Yehliu Geopark (野柳)

Yehliu 野柳 is a cape located in the north of Taiwan in a town called Wanli, not far from Taipei. 

I just happened to hear about this place from a Chinese colleague when we were waiting for a bus in Taipei. It woke my curiosity. After searching info about this place, we decided to make a day trip.

We took a Kuo Kang Bus No 1815 (around 190NTD/pers for a round trip) from Taiwan West Bus Station, which is near the Taipei Main Station to go to Yehliu. It took a little more than 1h and we got off where others got off, because we didn't really know which bus station that was the right one. From the bus station, we needed to walk a few hundred meters along a harbor before reaching the park. Next to the park is the Marine World Center with a dolphin show, but we didn't have time to go in there. 

This park is divided into three sections and is around 1.7km long. A small fee of 80NTD/pers is needed to enter the park.

A lot of rocks with strange shapes, caused by Mother Nature, made this place a true visitor spot. 

Some look like mushrooms, ice cream or candles. Some others are called Prince's Head or Cute Princess. Some look like a gorilla or a pineapple. The best known rock is the Queen's Head though, which people line up to take a photo with. 

 Queen's Head II

 Mushrooms!

Cute Princess

 Candles

 Mind an ice cream?

 Gorilla rock.

The famous Queen's Head.

We went there in the end of July so it was freaking hot that day. Since this is an outdoor activity without any shelter, make sure to bring an umbrella and apply lots of sun protection!

This is a must-do day trip so don't miss it when you are in Taiwan!

Ice skating in Taipei

My wife Monik loves ice skating so it was no surprise she brought her and my skates from Sweden to Taiwan. I told her that there is a nice ice skating rink in Taipei called Taipei Arena 台北小巨蛋 on Nanjing East Rd, quite near my job. This is the place we go to for ice skating.

She began taking basic figure skating classes here since beginning of September. There are lots of private coaches, both males and females. The coach my wife has speaks good English.

One course has four 40min classes. It includes two free 2h sessions either for the student or anyone else. With this card, the student can also participate in bigger skating classes for free.
One course costs about 3000NTD depending on your preferred time.
She also bought a three months unlimited entrance card for 2500NTD. With this card, she can also buy courses at a discounted price.

The public rink is called Ice Land and is located on the second floor of the arena. The entrance fee is 190NTD for 2h with additional 45NTD/h if you exceed those 2h. You can rent skates and protection equipment there. However, I don't know the rental cost. Wearing gloves is compulsory. If you don't have your own with you the first time, you can buy a pair here for just 20NTD. If you don't wear a helmet, you have to sign an agreement.

Skating here is entertaining. There are lots of skilled young and small girls doing figure skating, while their mums sit on the spectator bench watching them. Of course there are older girls and even guys/men practicing figure skating as well. It's very impressive to see how skilled they are. It is also impressive how much time and certainly money parents spend on their kids to see them become "the next one". However, avoid going on weekends or holidays, the rink will be too crowded.

In general, people go there for fun. You can see very skilled skaters as well as just beginners trying to walk step by step. Most of the time, they reserve one side for small kids practicing ice hockey. In the middle, the area is dedicated for figure skaters.

In Taipei Arena, there are coffee shops, MOS Burger, McDonald's, convenient store and some other small stores. The main part of this huge arena is also used for sport games, concerts and other events.

Taipei Arena from Nanjing East Rd.

Too many people sometimes.

My wife with her coach.

You can reach there by taking MRT to Nanjing East Rd station on the brown Wenhu Line. From there you can walk 500m east along Nangjing East Rd before you see the huge arena in the intersection at Nangjing East Rd and Dunhua North Rd.

Another option is to get off at Zhongxiao Dunhua station on the blue Bannan Line and walk 1km north on Dunhua North Rd until you see the arena on your right hand side.

In December, the green line will be extended and there will be a stop just outside Taipei Arena.

There are other small rinks like Polar Bear Rink above Eslite Department Store in Ximenting and one really small and bad one in Living Mall in Taipei. Nothing can compare to Ice Land though.

Jiufen (九份)

Have you heard about Jiufen 九份 before? I haven't. I overheard this from a colleague who told another colleague to go there. Since she said it's a beautiful place not far from Taipei, I decided that we should go there. Jiufen is located in the Ruifang District in the northeastern part of Taiwan and it is supposed to be easy to get there.

The story about Jiufen is that gold was discovered here during Japanese occupation in 1893. You can actually still see the influence of Japanese here. Jiu 九 stands for nine in Chinese and it is said that only nine families/houses could live there in the beginning, hence the name of the place. In the beginning of 1990, this area became a tourist attraction. It became ever more popular after a movie was filmed there.

