TANKS Travel Tales - a travelogue.......

One of the joys of travelling is to be able to enjoy local food the way the locals enjoy it. Whenever I travelled to Taipei, I always enjoyed its vibrant street food scene and of course, the food. Nothing beats the ambience of tucking into the delicious street food in Taipei, right there in the streets whilst jostling with the crowds. I do not have any trips to Taipei planned in my current travel list. But this is because of border restrictions due to the pandemic. As soon as these restrictions are lifted, I will be travelling to Taipei. I simply love this vibrant city, the local culture and of course, the street food! While I am unable to physically travel to Taiwan for now, I keep in touch with its cultural happenings through frequent text messagings with my Taiwanese friends as well as the free English-language streaming service called TaiwanPlus (a.k.a. Taiwan+) .  Beef noodles in clear soup, Beitou, Beitou District, Taipei, Taiwan (2018) Mixed pork soup, Ximending, Wanhua Dist...

Recently, I have been toying with the idea of going on a cruise. Due to pandemic-related restrictions in my part of the world, the only cruise trips that are considered doable and hassle-free currently are short cruises to nowhere. These typically entail between 3 to 5 nights stay on a cruise ship which will leave port, sail into the nearby international waters and then returning to the same port. Voila , no quarantine measures required after returning back to shore! Okay, I must admit that I had been swayed by the many photographs posted by friends on social media who had went on such cruises and they all seemed to be having lots of fun. Truth be told, I had not been on a cruise before. While I had sailed across the Baltic Sea from Helsinki to Tallinn and back, those 2-hour plus trips do not qualify as "cruise experiences". Maybe, just maybe, I will soon book a short 4-day, 3-night cruise to nowhere. Just to keep up with the proverbial Joneses. 😇 Update #1 (25th January 202...

Japan, Shiga Prefecture, Otsu, Home of Historical Sites, Temples and Shrines This article was originally published in this blog in January 2020. It captured the memories of my first visit to Otsu, capital of Japan's Shiga Prefecture. My visit to Otsu was unplanned. I had arrived from Takashima, another area of Shiga Prefecture and was enroute to my hotel stay in Moriyama. What was supposed to be a transit stop in my trip became a memorable visit that made it into my travel Bucket List. I will always fondly remember my walking tour of the city, dining on the tasty Omi Beef which was absolutely oishii (delicious in Japanese), visiting the many temples and shrines I came across during my city walk and the beautiful views of Lake Biwa as seen from Otsu. ****************** It was my first time visiting Shiga Prefecture. I had arrived at Otsu from Takashima. It was spring and cherry blossoms (a.k.a.  sakura ) season and I was in Takashima specifically for the purpose ...

January 2022 and I continue to stay all cooped up in my tiny apartment in my tiny city to avoid the pantomime that I will (without a doubt) experience when travelling overseas during a worldwide pandemic. Why? Because cross-border rules for travellers are changing faster that one can blink one's eyes. Even so, thanks to the wonders of modern technologies, I am certainly not cut-off from the rest of the world. My many overseas friends, continue to send me photographs of street scenes of daily lives in the cities they live in. Of course, I did likewise, sending them photographs of the street scenes of my city on the rare occasions that I ventured out of my humble abode. This is our unique way of "travelling" to different cities without actually physically travelling. Just a couple of days ago, a friend living in the Japanese city of Kawasaki sent me photographs of the heavy snow that his city is currently experiencing. Looking at the photographs of snow covered streets made...

Running out of Greek Alphabets....... 2 years and counting and the world is still in the midst of a pandemic caused by the nasty COVID-19 and its variants. The latest twist in the story of this current pandemic is Omicorn. At the rate this is going, we may soon be running out of greek alphabets for all the various variants that may be coming our way... 😓 After 24 months, we seem to be still at Square One of our Snake-and-Ladders tussle with the dreaded virus. To be honest, nobody has a good answer to when this may all end or subside to a level when the world can resume its normality pre-year 2020. For me, I had obediently followed all public health guidelines including receiving my full 2-dose of mRNA vaccines as well as an mRNA booster jab (3 jabs in total), observing social distancing and working from home whenever possible, never leaving my home without a mask worn properly over my nose and mouth and limiting social events to the barest minimum. My passion for travel had not fe...

"Experience Traditions, Explore Cultures, Expand Horizons, Travel the World... . "  -  Timothy Tan, author of this blog - tankstraveltales   The author sailing on Lake Ashi, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan (2018)