Hong Kong Kosha

Will I am in Hong Kong and waiting to get my 8am flight home to England. Wow I feel pretty shattered hope I can stay awake until I need to board.

It's been six months since I was last home and I have realised that I should aim to see my family and friend at least every six months in England.

I've spend a whole year working for AmTRAN and time has really passed quickly there!

Also Gorge and Norbert finally got me in to down hill biking which has been totally awesome fun and a great way to spend your weekends in the jungle mountains of Taipei.

2010 Taipei

It's been over a year now in Taiwan. I am still having a great time although I miss my family back home. I still lucky enough to have a full time job do design and compared to last year where I struggled to find full time employment in the warm up to the recession and had to rely on freelance work. I am just about to head of too watch the new year fireworks from the 101 which will be a great way to end the year!

Hello December

Wow it's the beginning of December in Taiwan, it seems like time flys bye so fast out here! It's nearly been a whole year at AmTran. Not much has happened over last weekend as I have been desk bound in the office.

I was suppose to go mountain biking in the morning on Saturday and I was looking really forward to my lesson from the sensei, but i got an 8.00am phone call saying the ground was a tad wet so maybe next weekend!

It's starting to get a little colder now in Taipei. I have been debating with myself if it's best to buy a mini oven to heat my room or a fan heater both are the same price, but I can cook on one while staying warm, bring on those cheese sticks I say.

Marks & Sammi Wedding

Today my co-worker Mark was getting married to his lovely soon to be wife Sammi. The wedding was in Nehui at the Grace Hill chapel. They had over 300 guest so as weddings go this was a big one and it was all very Taiwan style with a twist of western essence and far to many professional photographers and camera men ready to capture every inch of detail.


















Mark is on the right and I his brother on the left.














Entrance and our wedding was happening on the right hand side, I also think I was the only western at this wedding.


















Sammi and Mark.

I do have to say though it was all nicely organised and ran thoroughly well. This is also my 4th wedding I've been to in Taiwan. So I have not officially been to more wedding in Taiwan than England.














The must have wedding album.














Show time.

We had some fantastic food and we were not bombarded with loads of meals to eat. All though we had the standard never ending speeches while you eat, which is still culturally weird to me. At first I was told to sit on number 8 table by Mark's brother which was pretty close to Mark, I though I would be somewhere in the back!

Unfortunately number 8 suddenly was invaded by a number of Marks senior relatives, I did my bested to speak Chinese, but the conversation went only so far. I suddenly realised I would be sitting here for the next three hours doing not much apart from smiling and eating away. Lucky Samuel who is one of my R&D engineers came to the rescue.


















Even Vera Wang would be impressed!


















The wedding dress really was out of a movie it was so long.


















Honey moon jet setters waiting to leave.

Elevator Red

After Marks wedding I was on my way to Georg place for a coffee and I happen to see this rather striking red running all the way up the top of the balcony combined with a very conservative geometry.

















Xiniyi style.

Death by Paint

Today I headed to Nehui for paint balling, it's fair to say it was pretty wet weather when we arrived and we almost didn't have anyone to shoot at as the other Taiwanese teams were not too keen about getting wet and muddy. But then the weather cleared up and we were on for a few actioned packed hours of shooting.

















Do you feel lucky punk!

I had a really mixed team of international guns but mostly made up of French guys, we managed to all get along, sort off. The might of been a few friendly fire incidents!














Jungle gorillas.















I'll take blue thanks you.

I've got to say I had great fun and I think we won most of our matches. The paint balling place is located in Nehui address, not exactly sure how to get there as I was on the back of a scooter taking a lift, but it's probably about a 10 minuet taxi ride from Huzhou MRT station, definitely worth a go especially as it's much cooler now and not so hot too run around.














Stick'em up.

Danshui Cycling

After having a rather lazy start to the day I thought I would try and do some type of activity so my weekend was not a complete blur. I decided that a trip up to Danshui was in order as I had not been there for a while and you can cycle for a few hours and then head off to have a drink along the rivers edge as the sun goes down








Dabshui harbour.

It's a pretty nice cycle route along the rivers edge, and you can rent bikes really easily, in fact I recommend that you get of at a few stop before Danshui it's less crowded on weekends and you can normally find a bike rental shop very close by.













Lobster anyone?