Last year we welcomed the coming of 2008 at Zojoji Temple, at the foot of the Tokyo Tower in Japan. Thousands of balloons were released into the sky at the stroke of midnight, with Tokyo Tower lit up proudly in the background. It was a spectacular way to welcome the new year!
Well, this year we welcomed 2009 at the foot of Taipei 101 in the heart of Taipei, Taiwan. At the stroke of midnight, fireworks shot from the 4 corners of the tallest building in the world. …

We leave tomorrow for our around-island trip of awesomeness. (you do know Taiwan is an island, right?)
We start by heading down the east coast towards Hualien. The next morning we drive through the Taroko gorge (pronounced tie-roo-guh) before staying at a five star resort in the heart of the gorge. The next couple nights we’ll spend in the southern part of the island visiting hot spring resorts and beaching, before visiting Cathy’s uncle in the South.
The rest of the trip, we’ll figure out as we go, but the most …

Well, we got our GPS logger figured out!

Our Globalsat DG-100 Data Logger records our GPS position every 10 seconds as we walk around Taipei (or bus, or train).
After a few days, we can download the data, map it and link it with the photos we’ve taken so we know exactly where we took them.
We’re still getting the hang of it, but you can see a Google Maps Log of our travels over the past few days!
In other news, we’ve started planning our “Around-Taiwan” tour of the whole island. We’ve …

Rumor has it that Taipei has 5 million scooters riding around every day. (By rumor, I mean, Cathy’s dad said that.)
This is the intersection right by the MRT station where we get off all the time. It’s on he ping east road. (和平東路)

Taiwan is filled with people. Everywhere. All the time.
We visited the morning market. Think of it as a night market, but in the morning, and with more groceries. It is called 菜市場. (The direct translation would be grocery / vegetable market).
If you think this is crazy, just wait till we post a video of the night market.

One of our favorite transportation in Taipei is the MRT (捷運). It’s an amazing skytrain system that works with a magical RFID card that tracks your trips and you can put more money on …