TRAVEL
Taichung-Okinawa flight
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, is to launch direct flights between Taichung and Okinawa, Japan, starting today, the Taichung City Government announced yesterday. The route would utilize an Airbus A321neo aircraft with 188 seats, creating new international tourism opportunities for Taichung, while serving 7.3 million central Taiwan residents and travelers from Japan, the city government said in a news release. Starlux said it would operate four round-trip flights weekly on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Flights to Okinawa would depart from Taichung at 12:30pm and arrive at Naha Airport at 3pm local time, while return flights would leave at 4pm local time and land in Taichung at 4:50pm, the airline said.
TOURISM
Taipei 76th in top 100 list
CNN Travel on Saturday reported on a list compiled by global marketing experts ranking the top 100 cities in the world for next year, which includes Taipei. The piece introduced next year’s World’s Best Cities report, created by international marketing consultancy Resonance in collaboration with global market research company Ipsos. The report was compiled using statistics from a survey of 22,000 respondents in 30 countries combined with data ranking cities based on the indicators of livability, lovability and prosperity. In the report, Taipei placed 76th after receiving a score of 51 for lovability and 56 for livability. “From urban jungle to real-life nature, Taipei serves up a balanced landscape of future-defining tech manufacturing and its coveted good life,” the report said. The report introduced Taiwan’s capital as a foodie heaven that ranked 22nd in the list’s food category.
SOCIETY
Woman dies in Daan blaze
A 53-year-old woman died from a fire in a 17-story public housing building in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) in the early hours of yesterday morning. Seventeen fire trucks, four command vehicles and four ambulances were dispatched to Fuxing S Road after authorities received a report of the blaze at 4:14am. First responders extracted a mother and son from the 16th-floor unit, where the fire started. The mother, a 53-year-old, identified by her surname, Chueh (闕), was taken to nearby Cathay General Hospital, where she was pronounced dead after efforts to restart her heart failed. Her 19-year-old son was found conscious and is receiving treatment. Forty-five residents were also evacuated from the fire with the assistance of more than 60 police and firefighting personnel. The fire was extinguished by 4:49am. The cause of the blaze is still under investigation.
SCIENCE
Inventors win 108 medals
A delegation of inventors from Taiwan won a total of 108 medals at the annual Seoul International Invention Fair, which ran from Wednesday to Saturday. Led by the Taiwan Invention Association, the 220-strong Taiwanese delegation took 41 gold, 42 silver and 25 bronze medals at the event in South Korea. Taiwan’s inventors secured their record-breaking achievement in competition with over 500 entries from 32 countries. Taiwan submitted 112 inventions this year. A younger team from Keelung’s Mingchuan Junior High School won four golds, four silvers and a bronze for a wide range of ideas, including a smart medicine container that reminds owners to take their pills.
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
HOLIDAY EXERCISE: National forest recreation areas from north to south offer travelers a wide choice of sights to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits Hiking is a good way to improve one’s health, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency said, as it released a list of national forest recreation areas that travelers can visit during the Lunar New Year holiday. Taking a green shower of phytoncides in the woods could boost one’s immunity system and metabolism, agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) cited a Japanese study as saying. For people visiting northern Taiwan, Lin recommended the Dongyanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Taoyuan’s Fusing District (復興). Once an important plantation in the north, Dongyanshan (東眼山) has a number of historic monuments, he said. The area is broadly covered by
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