Following on from my earlier post about the wonderful museums of Taiwan I wanted to point out a new museum trend – extended visiting hours. This is part of an international trend in museums and the culture industry. It also means visiting no longer needs to be limited by the usual nine to five opening hours. There are a few museums in Taipei with extended hours.

When I first came to Taiwan back in 1999 I had a copy of the fourth edition of Lonely Planet Taiwan. I have since bought the fifth and sixth editions. The seventh edition of Lonely Planet Taiwan was published in November 2007 and I recently got a copy.

In the last week I have visited a couple of excellent museums in Taiwan. It reminded me that there are many great museums here in Taiwan, big and small. The one in the photo above is the Shihsanhang Museum (十三行博物館) in Bali, Taipei County. The museum seeks to preserve artifacts from the Shihsanhang archaeological site which was Taiwan's first iron smelting site. The museum is also notable for its unique architectural design and surrounding cultural park.

I have just created a new page in David's Guide to Taiwan to highlight the northeast coast . This beautiful stretch of coastline between Keelung and Yilan is packed with interesting attractions. It is easy to get there by car or train from Taipei.

I recently finished a Taiwanese language* course at Shi-Da (NTNU; 師大). At David on Formosa I wrote a post about Taiwanese language learning materials. It contains some information about text books and other resources for learning Taiwanese.

The betel nut pages here at Taiwanderful seem to attract a lot of attention. Sure the women who sell betel nut may be attractive and interesting, but how much thought is given to the product they are selling?

Two recent news articles higlight the negative effects of betel nut on habitual chewers' health. An opinion piece in the Taipei Times by Chang Chin-wen says:

The 2007 Taipei Film Festival (台北電影節) opens on Friday 22 June. It features 280 feature films, documentaries, animation and shorts from around the world.

Today I visited two photo exhibitions in Taipei. The World Press Photo Exhibition (世界新聞攝影展) was in B2 of the Eslite Dunhua Store (敦南成品B2藝文間). The exhibition contains over 200 photos and absorbing all of them and their meaning takes some time. Many of the photos highlight war, conflict and poverty.

At the orientation for Shi-Da yesterday a representative from the National Youth Commission came to introduce the Youth Travel Card. I had known of this card before but because I am over thirty years old I cannot apply. However, after seeing the presentation I really wanted to share the information because there are many special offers that make this card invaluable. The best thing about it is that anyone from the age of 15-30 can apply for it and it's free!

More information about the card can be found at the Youth Travel in Taiwan website (in English, Chinese and Japanese).

For someone new to Taiwan finding a good place to live can seem like a daunting task. It need not be too difficult. The supply of rental accommodation in Taiwan is quite good. As long as you spend a little time looking around you should find something that suits you.