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

Woke up today to the news that my favourite travel destinations in Asia, Japan and Taiwan, will soon reopen to leisure visitors. As part of the re-openings, strict and cumbersome anti-COVID measures will be dropped or scaled back. It has been a long while since I last visited destinations in these regions of Asia. I love the food, culture, sights and sounds of Japan and Taiwan. Even though other regions of Asia, which are also on my favourite list, continue to remain shut to leisure visitors, I can at least explore more travel options for 2023. Sakura viewings in spring, Japan's hanabi  (fireworks) festivals in summer, hiking in the National Parks of Taiwan and spending a couple of nights in the magical town of Jiuefen. I can't wait to plan and book my trips! Ema (small wooden tablets used by worshippers to write down their prayers or wishes), Ueno, Tokyo, Japan (2017) The magical and lovely town of Jiufen, Ruifang District, New Taipei City, Taiwan (2016) Next and hopefully so

It has been more than 4 years since I last visited Taipei in January of 2018. I missed the lively streets of Taipei. The food, the shopping, the lights and the sounds.  Hopefully, the Taiwan Authorities will soon allow leisure travellers like myself to visit again. I look forward to strolling along the streets of Taipei again; shopping, eating and mingling with my local friends. Shopping Street, Ximending, Wanhua District, Taipei, Taiwan (2018)

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 District

There are the normal ways of going about doing things and there are the innovative ways to do the same things. In Taipei City's Beitou District, the Beitou Public Library is an example of innovation and creative artistry. While the library building itself is both an architectural wonder and a breadth of fresh air in creativity, the interiors of this beautiful library boasts the same creative ingenuity. Examples include the reading areas. There are outdoor reading areas which look out into the greenery and neighbourhood scenery, bringing readers close to nature. While for those who prefer to be indoors, some of the indoor reading and study areas have been created to resemble the ambience of a warm and welcoming cafe rather than a blend public library. The clever use of architecture and design promotes not just an innovative approach to city living but also introduce a gentleness into the lives of the local people. Indoor reading and study area, Beitou Public Library, Beitou, Taipei

Next Travel Destinations....... when leisure travel resumes... After months of not being able to travel due to the current pandemic, I must admit I missed travelling and am looking forward to my next trips when leisure travel is able to resume. My last vacation before the closures and restriction of international borders was when I travelled to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) in end-Jan 2020. While my last flight before the pandemic swept the world was in November 2019 when I travelled to Seattle (United States) on a business trip. As and when international borders closures and restrictions are lifted, the destinations for my first leisure trips will be Tokyo and Taipei. I missed the food and the shopping in both of these cities. Neon-lit giant billboards in Akihabara, Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, Japan (2017) In Tokyo, I love dining on donburi (rice bowl dish); unadon (rice bowl topped with fillets of charcoal-grilled eel glazed with special sauce) and kaisendon (seafood rice bowl with slices of s

Travel Reminiscing....... In a period where worldwide business and leisure travels are heavily curtailed due to a pandemic, the next best thing to satisfying the travel bug in all of us is to reminisce past trips.  Boat waiting to board passengers, Mal é , Maldives (2014) As part of my travel reminiscence, I started a 30-day Travel Reminiscing series of posts on my Instagram account (timothytanks) for the month of May 2020. For this series, I set a self-imposed limit of one post per country/territory/city. This is to allow me to recap and share 30 different destinations over the course of one month. The featured country/territory/city over the 30-days in chronological order were: Post 1.   Helsinki/Finland Post 2.   Nazareth/Israel Post 3.   Jiufen/Taiwan Post 4.   New Norcia/Australia Post 5.   Siem Reap/Cambodia Post 6.   Loch Ness/Scotland Post 7.   Kanchanaburi/Thailand Post 8.   Rome/Italy Post 9.   Kowloon/Hong Kong Post 10. Mah é /Seychelles