During Chinese New Year in February, we decided to go there. We took MRT to Zhongxiao Fuxing and exited (Exit 1) to take the Bus No 1062 Keelung Bus all the way to Jiufen. It took nearly 2.5h to reach Jinguashi Park 金瓜石, which is the end station for this bus.

The traffic on the mountain was horrible. I don't know if it was because of Chinese New Year holiday or if it looks like this all the time.

In Jinguashi, there is a gold mine museum and some nice sceneries. You can also see the ocean from here. Nice and cozy. Unfortunately, when we were there, the museum was closed.

After exploring this park, we took a local bus to get down to Jiufen (30 min), which we passed earlier when we arrived to Jinguashi.
I heard there is a market street in Jiufen, but we didn't see it at first when we were on the bus. When we arrived to Jiufen, we saw the market street "The Old Street" immediately. This is a narrow street with lots of people, small stores, restaurants, and coffee shops. We walked thru it and came out on the other side. Beautiful scenery from here as well.

The Old Street.

We also planned to go to Keelung Night Market before heading home to Taipei and the only way to do so was to go to Ruifang by bus and then change to another bus or a train. However, the train didn't go there actually (from what I understood), so we were supposed to take a bus instead just outside the train station. The bus didn't come though. We finally ended up buying train tickets to Taipei instead. From Ruifang to Taipei, it took nearly 1h by the regular train TRA.

Taiwanese sports fashion

I'd like to start by saying that I'm absolutely no fashion guru. However, I'd like to tell you guys about the sports fashion in Taiwan.

Sports fashion is kind of big in Taiwan. Everywhere you go, you can see sport shops and people are dressed kind of sporty and casual. Sports shops are very concentrated along and around Roosevelt Road in Gongguan (red or green MRT line) with approximately over 10-15 stores.

If you go to Shilin Night Market or Ximenting, you will find plenty of sports shops there as well.
What I miss in Taiwan though are sporting goods chains like Stadium, Intersport or Team Sportia in Sweden and a chain like Super Sport in Thailand. There is a big chain called Momentum here, but they don't offer complete solutions like the stores in Sweden.

Everywhere go you here, you can only find stores selling shoes, clothes and some accessories. I would like to find both equipment, clothes and accessories. However, I just heard from a colleague that there is a big French chain called Decathlon that just opened a store in Neihu. Their first store is in Taichung, south of Taipei. This store sells basically everything about outdoor equipment and sports. I went to Neihu to have a look. I could only find their own brands and the price level was not good at all. There were absolutely no international brands. I would say it is just crap out there.

Let me then tell you about the sport brands that you can find here.
Do you remember brands like Kappa, Fila, Lotto, Hang Ten, Diadora and Airwalk? Well, these brands are long gone or out of fashion in Europe. In Taiwan, they are still quite present. In every department store (there are many!) you will find a section with these good old brands. The style and design are really not up-to-date. However, you could still see many people wearing these brands because they are considered to be on a reasonable price level.

Nike, Adidas, New Balance and Puma have numerous stores in Taipei. These brands are considered as the high end brands. From what I've learnt, some of these clothes are designed and produced locally. This means that you might not be able to find the same item abroad. Other brands you can find here are Asics, Reebok, K-Swiss, Brooks, Merrell, Saucony and Converse. A newcomer that is popping up and becoming very famous is Under Armour. There are some local brands like Firestar, Five-Up, V and SOFO, and they are often sold in the same multi-brand-store together with the other famous brands.

The sports fashion here in general is baggy sweatpants with very wide lower trouser legs and high sole sport shoes. This kind of style is long gone in Europe where people use slim fit or skinny pants (like Adidas Tiro or Condivo models) and low sole sport shoes together with slim fit tshirts.
Sizes in Taiwan are sometimes very strange where Medium is the smallest although there are still many people that are quite small and short (like me). In general, slim fit fashion is not so popular here (yet).

Fashion wise, I've seen some epic fails at the gym: A guy wearing a winter hat and vest. Guys wearing loafers or boots. A guy wearing what seems to be pyjamas pants. A girl carrying a handbag during the whole cross trainer session.

I have also never seen any other places where they have so many sport caps like here. There are really thousands and thousands of models to choose from. Taiwanese people tend to really like wearing a cap since baseball and basketball are very big sports here. Most popular right now are snapback caps. Most of them have the letters NY on it. New York, that is. You can also find stuff like Obey, Supreme (sometimes misspelled as Superme!), DOPE and BOY.

