Beauties of Taiwan, Danshuei

In the north of Taiwan, there is a small village called Danshui (淡水) which means "fresh water". It takes about one hour to arrive there from Taipei by subway. The first time I've been there was around 5 or 6 years ago, and a typhoon had killed a great amount of fish, so the water was covered with a bed of fish.

This year I've been there twice, and now I know why the spanish and then the dutch that came here were that amazed by the views and the quiteness you can feel in this place.

Far away from the noise of the capital (Taipei) but also full of life, people walking around and buying, eating, drinking, well, what taiwanese like to do, and most of the people from the planet.

There is a good walk all along the river side, the Danshui river, and good looks from the Fort Santo Domingo (como lo bautizaron los españoles).

At the end of the ninetenth century there was a canadian presbyterian father who came to Taiwan, then he met a taiwanese woman, and they got married. So, this man lived in Danshui, with his wife until he died.

N'Anna ha perdut ses claus!!!

Well, for non-catalan speakers I must say that the title translation is: "Anne has lost her keys!!!". Instead of Anne, put Roger and then add motorcycle before keys, and you will know what happened to me when I took "my" Tainan motorbike keys from Tainan to Taipei and then I lost them.
That happened on April, and I sure I spend like 3 hours of my life desperately looking for this m******* keys. My search and my desperation didn't serve for anything.

I thought that I would have to change the key engine, and they told me that will be like three thousand NTD (75 euros). As soon as I arrived Tainan I told that to my wife's parents, and they called the key maker, who looked like the one in Matrix Reloaded. After 30 minutes and 600 NTD (15 euros), the key maker gave us 2 keys of the VINOmobile,.....and they worked!!!!

The funny part of the story is that two days ago, I've found the VINOmobile's (motorbike) that apparently, I had lost on April...!!!!!

The VINOmobile in the VINOcave (La VINOmóbil en la VINOcueva)

So, as you can see in the picture, now we have 3 keys for my VINOmobile!!!!I'll keep an eye on them, and two of them will be permanently at home, just in case!!!

So, remember, if this happens in Spain, don't call the spanish keymaker, cause it will cost you like 150 euros, and then the keys would not worked!!!!!Anyway, I don't know probably a spanish guy who would have the ability to do the thing the taiwanese key maker did here in Taiwan,  in Spain, will have a lots of motorcycles to sell!!!!I'm just kidding!!!

Looks can be deceived!!!

Yakuza tatoo...nooooooo, they kicked my back.....nooooo, they kicked me with glasses ....nooooo
I just received a massage method consisting of putting glasses in my back, heating them to make void and then applying them to my back. It's called the cupping massage therapy. It seems very painful, and it is, in some parts of the body. Three days has passed since they treat me like that and I still can feel the heat in every spot. I planned to go to the beach, since Tainan is very hot these days, but I'll wait till these spots are missing.....

Do you remember a beer TV ad about Heineken? Well, for me it's the same with UOC.

In that advertisement people spoke using only the word "Heineken", well for me these past days and also now, my only word is UOC.

So UOC, UUUUUUUUUOC, UOOOOOOOC?

That's my world now, but I do something more. This past week I've been taking care of children and at the same time I was supposed to be doing my homework at the UOC University, Studies of Oriental Asian.

That situation reminds me about what the big master Hitchcok said once about not making films with kids...
and something that said the magnificent director Alejandro Amenabar to the kids' actor who played a role in "The other", it was like: "What a little movie you are giving to me", in spanish has more sense since it's:"Vaya películita me estáis dando".
Anyway, I had to deal with it and i rather died in my experience, then i've passed two days working from dusk till dawn (6 in the morning) and then I had to make a conference about Spain, Catalonia and Barcelona, very easy, but in chinese....
I've survived and I'll make this blog live again!!!!!
Yet, lots of things not yet explained!!!!!!!
Something about China and a lot about Taiwan!!!!!Maybe, something about Vietnam, but this would be on June......

