Fat Camp part 5The part about traveling

When I first came to the fat camp, it was supposed to be two weeks, with the option to add two more. I have chosen that option.

I have gained 1.5kg. That might not sound like a lot, and it's not, but after trying unsuccessfully to gain weight for two years, anything is an improvement. Maybe I have learned enough to gain a little more on my own, but I have no doubt that staying here another two weeks will be better for me than going home and falling back into my old routine. Medically, staying here is the right thing to do.

More importantly, I love the basic training aspect. The obstacle course is fun, but the self-defense classes are life changing. My krav maga instructor lives in Taiwan, so I will have to leave him sooner or later, but he recommended a class in Hong Kong. I don't doubt that I will continued for some time. The lessons are useful and great exercise.

I'm also taking advantage of how easy it is to travel from Taipei. Hong Kong is an easy city to fly in and out of. The airport is enormous and there are direct flights to at least 146 cities in 48 countries on 5 continents. Taipei's international airport is not as big, but I was more than a little surprised to learn that they have flights to over 100 cities in at least two dozen countries. Whether flying from Hong Kong or Taipei, most of the destinations seem to be the same. Not surprisingly, both airports have more flights to China than any other country. What I find interesting is that Taipei goes to far more cities in China. Obviously, there are no flights to Hong Kong from Hong Kong, but Taipei gets you to almost every city you can fly to from Hong Kong, with an additional 20 cities you can only reach from Taipei. Shenzhen, Macau and Jieyang are too close to warrant an international flight from Hong Kong, but cities like Harbin, Shenyang, Xuzhou, Hefei, Lanzhou and Lijiang are very far from Hong Kong, yet cannot be reached directly by plane.

You can get to roughly the same number of Japanese cities from Hong Kong or Taipei, but mostly not the same cities, other than the largest – Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Sapporo, Hiroshima.

Outside of China and Japan, Hong Kong is the better airport. You can only get to one city in the Middle East from Taipei – Dubai – while there are eight different options from Hong Kong. Europe is overwhelmingly in Hong Kong's favor. Every city available from Taipei is also an option from Hong Kong, except Vienna, while Hong Kong has an additional 10 European cities. For whatever reason, neither Hong Kong nor Taipei is the best airport for flights to North America. You can fly to Toronto and Vancouver from either, but less than a dozen American cities from both airports combined. Only Hong Kong has flights to Africa. Neither have any flights to South America.

Currently, it makes no difference whether I fly out of Hong Kong or Taipei. A large chunk of the world is unavailable at the moment, and most of the countries that are open have a long list of restrictions. Large parts of Europe are closed to all visitors. A few airports are only blocking flights from certain countries. I can still go to Prague, Athens and more than a few eastern European cities. Most of the Middle East is completely shut off, but I can go to Jordan, Bahrain and Turkey. Iran is open, oddly enough, but there were never flights from Hong Kong or Taipei. A large number of South American and Central American countries would let me in, but my airports don't fly to that part of the world. Maybe that is why they will let me in. I can always go to the United States, legally, but I can't think of any reason I would want to go there right now.

Maybe this is the best time to finally take a trip to Africa. More than a few African countries are open to all, or at least some of us. One of the worst parts about traveling to crowded places is how crowded it gets. This might be the best time to avoid all of that.

Then again, I am not at the fat camp to fly around the world. Maybe I should stick to day trips around Taiwan. Fortunately, I can reach anywhere in the country by train, bus or boat.