If you are looking for sports items, do it here in Taiwan!

Exercising in Taiwan

In order not to gain weight, there are two solutions; either you eat less (fat and sugar) or you do exercising.

I enjoy eating, especially here in Asia. However, I have been much better in controlling my consumption. Since two years back, I have also started watching my weight.

In Taiwan, the government decided some years back to build as many as 50 public sports centers across the nation following a 4-year-plan. The idea is good, but in reality only a little more than 50% of the sports centers were finished, leaving the plan much behind schedule. Not to mention that all of them went over budget. Let's not talk about politics though.

In these facilities, they have a swimming pool, gym, dance/aerobics room, spinning, etc.
In Wanhua, you can even enjoy paintball, climbing, basketball, table tennis, golf practice, etc.
While in Songshan, there is a big running track outdoor.
Nice, isn't it?

I have only been to the gym at Songshan Sports Center (near my office) and Wanhua Sports Center (near my apartment). Both are quite OK. I wish the equipment could be newer though. However, I recognize majority of the machines, since they look very similar to those I'm used to at home.

When I was in Songshan on a Tuesday, the gym was very crowded and you needed to line up for the machines.

Songshan Sport Center

When I was in Wanhua on a Sunday, the number of people was perfect, leaving lots of machines available. I went there on a weekday too. This time, it was more crowded, but still alright. I will definitely continue going to Wanhua instead. Wanhua is more convenient if I commute from my apartment (1 station away) and I can pass thru Ximenting for shopping or dining before or afterwards. Nowadays, I and my wife either walk or bike to the gym in Wanhua instead. It is much faster than taking the MRT.

Wanhua Sport Center

I can write a chapter about how to get changed before exercising. Let me keep this short. There is actually no changing room! You do it in the toilet/shower. Now you will say: The feet will get wet! Yes, they will. So, bring a pair of sandals. This hassle is the worst part about going to the gym here. Where to put my stuff then? You can put them in a locker that will cost 10NTD or 20NTD (a bigger one). Some people just put it outside or they don't even lock the locker. Don't forget to bring your own schampoo and shower gel.

The entrance to the gym is 50NTD/h. You pay at the main counter and then you'll get a receipt or a card depending on which gym it is. You show the receipt to the counter or swipe your card on the machine at the gym hall. Then you have to keep track of your time. If you exceed 1h, you have to pay 25NTD for 30min or 50NTD for 1h.
Otherwise, you can also consider a card for 1500NTD which gives you 30h. It is valid for 6 months. With this card, you are entitled to go swimming twice.

At World Gym, you pay 615NTD/time if you don't have a monthly card! This is a rip off, man! I went to the Ximenting branch out of curiosity asking how much a monthly card is and it turned out to be as much as 3500NTD! Wow! I have read lots of bad stories from forums about these so called "globogyms" where they offer different prices to different people and they try to force people to sign. However, I have heard prices are negotiable.

I have been a member of Friskis & Svettis in Malmö for 5-6 years and I used to sign up for the 1-year-card, which cost me about 13000NTD. Dividing it into a monthly cost, it will be 1083NTD.
Who can afford to go to those "globogyms" in Taiwan? Apparently, still quite many.

The good thing about not having a 1-year-card or monthly card is that you don't have to feel the pressure that you have to go there. The feeling now of being free and really going when I feel for it is good!

The public sports centers are definitely my choice!

Grocery shopping in Taipei

From time to time, doing grocery shopping is necessary. You don't need to carry an enormous bag of items with you home. You may only need to buy a package of milk and that still counts as grocery shopping, I guess.

What do you think I miss from home?
To be honest, for the time being, the only thing I make at home is breakfast and that's nothing advanced either.
I drink milk with my whey protein, prepare two slices of bread with some processed cheese, and have a small package of (too sweet) yoghurt.

The breakfast concept is about the same I usually have back home in Sweden. However, the difference is bigger than I could imagine before I moved here. I thought I could buy some real cheese. Stuff like Gouda. I don't like the processed cheese since it doesn't taste good at all. The consistency is really strange and there is no resistance of chewing. 
I quote from Wikipedia: "Processed cheese is a food product made from normal cheese and sometimes other unfermented dairy ingredients, plus emulsifiers, extra salt, food colorings, or whey."

Did you also know this? Once again quoting from Wikipedia: "Due to the processing and additives, some softer varieties cannot legally be labeled as "cheese" in many countries, including the United States and United Kingdom, and so are sold as "cheese food", "cheese spread", or "cheese product", depending primarily on the amount of cheese, moisture, and milkfat present in the final product."