Of all the cities in the world that I had visited so far, none other than Taipei managed to always evoke that sense of nostalgia in me. I can't explain that feeling. In fact, the first time I visited Taipei was in 2015, way past the times of my growing up years! Cityscape of Taipei, Ximending, Wanhua District, Taipei, Taiwan (2015) As to what kind of nostalgic feelings that Taipei has for me is difficult to describe in words. It probably is a combination of the old school streets and their layouts, the friendliness and unassuming attitude of the locals which is a rarity in most cities in today's materialistic-driven world, the food, the number of small bookstores tucked around in almost every corner of every street and a lot more. My connection to all things in Taipei probably also stemmed from my childhood years when I grew up watching Taiwanese dramas and documentaries on TV, most of which centred around life in Taipei. Advertising billboards screaming for at

Beitou is a district of Taipei located to the north of the city. Although well-known with locals and travellers for its hot springs, Beitou is also home to the "green" library of Taiwan. Designed with eco-friendly features, the Beitou Branch of the Taipei Public Library is outfitted to be both energy efficient and environmentally friendly. Beitou Branch of the Taipei Public Library, Beitou, Taipei, Taiwan (2018) Beitou Branch of the Taipei Public Library, Beitou, Taipei, Taiwan (2018) Besides its eco-friendly features, the library itself is an architectural marvel and definitely the most distinctive feature in the Beitou landscape. Visitors to Beitou just can't miss this architectural landmark. The Beitou Library, Beitou, Taipei, Taiwan (2018) Shelves of books lined the Library's interior, Beitou, Taipei, Taiwan (2018) The spacious interior is designed to be energy-efficient based on the Library's overall eco-friendly concept, Be

2018 Travel Review....... In 2018, I did not travel as much as I wanted due to work commitments. Compared to the preceding year of 2017, I traveled a lot less. Nevertheless, I still managed to clock some amazing personal trips and got to visit many places for the first time. These included the cities of Moriyama, Omnihachiman and Takashima in Japan's Shiga Prefecture and also Perth and its surrounding areas in Western Australia. I also got to visit Indonesia's beautiful island of Bali for the first time in 2 years as well as my favourite and usual destination cities of Hong Kong and Taipei. And all these trips within a year in which I was supposedly "grounded" in my home city because of work!  Fireworks over the harbour to celebrate Western Australia Day on the night of 3 June 2018, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia (2018) My travel in Shiga in April 2018 was amongst one of the best trips I had ever taken. The itinerary was intentionally p

Safeguarding important personal belongings when travelling....... Over dinner with friends during the weekend, one of them related to us about an incident in his recent  trip to Europe. He was on a group tour and one of the travellers in the group had lost her passport as well as all her cash and credit cards. She was the victim of a pickpocket. Apparently, the act occured while the group was in a small crowded lane while moving from one point in the city to another. The pickpocket (or pickpockets) must have had made use of the confusion and the crowd to carry out the theft. The aftermath of that incident effectively ruined the victim's trip. She was left without her important travel document which also happened to be her only form of identification in a foreign land. And she was also left penniless as all her cash and credit cards had been stolen. Thankfully for the lady, my friend loaned her cash and assisted her to contact the nearest diplomatic representation of her

Reading and Travelling....... What has reading got to do with travelling? Plenty of reasons. For me, reading up on the countries and cities I am visiting provide me with lots of information on the sights and sounds that I can expect. It also allows me to better plan my itinerary and help me to decide on where to stay and how much time to spend in a particular place. Other important information like currency exchanges, local culture and customs, potential immigration hurdles and visa applicabilities are also what I look out for when I read up on the places i am about to visit. Most of these information can be found in travel guides or on the internet. Dungeons and Dragons, a wall mural in a former dungeon and now a toilet, in a restaurant housed in a heritage building, Tallinn, Estonia (2017) And of course, reading about the experiences of other travellers provide me with a whole new world of information not usually available in officially published literature. For this r