The Landis Taipei

... Kong; clean, well run, big buildings, flashy lights everywhere. I'm pretty sure Hong Kong has more skyscrapers but Taipei definitely has its share. The streets reminded me of Hong Kong as well; narrow and loaded with businesses on either side. The store signs are all neon lights and stretch out over the streets, perpendicular to the building. The streets are loaded with people hustling and bustling about.

I managed to ...

... then dropped at a port and got on a speed boat, which took about an hour to get to the islands. The journey by boat wasn’t too bad, our only concern was our luggage which was precariously thrown on the back of the boat and looked like it could slip off, if we hadn‘t have mentioned it! We were the first drop off which was disappointing as we wanted to check out where other people were getting dropped in case our selected resort was no good. It all turned out well though ...

... end and relaxed to enjoy the most turbulent flight in history. We arrived in Bangkok at 7am local time and proceed off the plane to be checked for swine flu via an infra red camera, how scary….. luckily we all appeared to be free of the influenza. After collecting our luggage we met Chasha at 7.45am outside the airport’s Starbucks coffee shop. With the group complete we negotiated two kamikaze minibus drivers to deliver us to our hostel.

... stuff all the time, I’m not rich - truly!
· Sleeper buses and long bus trips.
· Lugging my super heavy pack around.
· Being charged extra and treated differently because we are farang (foreigners). This isn’t subtle, even the national parks/attractions have signs with foreigner rates and local rates.
· Finding ...

... us feeling a little motion sick but the scenery was so pretty that the ride was worth it!

As we stepped out of the car we noticed a line of people climbing up one of the steep mountains. It looked like the path had no turns to it - it just went straight up! My first thought was, "Wow...that's a cool path but there is no way we are going to climb it." I thought we were going to be taking leisurely strolls through ...

... born to wealth there is prostitution. Being wealthy probably accounts for no more than ½ % of the nation's population, and wealth can probably be defined, based on what I've seen, as the equivalent of the low end of our middle class. Every trip I fly into Thailand I see middle aged, or older, doughy schleps looking a lot like The Son of Sam killer in shorts and sandals obviously flying into Bangkok for something other than ...

... single white men wandering the streets around here as one of the main gogo bar areas is just down the road - not that we've patronised it but Andy seems to know where it is!!! Strangely, a lot of the transvestites seem to nod to him as we walk down the street... - he seems to have a lot of friends here!!!!!! Anyway, a different scene from the last place we stayed here which was opposite a ...

... that you are to stamp in your museum guide. Who knew?? After seeing all that really cool stuff we have a coffee and dessert and do some museum shopping before heading back to the hotel for a brief rest before dinner. Before we head to dinner, we make a stop at the Grand Hotel. Holy ****!!! It is absolutely huge!!! You don't realize it until you are next to it. Perched on a hill top with tremendous views of the city. The president of ...

... found the fastest food that we could...that wound up being Popeye's Chicken. We dominated two orders of fried chicken and french fries in 10 minutes and then quickly got back to the ticket counter. At that time we were told that we couldn't get on the flight and they would put us on Mikes flight two hours later. Liz said "I think iI want to go throw up so I can eat some decent food"...she didn't actually do that, but ...

... pleasure in exchange for frugality. The obvious choices (short of simply going hungry) in that case are street vendors and convenience stores. Be warned: Convenience stores are not as common in Macau as they are in Taiwan. You may even be forced to walk as many as three blocks to find a 7-Eleven, rather than the usual half-block that is customary in most of Taiwan. However, you can eat a meal from an OK Mart that is equivalent to (if not better than) any meal you ...