My Taiwan Travel 2001~2011

i had always thought i had traveled numerous times to Taiwan.indeed i have. but not as many as i thought. the wrong impression was formed due to the number of albums i have on facebook, and also admittedly, of my frequent visits to the country in recent years.

i just checked on my records and realized i had only been to Taiwan 8 times in these 10 years. amazing right! how false impression can mislead. i had thought i had been to Taiwan 10 times at least, maybe more. but that is all a figment of my imagination.

i still remember my 1st visit to Taiwan was in 2001, the year i started on a permanent job with ESPN. from records, it was from 6~14 Nov 2001.i can also vaguely remember it was a year-end trip. i couldn't remember if i had a digital camera then till i found some old pictures taken with film. from the pictures, i realized that i had been to Jiufen, CKS memorial hall and Keelong harbour. i had probably also been to Shilin night market but there were no pictures from there. moreover, all the pictures from that trip were not well-taken. quite a number were under-exposed and hence, not developed. even those that were developed showed poor lighting. to be frank, till this day, i had not taken much pictures of Shilin. i do not know why. i should probably start taking more since there's news its going to be relocated soon. i think i did a day trip to Keelong harbour, inspired by the song <漂泊的心停泊在基隆港> by 鄭怡. i remembered i didn't research enough to get around Keelong to get to 廟口夜市 and hence left after exploring the harbour. what i regretted was i have no photo of 光華商場。i still remember that in those days, it was under a flyover bridge. it was a place packed with bookstores and for adult videos, you have to go to some streets nearby where the shops are packed with adult videos (i remembered them to be discs, probably vcds) of all genres and adult anime. i couldn't remember how or what lead me to find those shops but i just found them. it was near where the old 光華商場 was. i think there was probably some hand-written signage. i also regretted not having pictures of those shops.

the reason why i went to 光華商場 was to look for a book. not only it had bookstores, it houses stores that carry 2nd hand books. among them were a lot of japanese comics. i had wanted to look for the book <玫瑰海岸> by 林清玄 as i had learnt from Fats that there is a passage where the song <馬尺>* came from. i was blown away by this song during my teen years (~15,16). the story <等待的月台> was so moving, and still is, today. its a collectors item that i must have.

* there is no chinese character that formed such a word. in fact, its a japanese character meaning station, probably train station. i remember there was a 933 DJ 江江 whom was married overseas pronouncing the word as "aki".

as luck would have it and with graciousness from above, i found the book and bought it. forgot how much i paid but how expensive would a 2nd hand book be? i still have it today (just checked : its NT50).

i still remember that my 1st trip to Taiwan was mostly music-driven. i wanted to source out the CD stores and see if i could find any exotic albums. i didn't remember having any thrilling finds. but i did remember going to a shop,小蔡的店 to exchange 5 of my albums with topups with 2 of the albums on the shelf. it wasn't exotic albums but somehow, i felt compelled to support such a novel trade-in concept that although frankly speaking, wasn't such a great bargain for me. that 小蔡的店 is in Ximending and i believe its still there as i saw a picture of a album with its price tag recently. i believe i had also went to other CD shops around Taipei Mitsukoshi. the main focus ofthat trip was to comb the various CD stores and eateries in XMD. i remember having 賽門甜不辣 and 鴉片粉圓.

there wasn't any traveling in 2002. i couldn't remember why. in 2003, i went to HK. i went to HK twice and both times i went with my dad. there was also no traveling in 2004. i left ESPN for SPH Mediaworks in Aug that year but there was no traveling during the earlier part of that year. reason probably was our manager DK, only allow us to clear leave during year-end which was the lull period.

2005~2006 was the low point of my life where i was jobless for at least 15mths. after i joined SPH on a 1 year contract in Aug 2004, they announced the merger in Sep. my employment with SPH ended in Dec but was kept employed to help out in the packing of stuff to be transferred over to mediacorp. the liquidator was KPMG and i was employed by them. but i couldn't remember what terms i was employed under. it could be hourly rate but i have forgotten the rate. all i remember was i had worked till before CNY 2005. i did not went back after CNY. then i seek to enrol in the ADFP program in Jul 2005. i only did a semester and quit in Dec after Chee Beng offered me a post as VE in mediacorp that lasted me 3mth till Feb 2006. then, i was jobless from Mar-Aug 2006 till i joined ascent media. i left ascent media a year later in Aug 2007 and joined Technicolor. we were bought over in Sep 2010. the good days in Technicolor were only 3 years.my extensive travel to Taiwan restarted during these good years with Technicolor.

i revisited Taiwan back in 13~21 Feb 2008, after a break of 7 years? i find that as a surprise myself. although it was only 9 days, i didn't realized that i covered that many places than i used to now. i only remember that on 14th Feb, Valentine's day, i went to take the ferris wheel in Miramar alone. how lonely that must be that i still remember it today.

as i still have a large chuck of unused NT leftover from 2001 (i vaguely remember it was several thousands,probably 7k? and some loose hundreds?), i had to exchange them for new notes at the Bank of Taiwan. i had forgotten where i had got the info i had to change them, but i did it anyhow.









after that, i roamed to nearby 228 和平公園 228 Peace Park

Falungong members

went to a nearby temple