This is very odd.

I'm sitting in my hotel room in Taipei, with the BBC world news service on my enormous plasma TV, and yet when I log into my blogger account, the entire blogger site is in mandarin! It's a good job I know what all the buttons mean...

OK, here's my take after 24 hours in Taiwan.

My flight was good, Singapore airlines were very very generous with the alcomahol, so I slept most of the way. On arrival in Singapore, I was famished (in spite of the 4 jaffa cakes my beautiful wife had secreted in my laptop bag) so I headed for the food court. There wasn't much open at 5am at Changi Airport, so I gritted my teeth and ordered a Whopper Meal. I took two bites and couldn't face any more.

Then off to Taipei, and landed at 12.30pm, through perhaps the thickest smog I have ever seen. I was told it was pretty good for this time of year. I was greeted by a chaufeur bearing my name, and was escorted to my limo - a stretch lexus!

Not sure what I was expecting in Taiwan, but hordes of luxury cars was not one of them. I got to my hotel an hour or so later, and I crashed. Big time. I hit the sack with the intention of getting up a couple of hours later, and going out to see the start of the 'Lantern Festival', celebrating the end of the Chinese Lunar New Year for the next couple of weeks. However, I next rose from my pit at 5am - some 14hours later!

I was met at the hotel at 8.30, after perhaps the most luxurious breakfast I have ever had, by the local service manager, and headed off to work. And here I am now, some 13hours later. These guys work long hours, I'll give them that. Our evening meal tonight was the oddest meal too. It was a 'japanese hot pot' whee they bring all the raw food, frozen solid, and embedded in the table at every seat is a heated pot with broth bubbling away. The idea being that you boil your food, then soak it in your own hand-made sauce (I made a stunning satay sauce, surprise surprise!)

Suffice to say that I steered very well clear of all the seafood (I don't want hepatitis, thanks), the chicken was tried just once (eeeew) and stuck exclusively to the beef.

So that's it for now, Taipei is interesting to say the least, bustling, highly industrial, and really quite grubby. There is lots of grey concrete (I suppose accentuated by the leaden skies) and possibly the majority of people wear face masks when out and about. That says a lot.

Anyhow, I'll catch you all soon. I miss home already.