I found some Gouda cheese from the delicatessen counter in some shopping malls, but the prices there are not very euro-friendly. I bought 4 slices (100gr) for 90NTD!

There are also no slices of smoked ham or other nice spreads I could put on the bread at the supermarkets. I bought a package of imported smoked turkey though, 258NTD for 272gr!
The assortment of yoghurt consists of almost only drinking yoghurt instead of the regular thick one; the low fat and sugarfree I have at home. The low fat milk also tastes strange. Damn, I do miss my regular breakfast in Sweden!

People tend to eat more white bread here and all the bakeries also produce this variant a lot more than wholegrain bread.

I also reckon that doing grocery shopping in Taipei is in general more expensive than doing it in Sweden, unless you buy those Asian vegetables. Furthermore, they don't have those supermarket specific budget brands for standard products that we have in Sweden from ICA, Willys, Lidl, Hemköp, Coop, etc. Those items are usually reasonable to buy and quality is OK.

A small comparison with a couple of items (using exchange rate of 4.5) in NTD:

                                       Sweden                                  Taiwan
Butter                              67.5 (big package)                  80 (small package)
Cheese                           135 (400gr sliced Gouda)       100 (100gr processed cheese)
Wholegrain bread           135 (big bag of Längtan)         50 (small bag of toast bread)
Milk                                  67.3 (1l low fat)                      75 (1l low fat)
Yoghurt                           58.5 (1l low fat)                      - (1l does not exist)
Romaine salad                54 (1 pc)                                99 (2 small pcs)
Olive oil                           202.5 (1l)                               350 (1l)
Spaghetti                         45 (1kg)                                 100 (500gr)

In a summary, it's cheaper and more convenient to have lunch and dinner outside than making it at home. I have bought some pans, pots and other cooking utensils from IKEA. They are still untouched. Time to return them within 30 days of purchase?

IKEA Taiwan vs IKEA Sweden

Firstly, I will deal a bit about price differences.
People who have shopped at IKEA in Sweden might have wondered how much more expensive the same items are at IKEA abroad. I would say that the price difference depends on what things you buy. For some items, the price difference is minor. For some others, it could be quite huge.

Secondly, what differs more is for example the sizes of pillows and blankets. I will compare duo items.

              Swedish size                      Taiwanese size
Pillow:    50x60                                 50x80
Blanket:  200x240                             200x200

Of course it's nicer to sleep on bigger pillows, but the blanket feels a bit too small now.

If you buy a bed from a local Taiwanese furniture store, you will encounter bigger problems if you want to buy bed sheets or mattress from IKEA to pair up with the bed. My bed is 180x187. I tried to buy a mattress cover, but the cover is 180x200. However, luckily I could still use it.

              Swedish size                       Taiwanese size
Bed:       180x200                              180x187

The bed set I bought included 4 pillow cases and 1 sleeping sheet. I first thought that someone must have packed 2 extra pillow cases by mistake, but it turned out that it really includes 4 pcs. Either they suggest people to use 4 pillows or they suggest people to exchange the 2 pillow cases frequently.

What about bed sheets then? In Taiwan, they tend to use fitted sheets, which I really dislike. In Sweden, I'm used to flat sheets. However, the issue here is not about fitted or flat. It's about that the fitted sheet is not fitting my bed. The IKEA fitted size is 180x200 and my bed is shorter. So, it's not completely fitting, but it works anyway.

IKEA food? Ya, what about the menu at the IKEA restaurant?
The standard Swedish meatball dish and a salmon dish are present. A real cinnemon bun as well. (My favourite!)
They even sell the Swedish Julmust, which is sort of a festive soda.
Apart from that, the Taiwanese restaurant served pork knuckle! I have never seen that in at IKEA Sweden. I miss the pork steak or chicken with french fries from home!
My impression is that the prices at the IKEA restaurant is higher comparing to regular local Taiwanese restaurants.

What happens when I move back to Sweden?
I will of course bring the blanket, pillows, bed sheets and bed sets home. I can't use the blanket and the sleeping sheet though. I can keep using the bigger pillows. The fitted bed sheets are useless since my bed at home is just 160x200.

I have not dug into single bed items yet. That will probably create another headache later as well since I have another bed room with a 150x187 bed. When/If a guest is coming, I need to buy a pillow, a blanket, a bedset and a bed sheet. Damn it!

The conclusion is that everything should have followed a global standard, if there is one!