Took this photo while I was in Malaysia at my grandmother’s place. My uncle has had an aquarium for a very long time and has had different types of fish in it. I like how their bright orange bodies stand out from the background.

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Back in Melbourne now. Back to single digit temperatures. Recovering from a flu I picked up while on holiday in Taiwan, so I’m not too keen on the cold, but coming from a tropical climate for the past 2 weeks, it’s quite refreshing.

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Taiwan’s been quite an experience. The haphazard traffic, the friendly people, the vast varieties of food, the language, the culture, it all takes time to adapt to. Once you get it though, it’s quite exhilarating. Food was a focal point of the trip, and I find my taste buds even more inquisitive now with the different ingredients used in Chinese cooking. I’m now more keen to explore my Chinese heritage than before, and find that Mandarin isn’t that daunting to read as a language (I’ve probably just lost touch with it after years of neglect). There was never really much I needed to know that required Mandarin before, but now I’m keen to find out a little more on recipes and other assortment of things that I’ll be spending more time reading in that language.

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Heh, this is one of the more hectic trips I’ve had and I think I will need to spend a little more time and effort in packing next time. I think having some basic medication available on hand is good as you never know what strange bugs you might pick up while on holiday. The weather was also a big surprise to me, as I was expecting it to be entering Autumn now, but it was constantly hot in Taiwan, and they say you need to always have an umbrella with you as it can rain without warning. Not once in the 9 days I was there did it rain while I was out, so I was sweating profusely all the time and I think I even lost a little weight from all the walking. Heh.

Looking through over 1700 photos at the moment. Heh, would have taken more, but I think the D300 with the uber 17-55mm lens wore me down towards the last day. Was it worth lugging around over 9 days? Definitely yes, but at nearly 2kg + the bag with another lens, it was a 3kg load up and down Taiwan. Heh, very tiring indeed. I also had to carry two bags instead of one due to the need of carrying my passport with me. I should have consolidated that into my bigger Domke camera bag as you become a little clumsy trying to hold on to two different bags dangling from your shoulder. Definitely a tip for future trips.

Having the Eee PC around was good, with wifi available at most places we stayed, one could easily access the Internet and I had a place to store my photos (took roughly 17GB of it, and my 12GB card would not have been able to fit all of it). It also provided a few good hours of entertainment on the flight back to Melbourne, and that was with a 3/4 full battery, so that’s pretty good indeed!

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Back to work tomorrow. It’s Merdeka Day in Malaysia and there’s a touch of melancholy to it for me. Anyway, need to prepare for the mundane again tomorrow. Heh.

Taking a break from the Taiwan trip. Have a whole bunch of photos taken, but not going to start editing them on my tiny Eee PC. Heh, first night where we aren’t out past 10pm. It’s been a while since I’ve been in an Asian country, and I was quite amazed at the number of people still clogging up the main MRT station in Taipei at 10pm a few nights ago.

Currently staying in Hualien, and visited the Taroko National Park earlier today. Heh, it’s been an eye opener for me, with the many various forms of food available at all times of the day, and with things being very inexpensive compared to Melbourne (well, most places, even New York, have cheaper prices than Melbourne).

I’ve spoken more Mandarin in the past 5 days than I have in my past few years in Australia. Other than the basic mash of languages with friends, I don’t use Mandarin much to communicate. Heh, Ive been listening to people talk and picking up new vocabulary as I go along, something I haven’t done for quite a while now. It’s kind of weird now that I’m thinking in English (haven’t needed to think too much in the last few days either) and typing out this post in the language.

If you speak Mandarin, Taiwan can be a very personable place to visit. I find the Taiwanese very friendly and genuinely helpful with whatever they can tell you. This is more so in Hualien, where at the place we stayed, one of the staff ferried us around to a few places, until he noted he wasn’t supposed to do so, and dropped us at a restaurant, where he mentioned to the owner where we wanted to go. While we were eating, the owner promptly called a taxi driver he knew and arranged for him to come pick us up at 7pm. The taxi driver dropped us there and gave us his card, asking us to call him when we needed to return to the hotel. Heh, I’m quite amazed at the level of service people around the region provide.

Plenty of other bits and pieces to describe Taiwan, like the really interesting flavours. Heh, can go on and on but will save that for another day.