relax for a couple days in a more cheap room. My only two orders of business in Taiwan were to see Taipei 101 (the current tallest building in the world) and Taroko Gorge. We ended up finding some attractive offers near the gorge, so that same afternoon we hopped on a train to Hualien. It was a city I'd never heard of until that day, but it's one I will surely never forget. Surely.