Swamped...
My, what a busy week it's turned out to be! Sorry for the lack of updates but I seem to be getting piles of work at the moment and writing an LJ post after spending all day working with MSWord has been one of the last things on my mind...
So apologisies to people on my F-List...I haven't been ignoring you on purpose. I will try and catch up as soon as things are a little quieter over here. :)
Sander and I had a great time on Sunday...we finally made it down to Taichung and had a pretty good day wandering around the city (which is similar to Hsinchu but on a much bigger scale!).
When we got out of the intercity bus we were starving but somehow managed to find ourselves in the one area that had few 7-Elevens and eateries, which is *very* unusual for Taiwan! So we settled for the nearby KFC. While I did enjoy going to the KFC in the UK, the branches out here in Taiwan don't seem to use the same secret blend of herbs and spices as the ones in the UK...not to mention they don't have my beloved crispy strips! :(
We spent some of the afternoon shopping at Eslite and traipsing around the gorgeous Taiwan Folk Park. While not on the same scale as similar tourist attractions on the mainland, the park consisted of beautiful wooden buildings, little alleys decorated in a traditional style, a fabulous museum on Taiwanese folk culture (took plenty of pics there!) and a lovely garden with large ponds (complete with giant goldfish!). We spent a couple of hours there, wandering around the grounds and dodging the sprinklers which threatened to soak us...
After that, we decided to move onto the Feng Le Sculpture Park, which was quite possibly miles away from the Folk Park. The first 5 minutes were spent trying to explain to the taxi driver where we wanted to go. While I admit my Mandarin is not perfect, I can't understand how the driver didn't understand a word of what I was saying and seemed to think I was saying 'Hong Lo' instead of 'Feng Le'. Our Lonely Planet guide only had the name of the park in pinyin and even pointing at that didn't help as the driver just thought it was English (then again, they don't really use pinyin all that much here). Eventually, he got the gist of where we wanted to go and after about 20 minutes of driving through Taichung, we arrived at the park. Feng Le Sculpture Park was quite a nice place to hang about, with rolling green hills and plenty of trees...a nice break from buildings and busy streets. It was bustling with families and young couples wandering around or flying their kites. The statues were bizarre, to say the least, some of them just downright ugly. The ponds had all been drained so there were plenty of dead fish lying around...some of them were in a bag that had been dumped on the path. The scent was less than pleasant! All in all, it was a nice place but could do with a little work here and there.
By this point, we were feeling a little tired and thought about returning to Hsinchu. Problem was, we were in an unknown city and in an area where few taxis were cruising the streets so we spent the better part of half an hour trying to flag one down. Eventually we found one and headed back to the coach station. When we got there, we were amazed by the huge queues of people waiting for buses but thankfully the line for Hsinchu wasn't too long and we managed to get the second bus. Major kudos go to that bus company for leaving lights on during the journey! There's nothing more boring than a bus journey where you're not allowed to read...
So that was pretty much our day out in Taichung. The rest of the week has so far been quite busy. I spent Monday finishing off an assignment for work and got sent another last night. On top of that, Sander's company is interested in hiring my services so they've passed several documents to Sander to forward to me. Technical translation is really not my field but I'll give it my best shot. I never knew I'd end up learning the Chinese for 'argon welders' and 'jigsaw' (the tool, not the puzzle)! The work is indeed very challenging and I'm not entirely sure I'm up to the task. It's not so much a matter of confidence than one of not being qualified (or interested) in a technical field. Still, let's see how that all goes.
Well, off I go. I might even try and venture outside in a bit as the sun is shining...a rarity these days! Typical that it would be sunny on those days I'm most busy...sod's law. =P
Oh, and I promise I'll put up some of our photos from Taichung at some point this week!
So apologisies to people on my F-List...I haven't been ignoring you on purpose. I will try and catch up as soon as things are a little quieter over here. :)
Sander and I had a great time on Sunday...we finally made it down to Taichung and had a pretty good day wandering around the city (which is similar to Hsinchu but on a much bigger scale!).
When we got out of the intercity bus we were starving but somehow managed to find ourselves in the one area that had few 7-Elevens and eateries, which is *very* unusual for Taiwan! So we settled for the nearby KFC. While I did enjoy going to the KFC in the UK, the branches out here in Taiwan don't seem to use the same secret blend of herbs and spices as the ones in the UK...not to mention they don't have my beloved crispy strips! :(
We spent some of the afternoon shopping at Eslite and traipsing around the gorgeous Taiwan Folk Park. While not on the same scale as similar tourist attractions on the mainland, the park consisted of beautiful wooden buildings, little alleys decorated in a traditional style, a fabulous museum on Taiwanese folk culture (took plenty of pics there!) and a lovely garden with large ponds (complete with giant goldfish!). We spent a couple of hours there, wandering around the grounds and dodging the sprinklers which threatened to soak us...
After that, we decided to move onto the Feng Le Sculpture Park, which was quite possibly miles away from the Folk Park. The first 5 minutes were spent trying to explain to the taxi driver where we wanted to go. While I admit my Mandarin is not perfect, I can't understand how the driver didn't understand a word of what I was saying and seemed to think I was saying 'Hong Lo' instead of 'Feng Le'. Our Lonely Planet guide only had the name of the park in pinyin and even pointing at that didn't help as the driver just thought it was English (then again, they don't really use pinyin all that much here). Eventually, he got the gist of where we wanted to go and after about 20 minutes of driving through Taichung, we arrived at the park. Feng Le Sculpture Park was quite a nice place to hang about, with rolling green hills and plenty of trees...a nice break from buildings and busy streets. It was bustling with families and young couples wandering around or flying their kites. The statues were bizarre, to say the least, some of them just downright ugly. The ponds had all been drained so there were plenty of dead fish lying around...some of them were in a bag that had been dumped on the path. The scent was less than pleasant! All in all, it was a nice place but could do with a little work here and there.
By this point, we were feeling a little tired and thought about returning to Hsinchu. Problem was, we were in an unknown city and in an area where few taxis were cruising the streets so we spent the better part of half an hour trying to flag one down. Eventually we found one and headed back to the coach station. When we got there, we were amazed by the huge queues of people waiting for buses but thankfully the line for Hsinchu wasn't too long and we managed to get the second bus. Major kudos go to that bus company for leaving lights on during the journey! There's nothing more boring than a bus journey where you're not allowed to read...
So that was pretty much our day out in Taichung. The rest of the week has so far been quite busy. I spent Monday finishing off an assignment for work and got sent another last night. On top of that, Sander's company is interested in hiring my services so they've passed several documents to Sander to forward to me. Technical translation is really not my field but I'll give it my best shot. I never knew I'd end up learning the Chinese for 'argon welders' and 'jigsaw' (the tool, not the puzzle)! The work is indeed very challenging and I'm not entirely sure I'm up to the task. It's not so much a matter of confidence than one of not being qualified (or interested) in a technical field. Still, let's see how that all goes.
Well, off I go. I might even try and venture outside in a bit as the sun is shining...a rarity these days! Typical that it would be sunny on those days I'm most busy...sod's law. =P
Oh, and I promise I'll put up some of our photos from Taichung at some point this week!