Oook! - Taiwan

Tainan - Impressions

nospam@example.com (René Springmeier) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:53:48 +0100

Still having fun playing with Animoto.

Duty Fees

nospam@example.com (René Springmeier) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:25:16 +0100

End of October I mailed a package from Taiwan to myself. Eventhough I did not feel that I bought anything over there, it was better to send a few kg home instead of carrying them around Asia in my backpack. Getting a bit impatient, I just checked the tracking page of the Taiwanese postal service.

Happy to see that the information is actually provided and that package arrived two days ago in Hamburg.

Not happy to see that it is flagged as dutiable.

Taiwan Traffic

nospam@example.com (René Springmeier) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 08:32:00 +0100

Pictures were taken in Kaohsiung.

Lost a pin

nospam@example.com (René Springmeier) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:57:23 +0100

During my whole time that I spent in Taiwan, I had a little flag-pin on my backpack with Taiwan's flag on it. When I arrived back in Frankfurt airport, I discovered that only the back of the pin was left.

Waiting for the airplane

nospam@example.com (René Springmeier) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:17:20 +0100

I am sitting here now at the airport waiting to get on board of my flight to Hong Kong. My bag was 19kg when I checked in, so I better loose some kg of that stuff during the next days.

The plane os already outside and I am really looking forward to see my honkey friends again.

And I think skipping lunch was a bad idea, but I was too busy. Now I am hungry and there is no 7/11 here. Only expensive airport food. And i have no idea if there is something to eat on the airplane.

Oh well, I need to sleep anyways.

Talk to all later then.

AirAsia Headache

nospam@example.com (René Springmeier) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:30:33 +0200

I just booked my tickets for my trip after Taiwan. I will be flying with China Airlines, JetStar and AirAsia. This morning, I called China Airlines to reschedule my return flight to Germany and went in the afternoon to their office to have my ticket reissued. I do not know why, but it took them over one hour to do that and to process the payment. No idea what was so complicated. After I left, I got a phone call from them. They used the wrong farebasis and need to reissue to the ticket again. So I will go back tomorrow and get a new ticket again.

Maybe I should check my current ticket carefully... maybe the current fare is offering me something better? Or maybe it is just something internal. No idea, will find out later.

Oh well. AirAsia is one of many low cost airlines here. And of course they do the usual tricks to get some more money out of their customers. So they also introduced the baggage-handling fee. For each piece of luggage that you check-in, you need to pay a handling fee. Also they only allow 15kg of checked luggage. Too bad that I threw all my cargo pants with their big pockets away. They might be useful for the check-in, but troublesome at the security.

Anyways, I put down my friend's contact details in the booking form, because I would be traveling around and thus I would be difficult to reach. I entered my details on the booking form designated as guest and a friend's contact details in the "contact" section, but I used my German mailing address there, not my friend's mailing address. This was a smart thing, because when it came to pay by credit card, this address had to match the address of the credit card. The name of the credit card holder was still typed in by hand. The credit card was accepted and the booking was done and apparently with my name as the traveling person.

Luckily I saved a printout of the booking confirmation on the webpage:

Because a little while later, I got the pdf-ticket by email. And it was my friend's name listed as passenger:

Wonder how easy their customer service will be on this...

McDonald's open 24 hours?

nospam@example.com (René Springmeier) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:26:05 +0200

There is McDonald's nearby that is open 24 hours. Sometimes when I am late in the office and too lazy to walk far, I tend to go there. Tonight, I also wanted to get a little midnight snack. But I had to find out that even they close to clean the floor. Wondering if that is happening every night. Other students were sitting and waiting outside for them to finish cleaning.

I just went to the 7/11 store that was 30m down the road and is also open for 24hrs.

Travelling

nospam@example.com (René Springmeier) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:16:30 +0200

My time is finally coming to and end here in Taiwan, I have a little more than a week left. But still will be travelling around in Asia a little more. After a lots and lots of planning, I finally came up with the best route to fly to visit my friend here in Asia. Surprisingly, it is sometimes indeed cheaper to buy a round-trip ticket (two flights) than a one-way ticket (one flight). And I do not mean that the round-trip ticket is cheaper than TWO one-way tickets, no, a single one-way flight is more expensive. Crazy.

Anyways, here is the way that I plan to be traveling, giving me the option to visit a few places twice

Oct 28 Taiwan → HKG → SIN → Malaysia → SIN → HKG → Taiwan, TPE → FRA

Tickets will be booked on Tuesday, latest on Wednesday. Then it is all confirmed.

TimeShift

nospam@example.com (René Springmeier) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 07:00:59 +0200

J: what time is it there?
R: 1pm
J: oic.
R: what time is it in canada?
J: 11pm
R: thursday or wednesday?
J: wednesday

And sometimes I am even not sure what day of the week I have in my timezone

The Sound of Taiwan

nospam@example.com (René Springmeier) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:07:51 +0200

Here in Taiwan, there are not many garbage cans waiting to be emptied by the garbage truck. Usually the people colelct and seperate the trash at home and then wait for the garbage truck to come by. The people know approximately when on what day the truck is coming by. And to know it exactly, even if you live in one of the buildings further away from the street, a unique version of Beethoven's Für Elise is played. A little more insight into the recycling and trash system from a foreigner's point of view can be at World Hum.

I do wonder if the doctors have a special medical term for those people that have troubles from having to hear this tune all-shift-long.