Even though blogging about restaurants and food is hugely popular in Taiwan now (big surprise with all the delicious things you can find here) that's not the reason for this post. It's just that trying Western food is often a big disappointment, so when it's not that deserves an honorable mention. I hope I can add to that in the future.

With all the bad news and shops that have been disappearing lately (mostly tea shops but it's not like there are not five others waiting to fill the gap) it's nice to see people trying out new stuff. Last weekend we happened to notice a tiny new place along 光復路 (Guang Fu Road), not far from Nova, that sells grilled sandwiches.

We gave it a try and were not disappointed. There are many original combinations to choose from and for a few bucks extra you get fries and a drink. (I know fries may not sound that exciting but in Taiwan they're not as common as you think. :-) From the two we've tried - BBQ Chicken and Mushroom Salami - we slightly favored the latter one, mostly because of the delicious sauce, but both were excellent. Even the bread is good and crispy, not like the soggy "bread" they serve in Subway.

The portions are slightly on the small side, so you'll need a side order, but the prices are pretty reasonable. The place is also kind of small: only three tables. But you can take away and apparently the owner is thinking about adding a delivery service.

Below is a photo of one of their sandwiches and a copy of the menu.

Mr. Toast Gourmet Grilled Sandwich Bar
新竹市光復路二段276號
Guang Fu Road, Sec. 2, #276, Hsinchu (between Nova and 清大夜市 Qing Da Night Market)
03-571 7373

We extended last weekend by a day and took the High Speed Rail to Tainan, about 222 km or 1:09 train hours south from here. Tainan has much to offer: Good weather (it gets pretty cold these days in Hsinchu; around 23 °C at night!), lots of culture, and, most of all, good food and big night markets!

Our means of transportation was a scooter, without a doubt the most convenient way of getting around. We even brought our own helmets cause riding at 50 km/h with a 100 TWD helmet (about the price of two bowls of noodles), the kind that scooter rental places offer, is just half the fun.

The thing that personally impressed me the most was a Buddhist ceremony we saw at the beach. (It goes by the name of 海之祭 or, in full, 安平海祭淨安祈福消災冥陽法會. The translation is left to the reader - and the writer - as an exercise.) The preparations were huge since the whole beach was decorated not only with traditional items such as paper ships, statues, flags, swags, and fruit, but also with modern elements like fireworks, a laser show, and an ear-shattering loudspeaker system. The ceremony itself consisted of dance, praying, music, and an abundance of fire. All of this was to honor the gods, pray for luck, and hope the people who died in the ocean can find the way to heaven. Truly an impressive spectacle.

Apart from that there were different parks, temples, flowers, and nature. (I just noticed I forgot to take pictures of food again. Maybe I'll remember next time ...)

Check out my Tainan album for all the pictures!

This and some other interesting night shots were taken during one of our walks to 象山 (Xiang shan; Elephant mountain). Check out the Xiang shan by night album for some nice photos of Taipei and 101.

This weekend Taiwan is being hit by the third typhoon this month. While this is probably bad news for certain people (reportedly they snuck through just when the bridges were about to be closed), it's good news for many Taiwanese (and a handful of foreigners) with Monday syndrome: Tomorrow is a day off.

For me typhoons are tremendously more interesting than the Swiss autumn storms I'm used to. I enjoy going out to see which tea stores and restaurants remain open (quite a few) and take some pictures here and there. I'm still waiting for a flying cow but the following is an impressive start:

(I apologize for the lousy image quality. One of these days I'm going to get a new, waterproof camera that takes good pictures at night.)

More pictures in my gallery ...

It's a long time ago and the memory of my last vacation has already faded, let alone the feeling of relaxation, but some three weeks after returning from Okinawa the photos are finally ready.

Okinawa is a relatively small island in the south of Japan and inhabited by a little more than 1.3 million people. Actually, the whole prefecture includes hundreds of little islands, the Ryukyu Islands, but we only visited the main one. We spent two days in Naha, the prefecture's capital, and southern area before heading up to the center and eastern part.

Some of the views are breathtaking and so is driving on the left side for the first time in your life. Apart from the occasional struggle with the GPS (strictly Japanese and only workable with the handbrake pulled - learn the hard way!) it went fine, though, and we enjoyed five relaxing days in the sun.

The pictures, complete with GPS coordinates, thanks to my trusted and always present "Easy Showily" GPS logger:

Okinawa (Days 1 and 2)
Okinawa (Days 3 to 5)

It's funny how media love to turn things their way if it only makes their country look better.

Now that the 2008 Summer Olympics are over, let's look at the medal table in a German newspaper:

And then the same thing in an American newspaper:

Obviously this kind of statistics always leave room for interpretation, but this one seems to be a bit of a stretch. Let's see what speaks against the U.S. version:

• The precious metal market: Please drop me an e-mail if you would like to trade your pound of gold for a pound of silver or bronze.

• Every single Olympic athlete: "Who cares that I only got a bronze medal. Silver and gold are just the same; it's the sport that counts!"

• The International Olympic Committee: Their (unofficial) medal counts are sorted by gold, silver, and bronze in that order.

• The Rest of the world: Yes, it's true. Almost the rest of the world counts in the same way the IOC does.

Too bad China scored so well. I would have been dying to find out how their government can push a 2 gold, 5 silver, 1 bronze result to first rank. :-)

All good things come to an end. This is especially and unfortunately true for vacations.

If you think that vacations are relaxing then you should try coming back from one of my vacations. Hundreds of photos and dozens of GPS traces are waiting to be combined and put online.

Luckily, I finally found a working program that does this job quite well: Geotag. It loads pictures from different directories and multiple GPS tracks and with a little bit of magic you'll have coordinates in your pictures in no time. The result of this can be seen here:

Turtle Island album

Turtle Island (龜山島, Gui shan dao) is a small, uninhabited island on the west coast of Taiwan. Unfortunately it's still under military control and visiting involves going with a rather large tour group or a lot of paperwork (If you have the choice, go with the paperwork! :-), but it's worthwile in spite of that. See for yourself.

Oh, and pictures from Okinawa are coming up soon. At least some of them; turns out my camera is allergic to water. ;-)

While buying some long-needed DIY accessories to get a network cable out of the way we saw some an amazing ad for garden furniture:

Also notice the woman relaxing in the furniture set behind him, playing with her cell phone. Possibly his girlfriend/wife? :-)

Now that the rainy season is coming to an end and we've just narrowly escaped the Wind God (the name of the last Typhoon in the area), it's a good time to go biking. Slightly hot with 30 °C and more but the temperature is not the biggest problem. It's the legs.

We were planning to climb 五指山 (Five finger mountain) after a little warm-up trip to 關西 (Guanxi) and back but it turns out the 50 km I had already done were a little too much to attack one of the steepest mountains in the area.

Anyway, we'll try again soon, and with a little luck one of these days there will be pictures of a nice view on my website. In the meantime, you can check out two photos I took while waiting for my friend and the map to go with it. :-)

Five Finger Mountain album

Many Taiwanese universities have small lakes on their campus, which is really nice cause you can go for a relaxing walk during your classes or in your spare time.

And then there's the National Chiao Tung University in Hsinchu where a walk around the lake is more like an obstacle course around dead animals:

Theories as to the reason of this animal battle ground include "bored to death by professors" and "university graduate designed aeration system". ;-)

All jokes aside, apart from the lake the university is quite nice. Take a look by visiting my Taiwanese Universities album.