New Year 2012 in Taipei: Fireworks, crowds and a festive atmosphere

Spending New Year's Eve near Taipei 101

Dear readers and followers of My Kafkaesque life, I wish you a happy new year! I hope you had a great new year's eve celebration. Mine was not bad. My wife and I decided to go near Taipei 101 and see the famous midnight fireworks. This was definitely an unique experience, because as you can imagine, we weren't the only ones with that idea - another 800.000 people thought the same. That's why it was very crowded. But in the end, it was worth the hassle, because the fireworks were the best and biggest I've ever seen in my life (hey, I'm from Slovenia!). Let me share with you some images from Taipei's East district and my own video from the Taipei 101 fireworks.

My photos (and video) from 31st December 2011 and 1st January 2012, Taipei, Taiwan:

We decided to exit at Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall MRT Station Exit 5.

This is Zhongxiao East Road, it was closed for traffic.

The intersection of Zhongxiao East Road and Guangfu South Road.

The guy was holding a sign, that said free 101 hugs.

After a 5 min walk along Guangfu South Road, we reached Sun Yat-sen Memorial hall.

Because the view on Taipei 101 was very good, a lot of people reserved a spot here.

You could see groups of youngsters playing cards, eating and chatting.

This is my attempt to show the view on the crowds and Taipei 101.

We decided to walk further inside and were greeted by more crowds.

This is Songgao road.

Here was also a quite big group of people sitting on the floor and waiting.

The parts, where other buildings blocked the view on Taipei 101 were empty.

The most crowded was Songzhi road, that has the best view on Taipei 101.

We couldn't go too deep here, it was all occupied, so we returned to SYS Memorial hall.

About 15 minutes before midnight, we arrived at the public square in front of Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, that was not too crowded. We found a nice spot and waited until midnight. 10 seconds before that I started to make a video. This is the result:

It was amazing to hear how several ten thousand people reacted to some parts of the fireworks with "oooh" and "aah" at the same time. It was like a choir.

Four minutes later it was over. We saw Facebook's Chinese "Like" sign on top of 101.

Around 12.10 a lot of people started to leave, which meant that it was time to go for us, unless we want to be stuck here. We swirled aroud people and took shortcuts, just to reach the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall MRT station as soon as possible.

Once there, it was already uber crowded. We put ourselves in line and waited.

Exit 3 and 5 were letting people inside bit by bit. We had to wait 15 min.

Suddenly the let in a lot of people at once and we were able to get in.

Inside were huge crowds as well. But being on the side, we could pass through faster.

Huge crowds were filling up the small Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station.

Several empty and full trains passed by. We had to wait another 15 mins, maybe more.

All in all, we were home one and a half hours later and we live on the other side of Taipei. My wife said, that it was very well organized this year and everything went very smoothly. That's a big compliment from someone, who used to work for Taipei MRT company in the past. To sum it up: It was a great experience and I'm glad I was part of this event. In the past, I've always watched these fireworks on TV back at home in Europe. Those were the times, when Tapei 101 was still the world's tallest building and I was always wondering, how it must be to see it in real. Those were the times, when I was still young and full of dreams. Now these dreams became real and I'm not as happy as I thought I would be, when I wished they'd come true. Dreams are best, when they remain what they are - dreams.

How was your new year celebration and what do you wish for yourself in 2012?

[My LIFE IN TAIWAN page][My TAIWAN page][All photos and video by MKL, 2012]

Best Taiwan blogger 2011

Who is the best Taiwan blogger 2011?

I'm trying to show you the real Taiwan. Photo from here.

The year is almost over and soon we will get Taiwanderful's best Taiwan blogger of 2011. Since I won last year by popular vote, I am very curious about who will be my successor this year. I was peer judge this time, but I requested, that my blog is not part of the competition and I am very happy, that my wish was granted.

