Hive - it's like a new start for everyone. We can forget about the drama, the panic and the pain we had to endure the past month or so and start afresh, hopefully upwards and forwards.
With a new start, it's great that we have the excuse to re-introduce ourselves to each other. So far I've enjoyed reading a lot of self introduction posts and finding out new things about people that I already know. Now I guess its my turn.
Hi, I'm @LivingUKTaiwan.
A bit about LivingUKTawan
I know it looks like a long name at first glance and many people get confused with long names. If you break it down, it's actually pretty simple, and that's why I always add capital letters in certain places Living - UK - Taiwan. I'm from UK and am currently (or was until a month ago) living in Taiwan. Taiwan is a country near China, and to set the record straight, have nothing to do with China nor Thailand. Taiwan is Taiwan, not China, not Thailand. So please, please don't get us mixed up. Ok, that's all the politics talk done for the time being.
I used to live and work in UK and Hong Kong as I have family in both places, but ultimately UK is home home for me. No prizes for guessing who I support at international sporting events.
Me at the London 2012 Olympics
Where am I?
When I got bored of work four years ago, I packed and moved out to Taiwan and have been there ever since. The reason for Taiwan is because it has a low cost of living but a high standard of living. It's not as international or cosmopolitan as many other Asian cities so one thing I do miss is the limited choice of international food stuff, and their exorbitant prices when available. Other than that, Taiwan is a great place to live, the local food is delicious, the locals I met are super friendly, and it has an abundance of natural beauty.
I started blogging when I moved to Taiwan, sharing my new life with friends and families. Then I figured it would be good to document my previous travels before I go to la la land. Even now when I write travel posts, I often have to think "where was this place? What did I do here?" I dread to think what I'll be like in xxx years time if I don't write down my travels now.
What do I do?
Whilst in Taiwan, I try to travel as much as possible, which is four times a year or more when I can afford it. My list of go-to countries around the world keeps on growing especially when I read about all the stunning places other people post about here.
And that brings me to what I do on Hive. Blog of course, as I've mentioned already, mainly travel posts. I've learnt to vlog as well, it's a lot harder than it looks. I'm still learning how to speak naturally in front of the camera, and how to edit videos.
I don't play games. Well, I did try Drugwar (?) and Bread (?) for about a week and then got bored. I don't trade crypto, and despite my commercial finance background, I still get exchange rates mixed up. It doesn't help that most of the rates are against BTC and look like 0.0000xxxx. I can manage 7 or 8 digits before the decimal point, but so many zeroes after the decimal points does my head in 🤕 I have been known to mis type one zero short on one of my rare crypto order, luckily it didn't break my bank 😅
When I'm not creating content, I spend the rest of my time curating for two major guilds on Hive. I have been with Steemitworld since it began in 2016, not long after I joined Steem. We're one of the first curation guilds around, and the first one dedicated to supporting the travel community. We have moved to Hive now and rebranded as @pinmapple. That's the cool Mr Pinmapple, you may have seen him around. If you write about any travel posts from any front end on Hive, you can pin them onto Pinmapple. We curate everyday and upvote all the quality travel content. I hope you do come and join @pinmapple.
The other guild I curate for is @OCD. Many of you will have heard of OCD which stands for Original Content Decentralized. We look for undervalued quality content on Hive and nominate them for support and greater exposure. Many quality authors would have woken up one morning to see their post appear on the OCD daily compilation along with a juicy upvote. If you want to be one of those lucky authors, just keep on producing quality content, and we'll find you!
And now?
As I mentioned earlier on, I've lived in Taiwan for nearly four years and the plan is that I'd be staying there for the foreseeable future till I get bored (I know, me getting bored is a bit of recurring theme). That was and still is the plan, till Covid-19 threw a spanner in everyone's life.
I returned to UK last month, not because I was running away from the virus, because the virus happened in Taiwan way before it landed in Europe. I came back because of the uncertainty, which does not make life easy for people in a foreign country. Originally I thought maybe things will get back to normal in three months time and I can return back to Taiwan. Now I don't know if even six months is feasible.
Anyway, there's nothing that can be done about it. The world just need to work together to ride this crisis out.
I hope you know a bit more about me now, and if you want to do a self introduction post you can check out this post first.
Till then, Hive is Alive, let's make the most of it.
Pauline
@LivingUKTaiwan
You can checkout all my travel post on the Pinmapple here or click on the footer below
