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Glynn's Dinns, Travels And Reviews., Maokong Gondola, mt gravatt (2026)

21/08/2021

After many months, it's time to review a new Cafe in Alderley.
Located across from the Coles, The Crispy Kale has recently reopened after lockdown offering sit down brunch.
Today we enjoyed the salmon benedict and zucchini fritters which are excellent serves filling us up, and amazingly delicious! Coffee is also made with excellent skill.
If you're in the area looking for a sit down weekend breaky, I recommend The Crispy Kale!

29/01/2020

Neuron Scooters; a review.

After attending a very helpful information session at Griffith Uni at Southbank, I decided to ride a Neuron to the bus station.

There's at least 2 types of bike, I chose an older one as the helmet wasn't locked. The app is pretty easy, just scan the QR code and you're off!

Speed is limited to 15kph, which is fine but honestly less fun than Lime's 30kph madness. The ride is much more comfortable with the bigger wheels and larger deck though. This made the ride feel much safer.

To be honest, Neuron feels more like a serious short distance transit option than Lime, which feel more like fun toys. $1 to unlock and 38c a minute is slightly expensive but is similar to a bus ride in zone 1.

Rating 4/5.

13/01/2020

Daydream Believer cafe Bangkok; a review.

Located in a quite back street in downtown Bangkok, this is a lovely little collection of buildings. The coffee shop and restaurant is in a greenhouse type building and is a nice, bright airey space. The food is quite delicious, with the spicy fish fried rice a standout. The iced cherry long black is surprisingly good, the flavours working better than expected.
The cafe is in a 2 story building just behind, and is a bit more western styled, serving a range of homemade cakes and coffees.

Worth the visit if in the area.

03/01/2020

Day 7, The People's Democratic Republic of Lao. 🇱🇦

After waking early we drove up to the border, where we lined up to do the formalities. The Customs official decided to get up me for not having my exit card from the airport, even though it wasn't actually necessary as all the information was on her computer anyway...
After an uncomfortable but short ride over on a bus I had to exchange a small amount of USD and get a very official looking visa in my passport.

We got into our tour van, and were taken to a place making medical creams from some sort of fungus that grows on silkworms. It was not massively exciting.

Next we stopped at That Luang Stupa. A gleaming golden structure standing out in the dusty city. Within the walls is a brief history of the temple, though it is mainly in French and Lao, with paintings or photos depicting the events.
Out front is a statue of the king who united Laos and lead it's first independence from Siamese rule.

Next stop was lunch at a local restaurant. The food is quite similar to North-Eastern Thai, with a subtle French influence. More herb-y overall flavour profile than Thai often has.

After lunch, off to the Patuxay Monument. A triumphal arch in Asian style built to commemorate those who died in the Laos war of independence. The arch has several floors, each with stores selling souvenirs, with a main top floor opening out for excellent views of the rather flat city. There's also a small central turret, though the small windows make it not a poor viewing platform.
On the top courtyard a pair of young monks asked to practice some English, my only experience with the locals was very warm and welcoming, the two men very friendly.
The monument is in a square which this time had a sculpture made of crockery depicting rampaging elephants and That Luang. There's also a fountain built by China as a sign of friendship though it wasn't working today.

Also turns out ANZ has a branch in Vientiane, which would be possibly convenient if we were there a while!

Back into the van, we went off to the next destination, Wat Phra Kaew, one of the main temples and a museum of Buddhist sculptures. This was not as impressive or interesting as the previous stops, and as it seems the tour would be to similar temples we decided to shorten the trip a bit.

At the Thai Border is a small casino offering punters the chance to play some pokies and electronic roulette. Unimpressive by Western standards, it was still a lot of fun for those of us not familiar with gambling. A few reasonable wins for the family before bussing back to Thailand!

Impressions of Laos; a dusty place though seems up and coming. Possibly would have been better with a different tour operator so we didn't waste the first hour and had a bit more variety in sightseeing. Laos is, however, like Thailand's less developed cousin.

02/01/2020

Day 6, down by the Mekong.

Today was taken to explore Nong Khai, or base in Thailand on the Laos Border.
A smallish city with lovely views of the river and a large temple dedicated to the Buddhist Hydra who protects the river. We looked around this riverside area and went to a local palmreader to get our fortunes. The result was the usual somewhat vague positive reinforcements, however it was quite interesting to get this taste of the culture.
We also snacked on fried insects, which are actually crisp and delicious!

