The Tourism Bureau yesterday launched an online encyclopedia of detailed information about all of the nation’s 13 national scenic areas to help visitors make travel arrangements. At the moment, however, the content on the Web site is only available in Chinese.
The bureau said the Web site was inspired by Wikipedia, and allows travelers to recommend plans for each national scenic area. Travelers are also encouraged to enter updated information on transportation services and accommodation available to tourists.
The bureau asked some of the nation’s travel bloggers to help promote the Web site. As an incentive, those who make recommendations on the Web site can enter a drawing for a prize valued at NT$300.
For more information, visit the Web site at funfungo.taiwan.net.tw.
In related news, Lidao Village (利稻部落) in Taitung County will launch its annual Ear Shooting Festival on June 13.
The village is located at the 176.5km marker on the Southern Cross-Island Highway (南橫公路). A majority of the village residents are members of the Bunun tribe.
The festival is a coming-of-age celebration for the Bunun tribe, where males demonstrate their ability to shoot at the ears of goats, boars and other wild animals.
This year, the village decided to open the festival to tourists and arrange a one-day tour there.
The trip’s tour guide, Dahai (達亥), said the festival begins at 5am, when each family in the village celebrates the harvests by shooting guns in the air. Next, the residents will gather at the playground of Wulu Elementary School in Lidao for the main Ear Shooting Festival activities, which include the ear shooting event and tribal ancestors worship.
For the one-day tour, Dahai said tourists will arrive at the playground by 8am and can join any event as they see fit. In the afternoon, they will visit scenic spots near the village.
The trip costs NT$600 per person, not including transportation and accommodation expenses.
Tourists must register to attend the festival, and the registration deadline is June 8. Those interested in joining the one-day trip can call Dahai at 0915279998.
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
ALLEGED SABOTAGE: The damage inflicted by the vessel did not affect connection, as data were immediately rerouted to other cables, Chunghwa Telecom said Taiwan suspects that a Chinese-owned cargo vessel damaged an undersea cable near its northeastern coast on Friday, in an alleged act of sabotage that highlights the vulnerabilities of Taipei’s offshore communications infrastructure. The ship is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company whose director is Chinese, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. An unidentified Taiwanese official cited in the report described the case as sabotage. The incident followed another Chinese vessel’s suspected involvement in the breakages of data cables in the Baltic Sea in November last year. While fishing trawlers are known to sometimes damage such equipment, nation states have also
RSS