半糖去冰

Similarly to 侯硐 and it’s cats, 十分 （Shih fen) is a town that grew up around mining and now has created it’s own tourism niche. 十分 is famous for three reasons: it’s waterfalls, sky lanterns (as is 平溪 district generally) and the railway line which runs through the street. I spent yesterday afternoon enjoying the sunshine there…

Getting to 十分 on the train from 台北 is easy, but not very quick - about 90 minutes each way. Two things you should know:

• You can only use a 悠遊卡 (EasyCard / Yo-yo card) to get to 瑞芳 (Rueifang), where you have to change trains. From 瑞芳 to anywhere on the 平溪 line, you need to buy a paper ticket, ~20NT$. Despite the numerous signs and announcements to this effect, I spotted several people getting assisted by the train conductor upon discovery that they were travelling without a ticket.

• Contrary to quite a few web articles I’d read about visiting 十分 you don’t need to, and shouldn’t, walk all the way along the railway track to get to the waterfalls - you’ll get mushed by a train! Follow the signs along the road, it takes about 20 minutes. When you get to the road fork and there is a waterfall sign pointing in both directions, you can go in either direction. I’d suggest the right-then-left-u-turn i.e. the lower road to get to the falls. Come back via the Eyeglass waterfall, across the suspension bridge, and you’ll find that’s the higher road - a nice circular route.

The seventh lunar month is Ghost month - the gates of the underworld open and the spirits come out to play! Throughout the month there are various ceremonies and rituals - One of the most vivid is the mid-month parade in Keelung (基隆), which happened on August 20th this year (the lunar date is fixed, thus the Gregorian date varies year by year).

The parade

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Taipei has had a couple of days where 「raining cats and dogs」 would be the least you could say but recently it’s been more cats and pigs that have found themselves in the camera’s eye. In fact, this month has seen rhinoceros, giraffe, elephant, koala, panda and camel, but the bigger beasties were spared the prying lens. I’ll just say that giraffe and elephant are amazing and very chilled out; baby rhino are very cute, in a ~300kg sort of way; and koala have the most fantastically fluffy ears! Special thanks to 雅熒 and 婷潔!

I had a lovely last lunch and dinner with colleagues and friends in Bristol, a couple of big cups of tea, and then flew away… ... read more

I was always told that with regards to travel that Daddy Jarvis said 「Take half as much stuff and twice as much money!」. Whilst muddling around our planet this is something I’ve tried to stick to and in almost all cases things have worked out well; there were two Christmas days in České Krumlov where I would have done anything for an additional pair of thermal trousers and a circle around Switzerland that started well but ended up with almost my own weight in wine and chocolates in my backpack (perhaps that is what twice as much money is for though?). I’m finding though that Grandfather’s motto should be applied travelling or otherwise, at least the 「half as much stuff」 aspect. ... read more

Transition 前進樂團 - Lost Cowboy / 迷路的牛仔