travelling allrite

Our time in Taiwan had come to an end. I like the country. The people are unpretentious and friendly, seemingly more relaxed than Mainland China or its other outposts. It's a pretty place too. The cities are much more grungy than Japan, but that's attractive in its own way. Alex's Mandarin lessons certainly helped on this trip as my brain was much more familiar with the language and I even managed a few words. He was so proud when he remembered "sorry" and "excuse me". We caught the HSR and shuttle bus to Taoyuan International Airport and had lunch at the food court. B had a rice and duck set, Alex ramen and me just buns, all my flight worried stomach could take. Terminal 1 is very enclosed. A big "See you Taiwan" sign in a 70's brush font sits above the immigration gates. We made our way to the "Fruit waiting lounge" which had a giant mural of fruit by our aircraft gate. This time we were flying Scoot's...

Alex was in charge today, or at least for the first part of it. Back to the local place for a breakfast of dumplings and buns. Despite the miserable weather Alex  insisted we catch the  Maokong Gondola , a cable car on the mountainous ouotskirts of Taipei. To get there we caught the MRT between Zhongshan and Nanjing Fuxi stations and then the Wenshan MRT line to Taipei Zoo. There are some interesting views of the city and residential areas from out of the windows of the driverless rubber tyred Wenshan as it traverses the elevated tracks. The gondola, cable car or ropeway, however you want to call it, runs for a little over four kilometres up into the mountains. Even with all the rain and mist the views were spectacular. We queued up for a more expensive glass bottomed "Crystal Car" which offered vision of the forest below. Surrounding Maokong Station at the end of the line are tea plantations and tea houses. Unfortunately, we got stuck eating fried food...

Hello from Taipei. There's so much to write about our trip so far, but I've lacked the energy to do so yet. I think it shall have to wait until I reach home. The story so far... Our Scoot flight from Singapore to Sydney felt very long. Salt lakes in the Australian desert actually had water thanks to the Big Wet striking the continent. Unfortunately, these clouds meant the flight was full of enough niggling bumps that I could rarely relax. Big storm clouds over Indonesia only made things worse for me. Water in the desert Central Australia Emerging from high cloud Evening clouds as we sit in a holding pattern before descent into Singapore. I used the onboard Internet to post live updates to Instagram , Tumblr and WordPress , and that's been the best place to keep updated about our travel. We arrived late into our hotel in Singapore, grabbed a quick supper from the hawker stalls opposite and fell asleep. The next morning we swam and filled our sto...