Tam-shui River, Taiwan

Another river for today, this one running through Taipei, Taiwan's capital.

It is one of the few rivers in the island that flows along a north-south direction, with a total length of 159 km.
Unfortunately, it is heavily polluted by both raw sewage and industrial pollution from illegal industry. Clean up and natural river restoration is on the agenda of the Taipei City Government, Taiwan Central Government and several citizen organizations.

I guess a river couldn't really be proud of itself when among the scarce information you find about it, one refers to its pollution.
However, the view at dusk is really nice.

a lovely cat stamp from a set of four stamps issued in 2005 featuring cats and dogs.

Taipei, Taiwan

the next card comes from Taiwan, and it shows the largest bookstore in the country, located in Taipei.

the bookstore has six stories above ground and two basement floors, with over 300,000 titles and more than a million books, covering publications in Mandarin, simplified Chinese, English, Japanese and European languages. And the best part of it all is that it is open 24/7...so you can drop by and read a book whenever you feel like it...esp on a rainy day as I presume it is when this picture was taken...at least that's the impression I get thru that window in the back :)

The other day I finished A Heart so White. Hmm, well, it is a good book...and I did find myself wanting see what's going to happen on the next page and how it is going to end and all...it ended a bit, well, I dont know, all of a sudden...you have odd events happening and things culminating until like the last 10 pages of the book, and then all of a sudden everything calms down and ends...on top of that, the book had not seen a proof-reader...or had seen a very careless one, coz all I kept doing was catching spelling and orthography mistakes...and as I was getting ahead with the book, the percentage of mistakes per page was increasing...and last, but not least, the syntax and construction of the sentences was sometimes confusing and made it difficult to figure it out what is he trying to say actually.
Still, it is not a bad book...you just need to find the right copy to read it...probably in Spanish would be the best if you are able to :)
So now, finally I can get down to Kafka on the Shore by Murakami

there are two really nice stamps on the card! First one belongs to a set of 20 stamps under the theme 'Wishes, Tourism, and Traffic'. It was issued in 2011. The other one is from a set of 5 deep-sea creatures' stamps, issued in 2012 and this one here shows is the Regalecus glesne...or in a more understandable language, the giant oarfish.

Taipei, Taiwan

Well, since we already mentioned Taiwan above, lets give him a whole post indeed...

The card shows the Jong-Shan Building in Taipei....and unfortunately thats the only info I could give you about it...when I search for it, google keeps asking me, 'but did you actually mean something else'....so I gave up :)
Still, the building is really nice, and I really love the style of the Asian ones.

Thats all for today....I had another card in mind, but I figured it out I had made some mix up with the countries, so I left it for another time.

Taipei, Taiwan (03)

This card seems more as if painted than as if photographed due to the colours

It shows a night view of  the Dajhih Bridge in Taipei, Taiwan...

The Dajhih Bridge is one of Taipei city’s new landmarks. It is the first cable-stayed bridge with a single pylon in the shape of a fishing rod in the city. It was partially opened to traffic in June 2002. In January 2003, the main span was opened to traffic. The bridge has a total length of 820 meters and eight-lanes, with two-way traffic. It is an important bridge connecting the Dajhih district to other parts of Taipei. At night, when its red cables and pylon are illuminated, it resembles a dazzling work of large outdoor art that sets off the beautiful scenery of neighboring Keelung River Park.

Taipei, Taiwan

I abso- abso- absolutely love this card! The colours are just soooooooo perfect!!! The view is just lovely!! Its a card ticked off my wishlist thanks to Shu-i!


It shows the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall, which has just changed its name from C.K.S Memorial Hall not so long ago.
You can also see two pretty Chinese style buildings. The left one is the national theatre, and the right one is the national concert hall.
All 3 buildings on the card just make it sooo great for me!

Taipei, Taiwan

Taipei city in Taiwan

And on the card you see Taipei 101 which is the tallest (completed) skyscraper in the world with 508m. .
This skyscraper has also been hailed as one of the Seven New Wonders of the World, and Seven Wonders of Engineering.
The building stands as an icon of Taipei and Taiwan as a whole. The building contains 101 floors above ground and 5 floors underground.
The '101' has several references: the 101 floors, then, 101 is the postal code of Taipei's international business district, and the number also evokes the binary numeral system used in digital technology.
Hmmm, quite interesting relations to 101 (there are some more though).
I think Taiwan should be proud with this...I dont doubt that the view from the top is amazing...and breathtaking....would love to stand on it someday...I just hope there wont be an earthquake for the time being :))