The first episode of a two-part travel series on Taiwan was broadcast on Monday on the US television program Eye on the Bay. The episode, titled “It’s Time for Taiwan,” was aired on CBS Channel 5 in San Francisco, California. The second part was broadcast on Tuesday.
The show, hosted by Emmy Award-winning presenter Liam Mayclem, traveled to Taiwan in April to discover why Lonely Planet, one of the world’s leading travel guides, picked the country as a top 10 destination.
Mayclem led a group of 20 people from the San Francisco Bay Area on a tour around the country, experiencing local food such as stinky tofu and steamed dumplings along the way.
“I have traveled a lot and I have not eaten this well,” one of the members of the group said on the show.
Mayclem also expressed delight at the trip, saying it was one of the best for him and one of the tastiest.
“The food in Taiwan is a mixture from all different cultures and each dish brings out the freshness of the ingredients used; even the way the food is placed on the plates conveys the culture of Taiwan,” he said.
The friendliness and enthusiasm of Taiwanese made a lasting impression, he said.
The group tour was advertised in the Bay Area in November last year by the Tourism Section of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in San Francisco.
A new tour, scheduled to run from Feb. 21 to March 2 next year, and also to be led by Mayclem, is now being advertised in a joint effort between the Tourism Bureau and the US Automobile Association, the TECO said at the launch of the package tour in San Francisco on Monday.
The main theme of the trip would be the Taiwanese Lantern Festival, which is set to be held in Hsinchu in February, though it would also include a visit to Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) in Nantou County, the TECO said.
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