by Jonny | May 15, 2013 | Travel
Taoyan Airport
Okay, so I haven’t traveled much around the world and Taiwan is likely the first place I have traveled abroad to in years; well, other than South Korea and Hong Kong. Anyways, I came extra early to the airport because, well, I’m paranoid like that. I have a lot of free time, so why not make use of the time and post on this blog from the airport. Admittedly, this is the first time I have posted on a blog through an outside WiFi connection, especially at an airport. I’m currently using Taoyuan’s “Free Airport Internet” and it’s working great. Of course, the connection is not 100% or like I had in my home in Taichung but it’s definitely adequate and it’s uploaded all the pictures I’ve taken relatively quickly.
I don’t know what else to write, other than having a safe and no problem journey. Oh, and here’s what I ate at the Burger King at Taoyuan airport:
by Jonny | Mar 18, 2013 | Opinion
Okay.
Today, I went in for a blood test and examination (With the doc asking me questions etc) and he checked my blood cells (white / red) and he told me that my immune system looked pretty strong, saying that I had plenty of white blood cells and that I shouldn’t worried.
So why did I have this random health check.
A couple of months ago I became extremely aware of the amount of welts, rashes, and bumps that appeared on the entirety of my body; this would happen after I had exercised for a substantial amount of time or essentially when my body temperature heated up. I went to Taichung hospital, which is a local hospital to where I live and they gave me an injection and to my surprise the doctor said I had hepatitis. I was shocked and disturbed at this thought because I had no idea where it had come from.
So, the hospital took a blood sample and to my relief I did not have hepatitis, but some other disease called the EB virus or more colloquially known as the “kissing virus”. I’ll admit the previous months I had been with my girlfriend in South Korea and we kissed a lot. But, she reassured me that she did not have this virus. So, I was clueless. Anyways, the hospital gave me medicine to treat the symptoms and sent me on my way.
Today, I went to another hospital because I did not trust the original hospital I went to, and to be honest it looked run down and old. Plus, the fact they said that my mother had cancer kind of steered me away from them, when they later retracted that. As I said before, the doctor whose English was quite impressive told me that I was healthy. I was happy and he explained the blood results to me saying that if I had contracted a virus then my white blood cell counts would be low; however, this was obviously not the case and I am perfectly healthy, aside from a few dental issues that I’m having.
As for my dental issues, well, I have periodontal disease which is causing my gum to recede, or specifically around the area on one of my teeth where the gum has receded substantially. I will be having an operation to repair that and hopefully they’ll be able to give me a nice looking smile. At $10,000NT it’s a little costly, but totally worth it, as I don’t think I would be comfortable talking to others or laughing at others’ jokes with a massive looking tooth staring people down as I open my mouth. There is also a substantial gap as well, where the gum has receded. It looks horrible and I feel horrible with that, so for me, the $10,000NT is totally worth it. I just hope that the operation meets my expectations.
So, now that I’m totally disease free, aside from the periodontal problem, I feel a little happier than I did before.
Something I quickly put together in photoshop!
I just want to re-iterate that the above image is real (Well, the before image) and that is really how badly damaged my gum is. Then the after photo I simply clone stamped new gum tissue around and in between both teeth there, where the problem lies. Now, if the dentists here in Taiwan can fix it to the standard above, I’d be pretty damn happy with a result like the above. I just hope it’s possible as I’m losing any self-confidence I have with this gaping hole.
by Jonny | Oct 5, 2012 | Travel
I just came back from Incheon International Airport, or South Korea just a couple hours ago. (It takes around 2.5 hours from Korea to Taiwan)
I only stayed for 6 days, and those 6 days have been the best time of my life. I haven’t had the most exciting life in the world, so this trip may appear as trivial to others. However for me, meeting my girlfriend after having no access to her physical presence for over 9 months really made this trip special. I could have stayed with her indoors and it would have been special, I didn’t even need to go to special areas or places to enjoy myself, just having her presence was enough to make this special. Having said that, I went to many places with her and had a blast of a time. We went to the DMZ, Korean War Memorial, Lotte World (aka Waiting World), Itaewon, Chuncheon, Insadong, Samsung Station, COEX Mall, Myeong-dong, Dongdaemun and other places.
