Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Six Degrees Series 3: Taipei

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I enjoyed the relaxed style of the DVD a great deal. Taking vidio snapshots of various people's lives in Taipei appealed to me. The scenes and neighborhoods contributed to my excitement for my upcoming trip. This isn't a "museum" or "monument" guide but instead gives a bit of flavor for the culture and experience opportunities that can be had. I didn't feel that I couldn't recreate the experiences for myself and I am looking forward to the trip.

Clocking in at 52 minutes this DVD is part of the Lonely Planet 6ix Degrees series that attempts to show the sort of quirky cultural and physical experiences you can have in a city outside the mainstream tourist path if you have the right contacts. This episodes host is Asha Gill who scoots around the Taiwanese capital bouncing from off the cuff encounter to off the cuff encounter all based on joining the dots between people she meets. As such it's not really intended as a genuine how to guide. For that you would need one of the more mainstream country or city guides. However if you have read that sort of stuff and want something a little more light hearted, perhaps a touch more enjoyably pointless then this series isn't a bad thing to tap into. They often come up very cheap and if you are lucky enough to be Johny on the spot I'd recommend grabbing one or two just to see if the style suits your style, if you take my meaning.

In reference to this episode, Asha talks to people such a professional funeral mourner to the mayor, from a singer to a 'puppetry connoisseur and in between gets to know some Chinese Civil War veterans squatting in a run down village. So you can't complain about the variety!

As I said, be aware that the formats of these shows are not standard, they really are meant to be something different. I'd watch this to get a fun flavour of a place and pick up a proper city guide to really work out my own trip.