Formosa (Taiwan)

In the beggining of this month (June) I went to Formosa (as the Portuguese called Taiwan when they arrived there centuries ago, and still today Taiwan is also known by this name) for a few days, to join my friend-brother Alberto, who was there or work (as I did before in Thailand, Jakarta etc). And once again it was more than worth it. Especially because of our wonderful hosts: Greg and Rex.

Greg is the brother of Reiser, a common Taiwanese friend Alberto and I have in Hong Kong. They were just amazing, taking us everywhere, day and night, and I had heard about the Taiwanese hospitality, and it was not only confirmed, I was even surprised (it was even better than I thought) and it just made me feel like home, people were a little like in Brazil, very nice and smiling all the time. Besides, Taipei reminds me a little of Sao Paulo (it is pretty grey and ugly in a sense) but again like Sao Paulo you go and dig in and find amazing places and people. Another surprise was that the city looks more like Tokyo than like China. I had this impression since I first saw the city, and later they confirmed that they have a lot of Japanese influence (I did not know). So I define Taipei as a mix of Sao Paulo and Tokyo.

We visited the National Palace Museum, which has one of the main collections of Chinese art in the world, it is impressive, and also the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, where it was interesting to find out more on how Taiwan and China were divided during the Chinese revolution (things that we definitely do not learn at school in Latin America, lol). And of course I went to the top of 101, the tallest building on Earth.

Click here to see my Taiwan pictures, and others:
www.flickr.com/photos/gibin/sets

A few more times in Hong Kong...

I went to Hong Kong 3 times after my long visit there in November. First on my way to Brazil in December, when I met another Brazilian (Andre) and his friend Ben (an American who lived in Brazil before) and even if I was stuck in Hong Kong because I was in a stand-by ticket, it was great to spend time with them, we went out to bars and also went to the 1,000 Bhudas temple in the New Territories.

Then last month (in May), also on my way to the States, I spent a few days in Hong Kong on my way back to Singapore. It was again great to see Maher (a Tunisian/French friend I made on my to the States) and Claude, who was in China for work and came to HK to spend the weekend with me. We went to Lamma island. We had a fantastic time together.

Somehow I always have a great time in Hong Kong and meet a lot of people there. I guess it has an energy that is missing in Singapore.

Click here to check the pictures of Hong Kong and more:

www.flickr.com/photos/gibin/sets

Big Big World

And some people say I travel a lot...well, maybe it is true, I love travelling. But so far, I have visited "only" 34% of the countries in the world!!!!! There is still so much to see :)

Here are the countries I have visited:

Back in Rhode Island

A few weeks ago I went back to the other side of the world, I attended one of my best friends (Marcus)'s graduation party in Rhode Island. My first part of the trip was in NYC, I spent a few days there, and besides seeing some good friends, I just felt like home again: not only I have been to NYC many times before and it does feel like home naturally but also compared to Asia, it is so much closer to my culture. Instead of seeing signs in Chinese, Malay or Tamil, I was glad to be able to understand all of them in either English or Spanish! I would also understand most of people on the street, as there are some many Latinos in the city, but also many tourists, being most of them French, Italians, Germans or Brazilians! (what a relief…European languages!!!!)

Then Rhode Island with Marcus was just fantastic. I had been there a few times, but I guess this time was the best. First because it was great to see some good friends again, and then I don't know, I guess because it was Marcus' party, it was something special. It was really great to spend days with people who were either close to me already (like Marcus and David) or wonderful people that I ended up knowing a little better this time, like Marc, Claudia and Marcus' mother and sister. Revising my pictures, I realized how lucky I was to be able to share these moments with Marcus and his friends/family, also included all the other times I had been there in Providence with him, it is a unique place, and I could live that a little bit every time. Thanks Marcus!!!! And congratulations again!

The weather was great most of the time, and we did biking, picnic, we went out to clubs and I took advantage to eat all the Western food I could possibly do: Italian, Brazilian, Cuban, Mexican, Greek, even some nice very American burgers in NYC (I'll post later). Spring was just there also, so flowers everywhere, as you can see at the bucolic pictures of Rhode Island that I took:

www.flickr.com/photos/gibin/sets

Asian Civilisations Museum

I must confess that usually when I visited museums like the Metropolitan or even the Hermitage, they would have a vast collection of Asian arts and I would look at it very briefly just to run later to see the Impressionist paintings.

But today I visited the Asian Civilisations Museum here in Singapore, and I had heard it was good before, but I did not think I would be totally fascinated by it.

It is at the same time sad to think the rich countries get all the art from the other countries (just look at museums in London, Paris or NYC), but at the same time I am glad Singapore could gather such great representations of art from other Asian countries and that I could see them today. It was not enough though, I will have to go back to spend more time there.

Site of the museum: http://www.acm.org.sg/themuseum/galleries.asp
For a great selection of places to stay with discount prices visit Singapore Hotels for more info