I won the Taiwanderful award 2010!

I'm Best Taiwan Blog 2010 by popular vote

Ladies and Gents, we won the Best Taiwan Blog Award 2010 hosted by Taiwanderful.com! Yes, we actually did it. And believe it or not, we won 3 awards by popular vote: The Best Overall Taiwan Blog, Best General Taiwan Blog and Best Northern Taiwan Blog. Woohoo! Thank you so much for every vote you have cast for me. I am almost lost for words.

But I still have to say something to all of you. I really don't know where to start and who to thank, because so many of you have voted and spread the word to your friends, who have voted as well, be it Taiwanese, Slovenian or from all over the world. So thank you and I mean all of you. Amazing, how it all went viral so fast. With that said, I really need to dedicate a special thank you to my lovely girlfriend Lily, who helped me win this one, because she fired up so many of her friends. I would not win this one without her - she's truly gold. And combined with my own friends and readers, we reached the incredible number of 619 votes, 115 more than the blog that made it to second place. I would love to mention everyone of you, but the list would be endless, so I'll only mention few, who went out of their way to help me get more votes, namely Saša, Fui Fa, Ade, Roni, Stefanie and Joanne, thanks a lot guys and girls. This competition showed how many friends I have and how many people appreciate the effort I put in this blog. I really felt that every vote was cast with love and appreciation and that's truly the best Christmas present I ever got. You guys are my Santa this year, everyone of you. Thanks for spreading the love and you can be sure that I'll return it whenever I can. Really really thank you! 謝謝! This award is yours and mine, we won it together. We're awesome ;-)

And since the whole idea behind the competition was to highlight some great English language blogs about Taiwan, I want to share my favorite 3 here. I actually don't follow that many Taiwan bloggers, but the few I do are really top notch, if you ask me. These are my personal winners this year:

1. Steven Vigar photography: He's just purely amazing. If I'm ever half the photographer he is, then I'm already a photography god. His portraits are amazing, you have to check them out. Steven is extremely talented and nice and I think he would equally deserve to win the top award this year. Follow him, you'll love his pics.
   
   
2. Yellow Fever, Foreign Moons: This blog features multiple writers, who share stories about relationships between foreigners and Taiwanese. Sometimes the stories are weird, sometimes funny, but always very blunt. And every post is translated in Chinese. The debates can get heated up, but it's definitely a good read. Please follow, that blog deserves more comments and readers.
   
   
3. Josh in Taiwan: Another awesome photographer, who makes incredible phots. Sadly, I'll never be able to make them as good as he does, but luckily that's not something I aspire. Josh sees so much beauty in every detail, his photos are truly magical. He could easily win a peer-judged award, had he been more visible these days.

You can also follow David's and Fili's blog, they're the ones that organized the Taiwanderful Blog Award 2010. Thank you guys for bringing together so many great bloggers, who are passionate about Taiwan. I hope 2011 will be a great year for all of us and for the R.O.C., that'll turn 100 years. Looking forward to many great articles and blog posts. If you're interested in following some other Taiwan blogs, go here and check the blog directory.

So what can you expect from me in 2011? As far as Taiwan goes (and I'm not only gonna blog about that), I plan to visit every bigger night market in and around Taipei and introduce them. I'll make tons of pics, write reviews, recommend the best food and then make a list. Another thing I plan to do is to visit every museum in Taipei (and elsewhere if given the chance) and then blog about that, too. The third thing I plan are my travelogues. I wanna visit so many places I haven't seen yet, such as Tainan (I've only been there 2 hours at night), Hualien, Chiayi, Miaoli, Nantou, Taitung, Yilan and many more... Expect pics, tips and funny stories. Besides all that, I'll explore the Taiwanese pop culture, introduce models, singers and other fun stuff. No idea what's in store for me next year, but if everything goes right, my blog will be one of the best resources on Taiwan by the end of 2011. Looking forward to that :) I hope you do, too.

Happy holidays, everybody!

Read also: Taiwanese flooded my blog>>