Life, Travel, GRACE

 If Yangmingshan is too far or too adventurous for you, try Xiang Shan (literally means Elephant Mountain) which is right in the city. The place is accessible by MRT. Just get out from Xiangshan MRT station, walk towards the park and you will be at the entrance in no time. Follow the signpost along the way. Be prepared for a series of steep stairway. At the stop uphill, you can get the closest view of 101 Tower.  The starting point of Xiangshan All uphill climb Stairway to the top If you see this, you have arrived at the viewpoint Taipei 101 Tower View along the way Benches Posting as a sign of achievement Night view of 101

 Life is back to normal. Lion dance performances can be performed like pre-pandemic era. Hope for a better year this year.

Had a chance to visit Taiwan again in last November. It was an invitation to attend a symposium in Taichung. So I decided to take a few days to explore Taipei before the conference. But this round I opted for hiking experience. Thus, the search for easy access of hiking venues around Taipei city. One particular blog has provided most of the useful information for my trip: www.nickkembel.com. I picked Qixingshan trail in Yangmingshan National Park as my first choice for the hiking. It's easily accessible with moderate difficulty level of the hiking route. To get to Yangmingshan, one can opt for the public transport right below Jiantan MRT station. The Taipei Performing Arts Center is just opposite the bus stop areas. I took the S15 mini bus which is bound for Lengshuikeng. Waited a few minutes, the bus came. There were many locals heading to the national park on that day. So I had to stand for almost the entire journey. Got off at Lengshuikeng Visitor Center (which is the last two s...

Last month we went to Kuching for a short trip. The first time on the list was to savour the local kolo mee. Well, not all servings are good though. We also tried the fusion food at The Granary. Needless to say, the meal served was great. But the price is at the high side. After lunch, we wanted to go to the museum. Unfortunately, it was closed for the day. So we ended up at the Borneo Cultures Museum, which we did not manage to cover all the floors. It's a fine museum which was opened in recent months.  The following day, we went for a short excursion on the outskirts of Kuching. We first stopped at the Fairy Cave (the other cave was closed for maintenance).  Excursion inside the cave was pretty easy for beginners. After exploring the cave, we had lunch at the nearby town, Bau. Prior to that, we stopped over at the Blue Lake, which is just beside the town. On the way back to Kuching, we made a stop over at the Paku Rock Maze Garden and old town of Siniawan. The rock garden wa...

Not long ago, we went to Sky Mirror, just off the coast of Kuala Selangor. According to the information from certain websites, Sky Mirror   is a mystery island that will only emerge for several days every month.  But you can go there everyday although the visiting hour might be different. We departed from Sasaran jetty around 6.30 am in early last July. Once we reached the spot, there were already a lot of boats with local tourist there. At that hour, water started to recede, forming a new land in the middle of the sea. As the land appears to be flat, you will have a good reflective water for photography - with your photography techniques. Well, basically photography is the only activity there. After all, this is the only place in Malaysia where you can have such natural effect besides the one in Bolivia.