Some more thoughts on the Yamaha TW-225

A Yamaha TW-225 is my motorbike in Taiwan. Although I often refer to it as my toy bike (compared to the BMW F650ST and FZ6 Fazer in Berlin), it has proven to be a very reliable bike.

Before I cam to Taiwan and bought it, I was used to ride the heavy BMW for almost a decade. Ever since driving school at the age of 16, I didn't ride a small/light bike again (at that time a Yamaha DT80). So initially I was skeptical about the TW-255. Sure, for getting from one place to another inside Taipei it is great. But what about riding further distances and/or in the mountains?

To my own surprise I actually think that it is an almost ideal bike for the conditions in Taiwan (at least those that I encountered so far). It is very light, so you can actually manually move it around easily - very important considering the parking conditions in Taipei. The small weight also means that you don't have to throw around much weight on mountain serpentines.

The engine with its 18 horsepowers is also surprisingly strong, even on steep mountain roads. On the other hands, the engine is not too strong, i.e. it is forgiving in case you make any mistakes. You certainly don't make a wheelie or get your rear tire to slide while accelerating. You also don't run into the danger of a rear wheel blocking when shifting down and being a bit too swift with the clutch.

You can almost do anything with (or to!) the bike and it will tolerate it. You can pull the throttle as you want, make mistakes while shifting gears and whatever else. I've experienced many less pleasant situations with my other bikes, but not with the TW-225 despite plenty of opportunity.

As opposed to the ever-so-popular scooters you have a manual gear, much bigger tires, different center of gravity, better suspension (think of potholes), ... - and most of the scooters also have a weaker engine anyways.

The only two weak points that I could find so far:

• The brakes could be much more aggressive, saving important time when you have to do a full stop after some unexpected event in the traffic ahead.
• The seat is ridiculous. I'm by no means tall with my 172cm, but I think the seat TW-225 seat is way too low for me. And god, is it uncomfortable. Not sure if it was designed with an Asian anatomy in mind (the TW-225 is officially selling only in Japan) and if it is less painful for Asians. But thinking of doing more/longer tours through Taiwan, I definitely need a different seat...

Having said this, I'm still looking forward to trying some of the high mountain roads like the central cross-country highway from Hualien to Taichung. Let's see how the carburetor will do once you get to around 3,000 meters of altitude..

A trip to Fulong beach in the northeast of Taiwan

On Saturday I went to Fulong beach. Believe it or not, my first bathing-at-a-beach trip in Taiwan, despite the long time that I spent on this tropical island.

The venue of the beach is really nice (photos will follow later). The water temperature of the pacific ocean felt surprisingly cold to me - but keep in mind that I'm still spoiled by the 28 centigrade warm Atlantic ocean in Pernambuco/Brazil ;)

However, it wouldn't have been a Taiwanese experience if there weren't some strange observations. First of all, I obviously appreciate that there are a number of life guards. But then I found out that they had a rope in the water, which you were not supposed to pass. The problem with that rope, though: It was at a water depth of about 1 meter to 1.10 meter!

So imagine a huge beach, of which there is a small portion separated by this rope floating on the water, and all the people are crammed into the small confinements between the actual waterline and that rope. The sea was incredibly calm, I could not even detect the remotest hint of any underwater currents, the slope of the ground is _very_ flat, but you can't actually get into the water to swim.

The other peculiarity was that the beach closes at 5.30pm. WTF? Especially during those incredibly hot days, why not just stay in the water into the evening or even at night?

So as a summary, I have to say, Brazilian beaches rule in comparison! Nobody to tell you that you cannot go into water deeper 1.10 meters, beaches are always open (there are no private beaches, they're all public), and most part of the day you will get served beverages, alcoholic drinks and fresh food.

So this trip to Fulong beach was certainly an experience I wouldn't want to miss. But not one that I'm likely wanting to repeat again. I now know what it's like :)

Electrical installations in Taiwan

I haven't noted this here yet, but I'm in Taiwan again since two weeks ago. I also have two more weeks of Taiwan ahead, since I decided to stay a full month and go to a Chinese language school. Now don't expect too much, this is basically just to find out whether I really want to seriously learn about the language or not. Four weeks will not get me anywhere, at least not beyond pronunciation drills and very basic sentences + vocabulary.

Anyway let's get to the subject of my posting: During the last couple of days I actually spent a significant amount of time trying to find something that to me is the most normal thing: A 60W 220V light bulb with an E14 socket. But that would apparently only be normal in Europe. Here in Taiwan, the voltage typically is 110V at 60Hz, with US-style power sockets. Basically just like the US or Japan.

However, for some really strange and unknown reason, the particular apartment has both 3 phase 110V and 3 phase 220V. The power sockets are all 110V, whereas the fixed ceiling lights are all 220V.

So apparently sometimes people have 220V lights here, and you can get a limited selection of usual bulbs in 220V type, even though 90% of the light bulbs in the store would be 110V.

I've been to Carrefour, B&Q and Tsan-Kuen (all large super-stores in NeiHu). 220V was really rare, and neither of them had any E14 bulbs (independent of shape) for 220V. So after a lot of wasted time, I then decided that I'm just going to replace the entire lamp socket with an E27 type in order to accommodate a different lamp. My other option would have been to add another E14 socket in series and then use two 110V bulbs attached to 220V mains.

Now the really big question is: Why would anyone have the lighting at 220V whereas the power outlets are running1 at 110? This means you need separate infrastructure, separate lines, transformers, metering devices, circuit breakers, etc. And three simply is no point. I could understand 3-phase 220 is better than 3-phase 110 in case you want to use extremely high-power consumers.