Tag Mountains
Today I woke up bright and early, and after a hearty breakfast, headed out in the slopes.
I spent the morning exploring different parts of the system than yesterday, and found plenty of untouched powder just a short distance from the main track. The weather was good, only light clouds scudding across the sky and I had plenty of fun.
Just before lunch I stopped off at the local igloo village. The igloo was not quite as impressive as the ice hotel in Jokkmokk but still pretty good. I also checked out the nearby snow mobile park, but it was … Read the rest
My company has sent me to Switzerland to do some work on a machine. So far I have mostly just seen the factory where the machine is, and a bit of local sightseeing in the small town where I live, so not very much to write about.
A bit of local tourism in Badsäckingen
Now that it is weekend however, I took the chance to go skiing. I took an early morning train from my little town near Basel to Engelberg. There I dropped my bags at the hotel, a pretty shoddy military barracks style of dormitory hostel, then went … Read the rest
A while back, me and Yini rode our motorbike from Tainan on the south west coast, round Taiwans south tip, then up along the east coast to Yilan in the north. I wrote about it here. We also made one trip from Taoyuan in the west, across the mountains to Yilan, then around the northern tip back to Taoyuan, see this post.
Though a bit further inland than those two trips, we have also been between Hsinchu and Taoyuan (both in the north west) several times, and a few weeks ago, we rode from Hsinchu to Erlin in … Read the rest
Spring in Taiwan happens to be the season for two things, namely Tong flowers, the Taiwanese counterpart to Japanese sakura, and fireflies. Despite a slight drizzle, me, Yini and our friend Kai decided to go out hunting for both. We started by driving north east until white blotches among the green of the mountains told us tong trees were abundant. We got out of the car and walked around for a bit, finding the ground littered with white blossoms.
A couple of the flowers 
They are everywhere 
Someone had made a heart, I’m not romantic enough
Having strolled around for … Read the rest
Taoyuan is not all that far from Hsinchu, about an hour and a half by country roads. Having ridden the scooter to Hsinchu on Friday afternoon, I had to bring it back on Sunday because I need it for work. Me and Yini decided to do this as a small trip, going eastward through the mountains instead of the straight road. It turned out to be a bit of an adventure that, including several stops, took us most of the day.
Riding along the winding mountain roads, we first came to a mountainside cafe where we stopped for tea. From … Read the rest
My mom and dad came to visit me this week. Since I’ve spent a fair amount of time driving them around the island to show them different sights, I consider it to be true to the spirit of landtravel. It started the very day they arrived, as me and Yini picked them up at the airport, but instead of taking them straight back, we stopped by at the lantern festival to let them marvel at the myriad lights. The next day we drove down to Lugang in central Taiwan and spent some time walking around in the picturesque old streets. … Read the rest
We are walking on a small road winding it’s way along the mountain face. The sun has been drenched by the evening mists that shroud the peaks, and the heat of the day is beginning to dissipate. The mountain rises steeply upward to my left, rows upon rows of tea bushes covering the mountainside in a pattern of dark green stripes and waves. To my right, the slope is covered by bamboo trees, the thin, straight reeds creating a surprisingly sparse forest. It occurs to me that we are walking between fields of two quintessentially Asian plants, as if walking … Read the rest
A few days ago, my old friend Johan Svennung contacted me, wishing to visit me in Hsinchu. We already had a dinner planned that day but welet him join in the fun. Since there were no good buses back to Taipei in the night, he slept here, suggesting we go to some hotsprings the next day. So, when we woke up, we borrowed Yini’s car, and drove up to the mountains in search for a wild hotspring (wild as opposed to a hotspring resort). Eventually we found the road that we thought it was on, but saw no signs of … Read the rest