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-   -   Business with Pleasure in the Land of Silicon and Electronic Gadgets - Taiwan (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/85181-business-pleasure-land-silicon-electronic-gadgets-taiwan.html)

Taiwan - an island so small, not even visible on a globe unless one specifically looks for it.

Taiwan - a country which is recognized by some, disputed by some, not acknowledged by some.

Taiwan - Republic of China is different than People's Republic of China

Taiwan - just 120KM from the mainland china (Shanghai shore), but still (used to) take about 4 hours of air travel.

Taiwan - The Pioneer of High Tech Electronics Manufacturing

Taiwan - The heart land of pc motherboards, disk drives, memory cards

Taiwan - Used to be known as Fermosa (= Beautiful Island in Portugese)

This is one more in the "Business with Pleasure" series of logs where i would be collecting my experiences during the business travels to Taiwan. I will be writing about my understanding of the culture, way of living, people behaviours, food, attractions, experiences, learnings, the purpose again is for own future reference as well as benefit of the readers.

I have added here few pictures (proudly) found on wikipedia. I will be adding my own pictures and narration shortly.

001 Image from year 1600 AD - Dutch ships at the Taiwan ports.


002 Modern Icon of Taiwan - Taipei 101 tower


003 Map of Taiwan


I have also attached here the wiki link for the interested souls to know more what is already there in public domain.

Taiwan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Today is my last night at city of Taipei during this visit. Tomorrow after few more meetings, i would be flying back to Bangalore.

I will be spending some 3 hours at Taipei airport, 1.5 hours on flight to Hongkong and 1 hour in transit, another 6 hours on board the flight to Bangalore..lot of time to pen down some more thoughts, experiences and learnings.

Thanks for appreciating my previous "Business with Pleasure" log about Lund, Sweden, i hope you will like this as well, thanks for reading..

Stay tuned..

Taiwan is a place to get DSLRs real cheap. So did you pick any?

Nice beginning to a new thread. You did mention some parts in Kuch Khatta Kuch Meetha. Looking for a consolidated writeup. Nice of you to have started thread.

A query : Is Taiwan known as Republic of China?

The moment I saw "Business with pleasure", I thought who's waking up that old thread, but then I see "Taiwan". Wow, new location, new experience, different business, but the style of narration & the information is going to be the same. As a gesture of appreciation (knowing your style), this is the little thing that I can do & I hope this thread will stay to ***** standard :)

Another great travelogue in the making. So many good threads running in parallel now in t'log section.

P.S. Had I known earlier, would have requested at least check prices of a DSLR ;)

Not only the cams, you get laptops, hard drives, car music systems , watches n all at a give away price.

@Star, looking forward for an excellent written piece again, with loads of good pictures of that land including male and female beaches!!:) Loves your writing style. Wish you a happy journey back home.

Hi Aravind,

AAha another one, cool keep it rolling?

Any plans of picking/fixing BMORN Player you had if possible in Taiwan?

I (am made to) believe that i have all the necessary toys (=read gadgets) at home, needed by any very progressive Indian. One easily imagine who actually convinced me of this simple truth.

Hence I was not looking to buy any stuff this time. Moreover, the schedule was very busy and 3 out of 5 days were spent outside taipei city.

Raghu, the bmorn player was bought in Shenzhen, hence could be repaired only there (hopefully). i am not planning to be in china atleast till September this year.

Thanks for the appreciation. it appears that expectations are very high.
let me think, how i will deliver on these high expectations. During these uncertain business times it is always "under commit, over deliver".

Arindam, i have some price indications for the D90 + accessories. will PM you if you want once i am back in Bangalore.

TB, ROC and PROC are two different Geo-political entities. ROC (= taiwan) consideres itself as an independent country, but PROC (China) considers it as own land and want to bring ROC under it's control just like Hongkong, Macau etc.

Some countries recognize Taiwan as an independent country and has established official government to government (G2G) relationships, official consulates/embasssy, holds official trade talks, has legal-fiscal-crime related agreements etc.

Some other countries (e.g. India) is yet to recognize Taiwan as an independent country. VISA agent (or unofficial trade office) handles the VISA related formalities for both Taiwan (in India) as well as India (in Taiwan).

For the easier understanding, durign the writing of this log, i am going to consider Taiwan as a seperate country. This is also not my public position on this issue while i am in either of the places viz. China or Taiwan. My official position is "No Comments".