Why I don't want to participate again? The answer is simple: Because I could easily win. And I think it's much better to give a chance for a little recognition to other bloggers, than to win based on the advantages you have in mobilizing your online buddies. This year my blog has more followers and readers and in addition, I could get support of a lot of Slovenian netizens, if I wanted, because my blog Slovenian in Taiwan is repeatedly shared in the Slovenian blogosphere and online media (I'm probably the only serious Slovenian blogger in the Far East). When some of my posts are shared, my traffic spikes sky high for a couple of hours. Not only that, our Slovenian Twitter community is very strong this year, I could be retweeted as much as I wished. This all shows how far I've come as a blogger. This year is just amazing. Including my Slovenian blog, I've written almost 300 posts in 2011! A lot of these were written in the first half of the year, when I just arrived in Taiwan and had a lot of time. After I started to work, my updates became less, but my focus shifted to quality over quantity. Sometimes I was drafting a post for a week, before I published it. Luckily, it was worth the effort, because it was quite well received.

Last year's epic win of the Taiwanderful blog award put me in the spotlight of the expat online community in Taiwan. Imagine, a Slovenian beats all the Americans, Canadians and Aussies - what a shock it was to some. I got a bit more traffic and few more readers, but other than that, it hasn't had any significant effect on me as a Taiwan blogger. I just continued to do my thing as usual. I was never really too engaged in this community, but I was and still am observing it from the sidelines. Sadly, I am not too impressed with what I see this year. Let me go deeper into that.

The problem of the Taiwan expat community is that it's not a community. It's more like a community of groups and most of these groups are small and less relevant in the broader sense. They usually consist of few bloggers, who interact with each other. There is however a main group, a group of the popular Taiwan bloggers, who have a lot of readers and are able to shape a certain kind of image of Taiwan for the world outside. This group is divided in the good and the not so good ones. The good ones really care about the online community and about Taiwan in general, they have no agenda other than pure enthusiasm for this Far Eastern gem. These people are also behind the Taiwanderful blog award, I have great respect for them.

The not so good ones are usually having an agenda. They are mostly writing about politics, history, society and random observations. They are highly critical of others, especially those who don't share the same opinion, but very insecure, if the criticism boomerangs back to them. These bloggers often distort the image of Taiwan and its people, most likely because of a personal issue - they exaggerate, make up stuff, write too hastily and have almost no balanced views on a variety of topics. Generally, they do some harm, but I think their influence is very limited, as most intelligent readers will abandon them very quickly. They end up only writing for like-minded people. This is of course nothing shocking, as every blogging community has these types of bloggers, especially expat communities in Asia. I will of course not mention any of them here, because I don't want to supply them with topics to blog about.

Instead, I'd like to focus on something more positive. I did find two Taiwan related blogs, that I would like to mention here and they are definitely worthy of your time:

Vagabond in Taiwan: Written by Adrienne, an American, who lives in Taipei. What I like about her blog is the simplistic layout, which is delightfully completed with beautiful photos. I generally like to read blogs, where photos tell a story or are a big part of a story - it's also my way of blogging. And in this case, I could say: Great minds think alike. I just dropped my vote for the Vagabond in Taiwan today.

Brennpunkt Taipeh: Written by Klaus, a German, who lives in Taipei. He's more known as a German language blogger, nevertheless, his English posts are excellent as well. It won't shock you to know, that he's a reporter and I have to say a very fine one. I've seldom met someone, who loves Taiwan as much as he does and yet is still very realistic about the good and the bad sides of the country and its people. If you wanna see the real Taiwan, he should be one of your prime sources.

To browse more Taiwan blogs, check these websites and posts:

- Bloggers in Taiwan (listed English language blogs on Taiwan)
- Taiwanderful's blog directory (similar to the link above)
- List of Taiwanese bloggers (native Taiwanese, who blog in Chinese language)

I know I'm very picky, when it comes to reading blogs. For one, I have a very high quality standard for my own blog, and secondly, I don't have a lot of time, that's why I have to set my priorities. Btw, I'm trying to tweak my layout a little, make it cleaner and with less links, but more to the point. As the first step, I have redesigned my table of contents, please check it here and tell me, how you like it. It was a lot of work, but I have to make my blog more professional and that's why I will continue to tweak and redesign until I'm happy with it. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of free time, that's why I'm doing it bit by bit.

I've already written over 1200 posts in the recent 4 years and currently I have between 3000 and 4000 pageviews per day! That's a lot of traffic for a simple blogspot blog and it's even getting more every month. It's very fulfilling to know, that so many people read and appreciate what I've written - I hope that this will continue next year as well. Actually, I'm pretty sure it will.

