Author: Mike

Happy New Year! Chinese Style, New Years day was on Sunday 18th Feb. It is a very big holiday here with most businesses closed for at least 4 days, some 5 and some, like the post office, closed for 9 days! Dave has had the week off and we have done some stuff but really…

I feel I need to explain as this seems to be common problem for nations as well as ordinary people.Taiwan calls itself the Republic of China. China is known as the Peoples Republic of China. These two countrys are entirely seperate.Taiwan gained its independance from China in 1947 when Chang Ky Shek exiled himself and…

Apparently their was an earthquake here last Thursday, 25th Jan., I had no idea until someone told me on Monday, it was 5 point something on the Richter scale!Everyone says you don’t worry about these things as they are a fairly common occurrence here! If you look at the island of Taiwan, formerly Formosa, you…

I have been here just over a week and am settling in ok. I started the week on Monday with a mandarin lesson. Dave had signed me up so we went together, no I don’t think I will be fluent anytime soon, it is another tonal language like Thai, only mandarin has four tones instead…

Look who is back! I have had a busy few months and will no doubt be writing about it all soon. For now, I am here in Taipei, I arrived a week ago tomorrow and am still trying to get myself into a regular sleeping pattern. It seems to get harder as I get older.…

It is almost time for me to leave this beautiful country and I am very sad and full of regrets at not having done a lot of things; such as help with Soi Dog Rescue www.soidogrescue.org It is an organisation that works to help the soi or street dogs. They are abandoned dogs that of…

Coup! What Coup? Dave and I were very surprised to wake up last Wed. morning, 21st September, to a barrage of emails from concerned friends and family asking if we were ok. We had been out the night before to a Fado concert (it was wonderful and I will write about that later) and on…

We finally got to Ayutthaya, the historical city around 1:00PM and by this time it was very hot indeed somewhere in the low 40’s C!First stop Wat Phra Si Sanepet a view of one of the three Stupas. A Stupa is a buriel mound for a holy man, at least that is what they were…

Yesterday I went to see “Aida” performed by the National Opera House of Belarus and staged at The Thailand Cultural Centre here in Bangkok. I got a ticket at the last minute but still got a good seat, at the back, on the ground floor; it is a good theater to see and hear in.This…

One hot Saturday morning Dave and I got the driver, ‘Pon, from work to take us to Si Ayutthaya, or Ayutthaya as it is usually known. It is a province situated about 80km north of Bangkok and was once one of the most powerful states in Southeast Asia. For 417 years the city of Ayutthaya…