I have attached below pictures of how the VISA from both the countries look like.

004 A typical Chinese (PROC) VISA


005 A typical Taiwanese (ROC) VISA


As of now there is no direct transport from India to Taiwan. One needs to travel either through HK or Singapore or Bankok as transit locations.

Date : 3rd July 2010

It was a hectic and long day for me. I had returned from Mumbai at 00:30 hours as my flight got delayed for some blah..blah reason. Since it was a kingfisher RED flight, i had missed my dinner as well, so it took another two hours for me to finish the midnight supper (or is it early breakfast ?), replicate the mails, check for the soccer match results and hit the bed.

The day re-started at 8 AM, Wife had chalked out a programme to be at big bazaar. It was 11 AM when we stepped out of the home. The monthly shopping trip took almost 3 hours, followed by a visit to Shanti-Sagar for the lunch. Reached home by 4 PM after couple of more regular chores.

We had to attend a birthday party some where near whitefield. my cousin's son turned 5 years old. the party was scheduled to start at 6:30 PM, but by the time we left home it was already 6 PM. The drive to whitefield, finding/reaching the venue, attending the party, having dinner,
wishing the assembled relatives, saying good byes, driving back took almost 3.5 hours.

On reaching home, remembered that packing for the week long Taipei trip is still to be done. While packing, the daughter asked series of questions.

Daughter : why are you going to Taipei ?
Me : To attend the business review and visiting customers

Daughter : What is business review ?
Me : It is to discuss how much our company has sold in the last 3 months and to discuss how much more we will sell in next three months

Daughter : What do you do visiting customers ?
Me : We discuss the business, projects, what we need to do etc

Daughter : What will you discuss about business ?
Me : We play the game "business" right ?. Where you buy the hotels, homes, pay taxes etc. Before we actaully play, we discuss how to play the game right. similarly in this meeting we discuss how we will be doing the business in next 3 months.

Daugther : What is Project ?
Me : Dear, last week your class conducted the whole assembly at the schoo isn't it ?
Daughter : Yes
Me : What all you and your friends did for the assembly ?
Daughter : We made the list of activities, who will say what during the assembly, who will come first on stage, who will come next, then we made a document of what each one would say during his/her turn, typed it in the word sheet, took two printouts, then got it checked by the teacher the next day and distributed to all the students in our class. Practiced it and on wendensday conducted the assembly.

Me : The whole thing what you did is called a project. similarly we would discuss what project we would do together with the customer.

Daughter : Why you and customers have to assemble and pray ?
Me : No dear, we will not pray, but we will discuss what we will do together so that both we and customers can earn more money

Daughter : Then why are you packing this beach wear ?
Me : Our meeting is in a beach resort
Daughter : Is it like Ganpatipule ?
Me : No, i dont know, it is some 1 hour drive from Taipei city towards north side

Daughter : But you said you will visit customers ?
Me : Yes, but for first two days, we will have our own meeting at the resort and then for next 3 days we will have meetings with the customers.

Daughter : For that why you have to go to beach resort ?, you can have meeting at your office ?
Me : This meeting is called offsite meeting. It is being conducted on a beach resort away from office so that we can all think better plans, creative things just like you children did in your summer classes. Summer class was different than school is it not.
Daughter : Yes, in summer class there was no homework, we could do what ever we want
Me : Same here as well, We can do everything what we want to do, but business should increase.

Daughter : okay, When you will come back ?
Me : On friday night
Daughter : What time ?, i want to remain awake
Me : No dear, you don't have to. by the time i reach home it would be 3 AM
Daughter : That long i can not stay awake, okay i will wake you up at 8 AM on saturday.
Me : ok dear.

by the time this conversation ended, my packing also got over, checklist got reviewed and everything was set thanks to the better half. Meanwhile parents called, After the interogation by the grand daughter, it was turn of grandma to ask all Ws & Hs and my turn to repeat the answers. I bid goodbye to all and boarded a Volvo to the BIAL.

20 minutes drive to the airport, and another 20 minutes to enter the airport building, to check in and handover the luggage, collect the boarding pass, for the immigration, customs, security and settle into King fisher sports bar. Things are really getting faster here at BIAL.

Kingfisher sports bar was full of football and fermented barley juice lovers watching the match on the LCD TVs. Paraguay Vs Spain match resulted in Spain moving into semi finals and the sports bar getting empty within seconds of match getting over.