• Who is your best Taiwan blog this year?
• What was the reason for you to become my regular reader?

I'm looking forward to your answers. Thanks for sticking with me and going through thick and thin. I appreciate it :)

[My TAIWAN page][Photo by MKL, 2011]

Taipei on Christmas, 2011

Jingle bells in the Far East

Today I went out to Taipei's popular East District to see a movie. It happend to be on the Christmas eve and I decided to take some photos. Taipei is not very different during Christmas, especially because it falls on a weekend, where people go out to 走走 (dzǒudzǒu) or walk around. This time they dzǒudzǒued a little more, so it seemed, because the pedestrian area near Taipei 101 was so crowded like I've rarely seen before. Maybe some of these people just got the annual bonus and want to splurge on shopping? I don't know. It was a little Christmasy, but very commercialized. Basically similar to what we see in most of central Europe: Just minus the food stalls and freezing cold weather. I made some photos for you, but the best part is the video at the very end, which is compiled of several clips, that I've made today. Enjoy!

Not like the stalls I saw in Germany, but still ok.

Oh yeah, did I mention that there was a lot of people?

A whole lot of people!

Taipei 101 seen through the decoration.

Street performers taking photos with young fans.

When the night fell, people were leaving home.

But some were just coming!

My video will show you the Christmas atmosphere in Taipei.

Taiwanese are mostly not Christian, but Taoist, Buddhist, both or not really religions. Christmas is like Halloween, something interesting from the West, that is another reason to have fun. Taiwanese love celebrations, so it doesn't need too long, before you'll see cute girls and their friends with Santa caps or antlers posing for a photo with the v-sign and a wide smile. Xinyi these days is packed with people and I think it will become even crazier in 5 days. The famous Taipei 101 countdown to 2012 will be held here. And then there is Chinese new year... Phew. The festive season just started in Taiwan. Merry Christmas, everybody!

[My TAIPEI page][My LIFE IN TAIWAN page][All photos by MKL, 2011]

Photos of Basel, Switzerland

Part of my 2011 European travel adventures

Basel was my gateway to Switzerland and the place, that made me fall in love with this beautiful country. It's a small city, but it has a lot to offer. Located close to where the borders of Germany, France and Switzerland meet, Basel has an international feel to it. Some of Basel's suburbs even reach far inside the French and German territory, its international airport is actually located in France. I'm very enamored with this medieval gem and very happy to share some of my best shots with you.

1. My impression of Basel

Unfortunately I only had a late afternoon to explore the city. I arrived at the main railway station at around 5pm, decided to stack my luggage at one of the lockers there and headed towards the city center by foot. The good thing about Basel is that the main station and the center are not too far from each other. The streets and roads are fairly small, but not too crowded. Most Baslers take the tram, which is conveniently cruising up and down the city, you can't miss it. What surprised me, was the medieval part, which is located on a rock above the river Rhine. There are several narrow and steep old streets going up and down, it's truly an adventure to explore this part.

2. My images of Basel

One of the biggest and most important railway stations in the area.

The busy square in front of the busy main station.

This is one of the busiest parts of Basel.

Off to the central part.

The view over the Rhine to the other side.

Mittlere Brücke or Middle bridge over the Rhine.

Middle bridge from close.

Marktplatz or the Main square.

Basel's beautiful landmark: The town hall or Rathaus.

Reminds me a little of the old Munich town hall.

A closeup.Heading to the Basel Münster.

The colorful top of the tower.

Marktplatz again.

Typical street in the old Basel.

Closer to the Münster.

The Basel Münster, former cathedral, now a protestant church.

The beautiful golden clock on the Münster.

A closeup on the Münster.

Baslers playing boules.

View from the Münster on the other side of Basel.

The Offene Kirche, a beautiful neo-gothic church.

Offene Kirche from the side.

And then I was back at the Basel Main railway station.

3. Basel in conclusion

Basel has much more to offer than what you've seen in my photos above. I really wish I had at least a weekend in the city, but I hope that the photos will still give you enough impressions to decide visiting this medieval treasure yourself. I can only highly recommend you visiting Basel and Switzerland as a whole. It's one of my favorite European countries.