Here are a few pics:
Seoul Underground-Subway
Seoul Subway protective doors
My Julie
Discussing what to do later in Starbucks
Seoul Tower at night
At the de-militarized zone (DMZ) with military police.
Picture with a cool military guy!
Aww. This leaves me with a hole in my heart.
Picture of us under Seoul Tower
Beautiful view of Seoul from Seoul Tower at night
Underneath Seoul Tower
BBQ Chicken at Dongdaemun!
At Seoul Tower with my beautiful girlfriend observing Seoul from a high point of view.
A picture of me and my girlfriend at Seoul Tower. This picture was quite funny as we asked 3 Chinese ladies if they could help us take the picture. They did so. However, they also used the flash lights on their phone cameras to brighten up the area where we were standing. Unfortunately, my eyes got a bit screwed up in the process.
Myself at Dongdaemun with my lovely girlfriend photographer.
Moments before I have to leave, we take one last picture together. As you can see by eyes, I got a little emotional. I didn’t want to leave.
At the airport with my girlfriend. A big kiss before I leave her to go to my fight. … and yes, my head is quite large.
Those are just a few pictures I took. I took in total around 700 pictures with my camera (FZ28) and my smartphone. I’ll be uploading more later on, and all the higher quality pictures will be going on my photography website.
by Jonny | Sep 22, 2012 | Travel
Today, I went to Dounan/斗南 to get my teeth checked at a dentist there. It’s quite a distance away from Taichung, as apparently that dentist in Dounan/斗南 is one of the best in middle-Taiwan. Plus, I have a friend who works there and she recommends me to go there and it’s a great away to practice with my Chinese speaking abilities. Anyways, in Dounan/斗南 there is essentially nothing. The place is tiny and they literally only have one main road where they sell stuff, every other place is just people’s homes. So instead, I went to Douliu/斗六 which is close by and north of Dounan/斗南.
I bought some products for my skin in Douliu/斗六 as my skin is quite bad since the temperatures in Taichung/Taiwan has been and is still very high causing my skin to dry up, which is causing me to have a break-out of acne; a week before I go to South Korea to see my girlfriend. So, as an attempt to improve the health of my face’s skin I bought an expensive product which cost me $700NT, which is around $24USD or £14GBP. I don’t usually buy cosmetic products, so for me, that is expensive, also the day before I bought other cosmetics (COSTmetics) products which in total brings the cost of cosmetic product buying to $2000NT in two days.
Here are a few pics I took on my small trip to these places:
This a picture I took inside the train on the way to Dounan. Dounan and Douliu are considered countryside towns, and are quite small, however they do have the all Taiwanese night markets; even though they are small places.
A really long bridge which stretches across a dried out river, only the small river at the bottom of the pictures seems to be active. However the larger part kind of looks like a gauge, however all the water seems to have disappeared.
斗南火車站
Dounan Train Station / 斗南火車站. I took this picture outside Dounan Station.
Outside the station there was some sort of event where youngsters were dancing on a stage.
Outside 斗南火車站. The said dancers, dancing on said stage. The girls were … not bad. 😛
On my way to Douliu. Could this be Mars after it has been terraformed?
Arrived in Douliu/斗六! Then I went around shopping and looking at things! Not really an interesting place, and I only stayed there for an hour.
Taxis everywhere outside the station in Douliu/斗六!
Outside Douliu Train Station/斗六火車站. A somewhat long of shops, selling perfume, cosmetics, clothes, drinks, food and whatever. lol
This is the said “somewhat long road”!
I bought this moisturizer for my skin while conversing in Chinese. Luckily the girl I was speaking to could speak English so if she didn’t understand I was able to tell her what I actually meant. Hopefully this does something to improve my bad skin situation.