For lunch we ate at Daeng Vietnamese restaurant, the region like Laos across the border, has a Vietnamese influence from the time of the Vietnam War. A tasty but small range of Viet foods, all with a significant Thai twist were enjoyed, service is quite good.

After wandering through markets, we headed back to the house were the local grog, a rice whisky of sorts, was sampled. It's certainly an acquired taste.

01/01/2020

Day 5, a reflection upon the importance of infrastructure.

We drove all day, over 500 km passed Unon Thani, near the Laos Border.

Being a major holiday, the roads were packed and moving slowly. It was a gruelling trip in an overloaded car.

We eventually got to the home of one of the Brother-in-law's girlfriend in the countryside.

30/12/2019

Day 4, 1 out of 1 medical practitioners of ROC recommend not eating squid on a stick.

I did not sleep well due to not knowing, and thus not heeding this information. I tried to find an open chemist around 9 to no avail as Taipei opens at 10 so proceeded to the local hospital. The helper people, a kindly old man and middle age woman spoke zero English but were excellent. The registrar nurse spoke broken English and helped me fill my forms to see the doctor. She asked if I ate any street food? Seafood? Yes, squid. Ok, next time maybe don't... chears doc. Having been issued medication and paid approximately the amount I would for the doc at home after Medicare, I headed back to the hotel.

We went out to try to kill time and to help my poor stomach settle a little. Having a bunch of coins and small notes we tried to win something from the claw machines. Eventually we got our new penguin friend!

We walked through the Metro Mall near the Main Station where our Navigator added to her Disney figurine collection and got a few gifts.

We also found a beautiful old area of town with various government departments and the like, that led us to the Japanese shrine. Including a small museum of the city's history it's a small peaceful area in the busy city.

Our wanderings got us to the main park, with the National Museum inside. The park is an other nice green space with various interesting things inside. We took a rest at a pagoda and watched the fountain show, then after a bit headed inside the museum.
Styled in a Western classical fashion, the museum is a moderate size, though was undergoing display changes. On the ground floor was a display, oddly enough, of contemporary Arnhemland Artworks on loan from the National Gallery of Australia! On floor 3 is a moderate sized overview of the history and culture of Taiwan focused more on the Japanese period, though touching on the Chinese Imperial period and native cultures. Though not massive, it is worth a look through to appreciate Taiwan's links to Japan and understand why the Taiwanese are more similar to their Northern neighbours than their Mainland cousins.

Soon it was time to go to get our transfer to the airport.

More photos of today will come soon!

29/12/2019

Day 3, Care for a spot of tea old champ?

Despite myself having a less than ideal reaction to the Raohe market food, we headed out to the Taipei Zoo to transfer to the Maokong Cablecar. A really spectacular 4 stop trip up into the hills above Taipei, with incredible views this ends up in the historic tea growing area of Taiwan.
Here we wandered down the small road until we came across Master Chang Tea hall where we met an American couple and sampled a range of delightful teas. The family still runs the hall and has a true passion for the tea they serve. Total worth the detour.

After enjoying our tea and making some purchases, we went back to the area next to the cable car station where more tea houses are located. Here we had a light meal and full tea at the spectacular Yuan Xu Yuan teahouse, complete with koi pond and lacquered wood booths. The tea was excellent, the food was fine though we just had some onion rings it came with a small salad dressed with a zesty and fresh citrus.

Returning to town, we stopped at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. An expansive traditional styled square flanked by the National Theatre, the National Concert Hall, CKS's pagoda and the Liberty Arch. Quite pretty in the late afternoon, though quite busy it's a welcome respite from the city crush.
We also went to Chun Shui Tang under the Concert Hall for a small snack and bubble tea. This was actually very nice, the tea delicate yet flavourful and the shaomei full of flavours.

Suffering from some sort of food poisoning, I turned in early. Our navigator went to get some snacks from 7-11, which I had a small taste of, that are all surprisingly not only edible but also tasty!

More soon.

28/12/2019

Day 2, Up to Yangminshan.

Today we followed our planned trip out of the city up to the Yangmingshan area. A forest on the side of a volcano easily accessible from the city by bus.

We reached the main bus station and started walking up towards the Visitor Centre through the forest. The forest is very green and lush, but our path was mainly steps and no view. This made us decide instead to get the minibus up to the fumerols. This is an area of active sulfer geysers spraying out eggy gases and is a little more interesting. If visiting this area, take the courtesy bus to your planned locations if you don't want to hike!

