{"id":4172,"date":"2010-10-04T11:19:39","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T15:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/?p=4172"},"modified":"2010-10-31T19:33:47","modified_gmt":"2010-10-31T23:33:47","slug":"heading-to-taiwan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2010\/10\/04\/heading-to-taiwan\/","title":{"rendered":"Heading to Taiwan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a title=\"Taipei, Taiwan\" rel=\"lightbox[groupname]\" href=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2120\/2412700745_f96180a79f.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2120\/2412700745_f96180a79f.jpg\" alt=\"Taipei, Taiwan\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So it turns out that I&#8217;m going to Taiwan next week, courtesy of the <a href=\"http:\/\/taiwantourism.us\/\">Taiwan Tourism Bureau<\/a> (TTB). \u00c2\u00a0I&#8217;ll be checking out the cycling along the east coast of Taiwan (primarily in <a href=\"http:\/\/wikitravel.org\/en\/Taitung\">Taitung<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/wikitravel.org\/en\/Hualien\">Hualien<\/a>) and in Taipei. \u00c2\u00a0The agenda is packed, but I hope to push out regular updates while I&#8217;m there, and then produce some more thoughtful pieces after I return. \u00c2\u00a0Free time will be at a premium, but if you&#8217;ve been (or are thinking about going) and have any suggestions for must-sees in the areas I&#8217;ll be in, please let me know. \u00c2\u00a0One universal response I&#8217;ve already gotten is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/images?q=Taroko+Gorge&amp;um=1&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;source=univ&amp;ei=K-WpTMuzAYScnAffz7WqDQ&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=image_result_group&amp;ct=title&amp;resnum=4&amp;ved=0CEoQsAQwAw&amp;biw=1224&amp;bih=728\">Taroko Gorge<\/a>, which I&#8217;m pleased to say I&#8217;ll be visiting.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m particularly excited to be coming at this trip from a cycling-specific perspective. \u00c2\u00a0While my personal travel has come to more frequently involve cycling (riding the <a href=\"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2010\/04\/20\/melden-belgium\/\">Koppenberg in Belgium<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blacknell\/3894410164\/in\/photostream\/\">mountain biking in Australia<\/a>, or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blacknell\/sets\/72157615843105950\/\">hitting the road in Nova Scotia<\/a>), I&#8217;ve never made an overseas trip for the primary purpose of riding. \u00c2\u00a0It&#8217;s something that I&#8217;ve been thinking about (one day, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.steephill.tv\/giro-d-italia\/\">to the Giro<\/a>!), so I&#8217;m really quite excited to be doing this, and hope that &#8211; afterwards &#8211; I can help others figure out what&#8217;s involved in doing this themselves.<\/p>\n<p>As you might already know, I quite enjoy <a href=\"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/category\/travel\/\">writing about travel<\/a> and all of its <a href=\"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2008\/12\/30\/travel-notes-omnibus-edition\/\">bits and pieces<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0From the <a href=\"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2010\/03\/26\/friday-music-temptations\/\">need to move<\/a>, the\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2007\/06\/29\/in-appreciation-of-airports\/\">means of getting there<\/a>,\u00c2\u00a0and the <a href=\"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2006\/01\/28\/dca-jfk-ams-del-jai-bom-dxb-or-i-go-to-india\/\">destinations themselves<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0Sometimes you can do it with <a href=\"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2008\/12\/05\/friday-note-this-busy\/\">just a photo<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0Other times, <a href=\"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2009\/08\/19\/how-i-survived-socialized-medicine-barely\/\">many words are required<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0And then there&#8217;s always <a href=\"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2009\/08\/22\/weekend-music-nelly-bay-edition\/\">music<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0If I do this right, I&#8217;m sure Taiwan will give me all three.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, I want to note that this only happening because of Richard Masoner, who was kind enough to connect me with the folks at the TTB. \u00c2\u00a0He will be hosting much of the content that results from this trip at\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cyclelicio.us\/\">Cyclelicio.us<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0If you&#8217;re into cycling, you&#8217;re already reading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cyclelicio.us\/\">Cyclelicio.us<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0And if you&#8217;re not, give it a try. \u00c2\u00a0My larger travel pieces will be here (along with everything else . . . eventually), but the cycling-related stuff will show up at Cyclelicio.us first. \u00c2\u00a0I&#8217;ll soon be posting more about the trip itself, but I thought this would be a good way to kick things off.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>Photo by <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/fish_at_taipei\/\"><em>Alex Lin<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So it turns out that I&#8217;m going to Taiwan next week, courtesy of the Taiwan Tourism Bureau (TTB). \u00c2\u00a0I&#8217;ll be checking out the cycling along the east coast of Taiwan (primarily in Taitung and Hualien) and in Taipei. \u00c2\u00a0The agenda is packed, but I hope to push out regular updates while I&#8217;m there, and then [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,468,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-taiwan","category-travel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4172"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4296,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4172\/revisions\/4296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}