When artist Chiang Hsun (蔣勳) visited Wangan (望安) in Penghu County last year, he did not plan to see or do anything out of the ordinary.
"I just wanted to roam around that island by myself, without any purpose or destination," he said in his essay "Notes on Wangan."
"The island [Wangan] was nothing more than a small dot on the map," he said. "I was not sure if I needed to spend the night there, nor did I have a scheduled itinerary."
The trip to Wangan, however, turned out to be a worthwhile adventure. With a local resident volunteering to show him around, Chiang saw old-style stone cottages that were abandoned years ago.
LARKS
On a small hill called Tientai (
Chiang said he remembered lying down on the grass on Tientai, waiting to see again what he called the larks' "suicidal performance."
Chiang is one of 30 national celebrities, travel writers and artists sharing their travel stories in a book titled Touring Taiwan (
JOINT EFFORT
The book was part of a project planned by Chunghwa Telecom Foundation and the Tourism Bureau.
Aside from Chiang, the book also features essays by hotel owner Stanley Yen (嚴長壽), writer and playwright Hsiao Yeh (小野), former manager of HP Taiwan Rosemary Ho (何薇玲) and filmmaker Lee Gang (李崗), brother of world-renowned director Ang Lee (李安).
A majority of the writers have chosen to tell about their travel stories along the east coast and in offshore islands.
Fifty writers were invited to take part in the project. While only 30 stories were chosen for the book, the other 20 stories were posted on the Web site Click Taiwan.
While the stories are only available in Chinese, organizers said English translations of the stories will soon be available.
Organizers also said this was a two-year project. They will start posting travel stories from the public, which will be chosen from a writing competition in April.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
RSS