Next we went down into Beitou, a former Japanese onsen town still with historic buildings intact. Firstly we explored the renovated Onsen, a small yet fairly interesting museum next to a park through which the creek runs through that is fed by the hot spring.
Next we visited the Ketagalan Cultural Centre, a museum dedicated to the native peoples of Taiwan where we learned a little about the Austronesian heritage and enjoyed making a little clay sculpture to add to the museum's collection. Beitou should have more time than a couple of hours as it has more interesting things to see.

This evening we went to Raohe night markets. Right at the entrance is the Songshan Xiahai Chenghuang temple. This is a deceptively massive complex mainly dedicated to the Taoist pantheon with a level for the Buddhist gods. A helpful young man going by Howard gave us a very informative tour and was paid simply by practicing his decent English, this really made the temple more interesting as we got to hear about it from a local. Absolutely worth the visit!

Going into the markets, we were somewhat confused as the Pepper Bun stall at the entrance has a massive queue that we mistook for the entrance queue. Finally figuring it out, we entered.
This market is a lot seedier than Ximen, more linear and honestly less "fun" despite the traditional style. We tried a range of foods, including squid, the previously mentioned pepper buns, a competitors buns and praised pork. We decided the non-famous bun was the best, though the pork was really good. Sadly something didn't agree with me, as you will read about in the next edition. Not amazing and also potentially lethal.

We continued our wandering to visit Taipei 101 to take some photos and look in the extremely swanky shopping centre. Deciding NT$600 just to go up top was exorbitant, we wandered about a little more before heading for the hotel.

25/12/2019

A Formosan Sojourn, day 1.

We started our day at Brisbane International which is what it is, though could do with a makeover.

Our EVA air flight was fairly comfortable, not much turbulence despite the recent storms. Staff is a little brusque, however the meals are not bad and the seats comfortable.
For dinner I had roast chicken, potatoes and steamed veg. Could have done with a little more salt, but not too bad. The Navigator had braised pork which was much more flavoursome. Breakfast we both had chicken and mushroom congee, with little bits of ginger was actually very nice.
EVA didn't exactly live up to it's SKYTRAX 5 stars with a 4.

We dropped our bags at the hotel, which is reasonable for a budget hotel, a full review will come at checkout.

Taiwan feels a lot more like Japan or perhaps Singapore than it does China. The weather is humid and warm, even on Christmas day, we Queenslanders walking around in our T-shirts quite comfortably. Traffic is actually pretty smooth and scooterists aren't maniacs making ths place seem quite safe.

Next stop, Addiction Aquatic Development at the Taipei Fish Market.
A semi-maze of food stations, premade goodies, raw seafood and even an area with live creatures. We went into the sushi section for lunch. We ordered oysters, a sashimi selection, grilled king crab leg and uni roe. Everything was incredibly fresh and delectable, the oyster straight out of the water, the sashimi butchered mere moments before, the crab possibly still attempting to kill an apprentice minus a leg, and the uni roe so delicate. Our waiter was also very good, funny and kind. We also got a cheesecake and a croquette to take away. Absolutely worth the rather high price! 5/5.

Next stop, Bopiliao Historic Block. A fascinating area of preserved buildings from the Qing settlement made into an interactive museum. Worth a wander through.

Nearby is Longshan Temple. A beautiful traditional temple, dedicated to gods tasked with bringing good fortune and luck. Located in the old village, the temple attracts worshippers and sightseers from all over the city.

We had a bit of a nap next, then...

Ximen Night Markets.
A riot of food stalls, high end brands, cheap knockoffs, nick nacks, collectables and rigged claw machines. The area is bustling, and fun to walk around looking at the shops and eating random snacks. Anyone coming to Taipei needs to check it out.

We had some crispy chicken and squid first at J&G near the entrance which is well seasoned. 4/5 for not being boneless.
Xing Fu Tang tea is pretty good with a nice foam and pearls. 3.5/5
Ay-chung rice noodle, quite famous and has a long line, it is actually very tasty and lived up to hype. 4.5/5.
Tiger sugar iced tea, also super famous, however is actually fairly average to what we can get at home, though not too sweet which raises it. 3/5.
We also had grilled beef, stuffed chicken and pork sausage from random trolleys that are around. These are all quite tasty and super cheap. 4/5.
Stay tuned for more!

Glynn's Dinns, Travels And Reviews.

21/08/2021

29/01/2020

13/01/2020

03/01/2020

02/01/2020

01/01/2020

30/12/2019

29/12/2019

28/12/2019

25/12/2019

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