101 Challenges:

Three days ago we finally pulled ourselves away from Manila and, after enduring yet another agonising two-and-a-half-hours of Lindsay’s in-flight squirming and screaming, Lee was happy to be back on land… but now in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. He wasn’t as happy as Lindsay though – Paul McKenna can you help him? Lee? Any airline passenger that may accidentally be placed next to the sweating and trembling oaf?

On first impressions, this is a very impressive little ole city. Very clean, very busy but very efficient – everything runs like clock work - and to best describe it, it’s probably a bit like a small Tokyo (although we can’t truly compare because we haven’t been to Japan yet) But, it does have huge bright signs (the electricity bill here must be massive!) adorning every doorway and stacked onwards and upwards on every building with squiggly writing (possibly Chinese) and we’ve seen things like that in Japan on the telly.

What surprised us is, despite most of the signs here being in hieroglyphics, is that it’s very easy to get around thanks to the underground. What initially looks like a game of “Snake” on drugs, turns out to be a rather fluent and easy guide/map of the miles-upon-miles of subways.

Despite the excitement of being in a new country, Lindsay’s been feeling a little home sick over the past few days (missing his teddy and easy fat girls probably) and was in desperate need of a good cuppa. So, we decided to bring the “All the Tea in China” Challenge forward to Taiwan.

We heard there was a tea plantation on the outskirts of the city so, we hopped on a train and hopped on a bus to go and visit it. We hoped to have a nice day out in the fields and hoped to educate ourselves and you too, on the processes of how tea bags are made. What better place to go? Well as it turned out, anywhere else on earth would be better.

We were to “see how the leaves are harvested and the final cuppa brewed” and then “shock the owners by tasting their most expensive tea by dunking digestive biscuits”. Aaah, the culture.

Well, we’re not allowed to give away all the details (the telly people would kick us in if we did) but what we can tell you is, everything we hoped for was dashed and everything we sooooooo wanted to do was dangled in front of us like a carrot before being snatched away – at the same time as being punched in the dogs-reproductive-glands.

We only got offered one brew, and that brew was bloody disgusting. The plantation/museum was as boring as it sounds and the guide who we had arranged to meet us obviously didn’t know who we weren’t and failed to show up.

There’s an old saying in Scotland. It goes a little something like this… “Yi kin only p*ss wee the c*ck yav got” which means (in English) “One can only do, with the tools one has, only what said tools can allow one to do” So, Lindsay decided to run havoc around the joint and amuse himself in (what he claims) the name of “entertainment” Lee never moved from the stage of bored-stupid;

We saw your ad in the Tokyo Notice Board. We are currently filming a UK TV Series called 101 Challenges – to be screened on Channel 4 (UK) in November and December.

The show follows us, 2 brothers from Scotland, as we travel all over Asia completing 101 challenges given to us by the public. One of those challenges is to get on a Japanese game show.

We will do anything – for free – and give you publicity on our site, the e4.com site and the television show itself if you can get us onto a show this week.

Please email us asap if you can help. We are currently in Shanjuku.

Yours Sincerely

Lindsay and Lee Vine (the brothers)