lin821

I thought that's what our CommunityBuzz! forum is for, setting up DOs, mini or large. I think you guys are in need of some NEW eye glasses so you can find the the right forum(s) to post.

CommunityBuzz! Forum

cblaisd

Off-topic, OMNI-esque, and personal jab posts deleted.

If you wish to discuss political questions concerning Taiwan, please do so in OMNI. Further such here will be deleted or will cause the thread to be locked.

If you wish to civilly discuss Taiwan as a tourist destination, please do so here.

Thanks,

cblaisd
Senior Moderator

lin821

If you are into cultures and museums, you have to visit the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan. The Museum had been recently renovated and holds one of the largest collection of Chinese artifacts and artwork in the world. I always have a great time when visiting NPM.

I believe the digital museum project is still ongoing. Before your actual visit, you may get some "virtual "flavours of the impressive collections by:

1. downloading Multi-Media (Movies/calendar/screensavers...)
2. visiting NPM e-learning

The famous Shilin Night Market is nearby. If you are paying the museum a visit, do schedule the night market as your side-tour so you can get the true "taste" of Taiwan culture and food. Night Markets in Taiwan have been a good subject for sociology and cultural study. Night markets are more than just foods. You can do quite some shopping too. Just bring your adventurous minds. Be prepared for the cultural shock, if you are foreign to night markets. Dawn Stanton, a freelance writer from Oregon, Portland, has her take on Taipei Night Markets.

ETA: 10/17/08

A Trip to Shihlin Night Market with CYeat (1/30/08: w/ photos)

jpatokal

I was actually thinking about this the other day when I saw back to back ads for "Malaysia Truly Asia" and "Visit Indonesia 2008".

The Malaysian ad showed attractive Westerners lazing about on the beach, shopping, getting spa treatments, sitting in a rickshaw, being greeted by pretty girls with big smiles, doing all kinds of stuff that tourists can easily do and making it look like fun. Gut reaction: "Mm. I should go there again."

The Indonesian ad showed bulls running on a dusty plain, some guy with facepaint yodeling while paddling a canoe through a jungle, and one of those Balinese dancers with way too much makeup. Gut reaction: "...? This is more hardcore than anything I've seen, and I've got dozens of Indo stamps in my passport."

No wonder Malaysia gets 5x as many visitors as Indonesia despite having 10% of the population...

jimbo99

I thought those adverts were great, if a little old and cliched now. Think I first saw them around 2000? Great images, music etc. The "Taiwan Touch Your Heart" message just doesn't do it for me. Maybe the cartoon thingy works better for regional visitors.

dtsm

Another quite balance perspective on the fight over this venerable tourist spot - CKS Memorial Hall
http://michaelturton.blogspot.com/ Dec 14, Friday

And back to our regular programming, a very helpful website for potential tourists:
http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/

lin821

Sorry, it's not a Mr... I am not the one who got mods involved. Things happened even before I knew it. That's nice! Thanks to our MOD team!

What I can tell you I always try my best to give a hand to fellow FTers if I spot their misplaced posts/threads (you can look up my post history to verify). Most of the time, they are newbies who are trying to find the way in our FT world. I was a newbie once myself and had appreciated the pointers very much. Just thought giving back to our FT community as much as I can or know how is a right thing to do. That's all.

splatnz

I've visited Taiwan a couple of times now and have just booked a third trip back. As a European who speaks only a little Mandarin it can be a little challenging but that's half the fun of travelling. If I'm lost or can't figure out how to say something I just find I school kid as they all seem to speak fairly good english

The things I like the most are the same things I like about New Zealand, relatively small countries, great scenery - the east coast of Taiwan is spectacular. Taiwan also has some very good shopping, prices are competitive and ofcourse the food is fantastic whether you're eating at a stall in a Night Market or a top restuarant.

Taiwan certainly does have room to improve if it wants to attract more european tourists. Signage can be confusing as the english pronounciations aren't standardised (an area where China is very good) and outside the main cities there's a lack of top chain hotels (also similar to NZ). Having said that the buses and high speed rail make travelling simple and the highways are very good and not usually too clogged with traffic.

I've always found Taiwanese people to be very friendly and helpful so I think that tourism will continue to improve there. It doesn't matter how stunning a country is, if the people are unwelcoming tourism will never last.

Well that's my two cents worth

PS I actually quite like the 'Touch Your Heart' slogan and logos.

lin821

(Bolding mine)
Amen! Can't agree with you more!

I've always heard wonderful comment about the beautiful coastline in Taiwan. There are more and more people opting for (scuba) diving and bodysurfing as hobbies nowadays. One of the advantages of Taiwan being an island is that water/ocean is closer than you would expect!

If you are into bodysurfing, come visit the east coast in Taiwan. You won't regret it and I have the "waves" to back me up:

Bodysurfing Taiwan (Formosa!)

jimbo99

.



I'm sitting here on the beautiful island looking at the lovely concrete skyline made even more lovely by the "soft focus" effect created by the pollution. Some of the buildings twinkle as the sun moves across them - all the apartments have metal bars at the windows. The occupants worry they'll be broken into by the other warm and friendly people of Taiwan - though one local did helpfully suggest that most of the crime here is done by foreigners.

ionlyflyupfront

Jim dont forget the sea of debris at the roadsides as they dont want to get their nice clean cars dirty and its better dumpd on someone else instead of outside gthier own door or even taking the trouble to put it in the garbage can. Talking of which you notice the 24/7 stores now dont have garbage cans outside as people use them to deposit their garbage, especially in Taipei where you pay to dump your garbage in officially issued bags

splatnz

I guess like most countries not everywhere is pollution free (Kaohsiung is quite bad) but the country is a lot cleaner than the eastern seaboard of China or cities like Hong Kong. If you're up in the mountains or on the east coast then the air is very clean and you can see for miles.

ionlyflyupfront

you can also see the trail of garbage and junk dumped at the side of the road - NIMB syndrome - not in my back yard

taipeipeter

To bring this back to the general question of tourism in Taiwan, I noticed a few days ago the government announced brilliant initiatives which seemed to consist of 1) paying for or otherwise encouraging more charter flights from Europe (hence without losing them in HK or Tokyo, presumably); and 2) giving out cash prizes: so the 100,000th tourist to arrive next year (or whenever it happens) gets TWD100,000, and it goes up to the 400,000th. Well, something like that,as best I can remember. I didn't read the article that closely, since it all seemed a bit pathetic.

More importantly -- for me, if not the Tourism Bureau -- I am about to make my loosely biennial trip around the island over the next 2 weeks, and problems of visual and some other pollution notwithstanding, I expect to enjoy myself quite a lot. I hope the good weather continues, but I can appreciate a few bad days driving me to the hot springs as well.

jimbo99

Think I mentioned, EVA just cut Paris - their only non-stop flight to Europe. They now only fly to Vienna, London and Amsterdam - all non-daily and via BKK. Don't know which way CI are going ... so some extra charter flights coupled with intelligent marketing to foreign travel agents would be helpful. Competitions based around welcoming the Nth tourist will get little publicity beyond Taiwan itself.

Its a relatively good time for UK travellers at GBP1 = about NT$67. "pubs" in the "foreigner-friendly" zone can still charge Ł2-3 a pint though, even at this rate. Taipei got painful on the wallet when it was below 50 to the GBP a while back, but now some hotel rates look more reasonable.

Think its a similar story for Euro-zone travellers as the NT$ has tended to follow the weakening US$.

Enjoy your trip!