Taiwan 2015

This year has so far been a 'goat' year. I made a decision and will be out of the country until mid April. My S.O. wanted to visit some family for New Year, and it is an easier time to get time off right now.  Chinese New Year started Feb.19 and ended yesterday I believe (made notable by the using up of fire crackers last evening).

Also, it is Year of the Goat...so you bet I will be acting like a goofy tourist taking pictures of anything goat related. Got some and missed others...but there should be more LOL.

Last time (2 years ago) I also saw a spider in Taipei Zoo that was not part of the attractions....it literally must've been as big as my hand!! *shudder*. This year, however I have seen over 5 big ones around the hiking trails....do I just notice more now? Or....are there more this time? Biggest point I want to make here is...it still looks as big as a hand.

Another interesting observation are how incredibly shiny and ritzy the department malls are (and the goods inside) compared to the rest of the city they are in.

The area we are staying in is a small but busy town, with few young adults.
There are dogs I am unsure of whether they are owned or not, as they have collars but wander freely.

There was one dog in a parking lot at the bottom of the trail leading upstairs towards a pagoda we visited a few days ago, which followed us all the way up the path and kept in sight most of the time. She was likely foraging as habit, but I figured she also liked us as company, too.


Also for the record...Starbucks of Taiwan is far superior to North America's....I have to say it. They got all sorts of higher graDe desserts and bettee drinks for chocolate lovers. I will be sad to walk into our stale coffee shop selection in Canada when I get back (not that I go often anyway).
If you would like to see photos, I will add some online in the future via my photography account and fb page...and maybe make an online album. For now, I don't exactly have a computer at hand so will just use mobile pictures and the da app.



If you want more journals while I am here, feel free to say so.

On  a sad side note, I did a fair amount of editing this post, only for the image upload failure to deny posting it. I doubt it saved a draft..sigh.
Also looking for the option to edit old stuff on this new app...it seems a bit too basic for the content makers. Sad too that the image failed...only 1 image but breaks.