I am witnessing specialized lounges/bars coming up. Karoake bar is popular in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China already. Beach bars and the fine dining ones are well known. Some of the new age ones are Sports bar (watch as well as play), Book/Library bar, Gaming bars, health&fitness bars
are also catching up. One can easily conclude anything combinging good food/drinks, friends, activities and indulgence is bound to become a popular cocktail.

Airport is a place one often meets old friends, ex-colleagues (sometimes current collegues as well). Waiting time can often be some of the best conversational moments one can have. I also met few of my old colleagues who were on way to US and were boarding the same flight to HK.

Soon the boarding got announced (15 minutes late departure), long queue got quickly dispensed with by the efficient ground staff and i settled into my seat by 2:50 AM.

I do not remember even the flight taking off.

@star,

eager to read about your business on beach!!!:D

I have to brace up for barrage of such questions from my daughter when she grows up. It's funny when you think back how come kids know more questions than number of answers we know! :D
I had a friend who went to Korea. So I kept asking him questions about customs, people, history, cameras and things like that of Korea. Suddenly he declared, "One more question and you'd have asked more than my son".
Funny enough.

Thanks a lot for information on PROC and ROC.

This is a recent trip of yours and that too on a beach resort. This one sounds interesting.

you will automatically learn when the time comes. only thing you need to take care is to be truthfull and consistant. Children have vast and long standing memory. They are quick to learn and emulate their elders.

Give me some time, friends, what ever i had typed till now has been posted. I am yet to transfer the pictures from the phone/camera and sort them. Will try to upload asap.

I think i slept like a log throughout the flight. i was woken up by the flight attendent while pre-landing checks were being carried out. Hongkong is an amazing place. I have been to Hongkong several times till now. pleanty of times in transit, several times inside the city. May be some time in future i will write about my experiences in Hongkong as well.

A little over an hour of transit time was just enough for me to de-board the flight, complete the security checks, reach the boarding gate, get myself freshened up at the nearby rest room, pick up a cup of coffee from the Starbucks and finish the same while watching the happenings
over the tarmac.

Soon boarded the flight to Taipei, one hour 15 minutes flight was un-eventful. I had forgotten to reserve the indian veg meal, so had to forgo the meal as they had only one option that was a meat sandwich. After landing, temperature check, imigration, currency changing, baggage
collection, customs, finding the airport pick up driver, exiting the airport, boarding the car, drive into Taipei city, checking to the hotel and getting into the room took almost over an hour.

Quickly ordered a lunch ... Vegitariana Pizza, which was delivered by the time i cameout of the shower. By the time i finished the pizza, replicated the mail, caughtup with the news, got ready to leave it was 5.30 PM.

It was time for my mandetory visit to Ganghua Plaza - Electronic/PC market.

I have already covered the details about the Taiwan PC market in my previous log. I have attached the link to the post here. This also includes my visit to Taipei night market as well as some glimpses of Taipei city and some of my comments

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...-meetha-8.html
Refer to post #61, #62, #64, #68, #69, #70 for the details.

This time the difference was iPADs were openly available. iPAD+3G+16 GB versions were available for 36000NT$ (~RS51000+) and 32GB memory version available for 39000NT$ (~ RS55500/-). More than iPADs, the accessories for iPADs dominated the major displays, waterproof covers, jackets, carry cases, multimedia accessories viz. speakers, docking stations, keyboards mouse/trackballs, etc etc were available from taiwanese brands as well as from global ones.

This time i spent a bit more time to check out the DSLRs and the accessories. Shop keepers were not found to be keeping the stocks of Nikkon cameras. When asked why, they told me that Nikkon range is expected to be revamped any time. hence they don't want to be held up with stocks.

I checked for the prices of tripods, tripad heads, DSLR backpacks, lens and some camera models. But i will not upload them here, if any one needs the info, i can provide them some ball park information.

I was feeling sleepy, so i returned to the hotel by 9 PM. Next day was again going to be a long day. I had to checkout from the hotel and reach office by 7:30 AM to join the bus to the beach resort. So had a quick dinner and hit the bed.

Coming up next.. business on beach..

:)

If one is truthful, one need not be consistent. Consistense is more of a quality needed when one is not truthful :D
The nikon revamp would be a dampener on proud nikon owners here.