Beijing part II. Temple of Heaven (天壇)

In the beginnig of the Chinese Dinasties, around the year 2070 B.C. (it began with the Xia Dynasty, and according to Confucius (孔夫子) (551 BC – 479 BC), the Emperor was the Son of Heaven (天子- where 天 means "heaven" and 子 , son), and he was the leader who had to rule on earth as his father did on heaven.
In the ancient China, they thought that the earth was squared whereas heaven was round, and that's why coins in the ancient China where rounded on the outside and they had a squared hole in the middle.
So, logically the Temple of Heaven had to be round. It was built by the Emperor Yongle (永樂) (2 May 1360 – 12 August 1424) during the Ming Dinasty (1368- 1644), between the 1406 and the 1420. This Emperor was also the responsible for the construction of the Forbidden City.

It's a taoist temple and has a room for the Heaven God, and it was visited by the emperors of the Ming and Qing dinasties, the last two dinasties of China.

The funny thing is that our tour didn't include this visit, so we asked our tour guide to take us there to see it. When we arrive there we met a lot of chinese dancing in the park next to the Temple. The ticket has a discount for old people. We also saw a lot of old people near the Temple playing card games.

My chinese experience!!! Beijing!!! I little bit of art!!!

I like history, and chinese history is one of my favorites. I've been to Beijing (北京) twice (counting this last time) and I've been to Shanghai (three times) and I've never been before to Xian (西安). So, by far the place I liked the most this time in the People's Republic of China (中华人民国) of course, was Beijing (北京).
I had a trip with my parents, my father's cousin, his wife, their children, and two more couples (my parents' friends). As soon as they arrive, we went to a hutong, which is an ancient neighborhood, and we lived in a hotel inside this old part of the city...It was amazing. Recently, I had a problem with the format of 400 pics that I had transfered to my PC, but I couldn't open them, sorry i don't have pics of mostly all Beijing.


We had a great time in Beijing, we had a tourist guide guy who is able to speak in spanish, and we went Beijing sightseeing. The forbidden city, the Summer Palace, Teh Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall... 


Is a city where history, culture and art mix together.


We also had time to visit the district 798, contemporary art fill the streets, and cars.

I don't know how but somebody went into an exposition, and they were serving food as well as white wine. The food was from the "Flo restaurant", I was very proud to say this food was from Barcelona, but they quickly told me that Flo is from France, not Catalonia....

Anyway, we ate a little bit there. The exposition was about pictures of korean people ( most of them men or men dressed like women) and the photographer was french.


The streets were also fulled with art and other species alike.

 The first Xi'an warrior...................................................................nude I've ever seen!!!

 Animals.....

and more animals!!!

好久不见！！！hao3 jiu3 bu4 jian4!!! We have not meeting each other for a long time!!! Cuánto tiempo sin vernos!!!

This is the good way to tell a friend "hello" again, cause it has passed a long time since you meet him or her for the last time. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry for my followers, a few good ones, cause it's been ages since my last post. Actually, I had the pleasure of having one of my followers attending my wedding in Taiwan, Pere thanks for coming and sorry about the game.

I've been busy (忙 - mang2) since my last post. I have had problems to connect to my facebook and to my blog for 10 days (travelling in China), and then I have had my wedding, another trip but this time around my beloved Taiwan, with my beloved family and some friends of them.

It's been a lot of fun!!! I have thousands of pics, not yet to be published. Lots of posts to be published.
Now, I'm a little bit busy with my Internet University, I'm trying to catch up again.

So far, I only can tell that all the trips were very amazing and I had a lot of fun. As they say:"Postum festum, pestum". So, I'm feeling sad cause my wife went back to Barcelona, as well as my parents who travelled with me around China and Taiwan. But, as they say in Spain: "Que me quiten lo bailado!!!", in other words: "I enjoyed a lot, so although I'm sad now, these lasts days I was terribly happy!!!".

It was like knocking on heavens door, as Bob Dylan says. Bob has been to Taipei in a concert yesterday!!!

I put some appetizer for you to follow my adventures and disadventures of this whole trip. Is the Temple of Heaven in Beijing (北京) , literally: the capital of the north. In the ancient China, they thought that the earth was squared and heaven was circular, that's why they built this circular building for the God of Heaven (and the emperor was the son of this God).