Taiwan - Verdict

Well I suppose you all want to know what I had thought about Taiwan when I stayed there right? Well I can honestly say that the people are some of the most welcoming and pleasant people towards tourists. The hosts I had were really great people, especially Christine for her patience really, they weren't expecting a penny of me but out of courtesy, I did buy things now and again for them being good and being interpreters for me (although a lot of them could speak English to a degree, there were times when I did need to find a way for them to understand).

If I had a gun put to my had and was told I had to say something bad, it would be that its not an ideal place for those who are going on a party holiday, although Taipei does have some night life party aspects but they are limited. But instead its better for those who want a more cultural experience on their holidays who like to look at tourist attractions and history of destinations. 1 thing I am ashamed about is not being able to answer 2 out of the 3 questions which were:

1. What will you do when stood in front of a Chinese embassy - never got into enough trouble to be able to find that out.
2. How do you say "fucking prawn" in Chinese - a call out to any Mandarin speaking people who are reading this, could you possibly comment underneath or PM me the Chinese translation to "fucking prawn" as its something that I could pass on thanks :).

Would I ever go back if I could, I would say yes. But what I would do next time are a few things:

1. Learn a bit more Mandarin then xie xie (thank u), ni hao (hello) and zaijian (goodbye).
2. Bring myself a survival kit which consists of a knife, fork and spoon as I still cannot use chopsticks
3. Have a local map as soon as I leave the hotel.

Unfortunately, if I ever do return, it wont be in 2011 as I will be going to Kuala Lumpur this time.

Taiwan Part 1 - ill conceived???

I decided to make my 1st post on Chronicles of a Vagabond Warrior about Taiwan. This is perhaps the start of my journey as there are many to come.

Before going there, I have never been on a plane in my life. I decided on this trip because a friend of mine on FB called Christine invited me over a few times, with her having a major in translation, 1 would assume I have my translator there too, despite days previous I asked her if she can speak English, she said "I don't know" (yep, I was panicking at this point lol).


A good number of people who I knew were very supportive of my journey, some comments included "I have the greatest of respect for you" or "Well may as well enjoy yourself while you can". Although there was 1 or 2 people at the time who I used to work with at Hell On Earth (will be mentioned in another blog), who was saying nothing but negative comments about me going there and calling me every name under the sun asking things such as "When you get there at the airport and you need a taxi, are you just gonna click your fingers and a British taxi driver will magically appear?" "What you going to do when your stood in front of the Chinese embassy?" and "You cant even speak Chinese, so how do you say fucking prawn in Chinese?", he even mentioned the phrase "ill conceived" multiple times throughout the day just to try make me feel it was the biggest mistake of my life. A customer made comments also most of which I'm too embarrassed to say on here as the comments were highly offensive. But despite all this, I still got prepared for a life changing trip.

My trip over there was a stop in Bangkok before arriving in Taiwan, it was 12 hours from London to Bangkok, then another 4 hours to Taipei. My nerves were really going because as mentioned earlier, its my 1st ever flight and I'm travelling half way across the world. It wasn't as bad as expected, there was on flight entertainment and ok food. The only thing that did concern me was the fact that there was this woman from Thailand in her mid 40's asleep next to me brushing my leg with her foot for 12 hours :O I'm so glad she got off at Bangkok and a married couple got the seats next to me instead (glad they wern't swingers either)