Yangminshan Hike 2

Hike number two today. Went back to Beitou and Yanmingshan and took along an ally this time who has hiked some of the trails before and helped lead the way. Katy, I thank you. 

 

We found the park sign.

The hot springs are largely sulfur based. If you look carefully you can see the yellow sulfur on the shore in the distance where the steam is venting.

 Sulfur stained rock.

 Be careful of the geysering boiling hot water.

 Everywhere you walk you can see steam rising.

 The cistern is holding water that is violently boiling.

 There are packs of stray dogs everywhere.

Katy is tired and we're only half way there. 

Next week I'm getting on a plane and heading home for my sister's wedding. Hiking pictures will be on hold for about a month. Maybe I'll post pics of the wedding and my travels to see friends. Maybe.

2012 New Year: Same Me

So it turns out that I'm a great big liar. I said in my last post (ahem, cough, a year ago) that I would soon post pictures from my trip to South Africa. If you're friends with me on facebook, you got to see them all. If not. . . well I guess I suck. Sorry.
It is of course the beginning of a new year and that brings with it the resolutions that will be made with the best intentions and quickly forgotten about when daily life resumes. I have of course made a couple resolutions that I will do my darndest to stick to with the obligatory slip into complacency here and there.
My sister is getting married in a few weeks so for the past few months I have been making efforts to eat better and exercise more so I don't look like a giant cow next to her in all the pictures. I mean damn, she got all motivated about her health and stuff and she looks great. I was doing well for the first month and a half and then the holidays and my obsessive need to bake kicked into high gear. On the upside I did stick with my exercise routine and didn't gain any of the weight I'd lost back, but I also didn't make any headway either. That's okay. The new year is here and I am back to eating less junk food and delicious baked goods. Until I go home to see my family in a few weeks. Then all bets are off.
So one resolution is to continue with the eating better and sticking with exercising several times a week.

In an effort to motivate myself to exercise more I have decided to start walking as many of the trails on Yangming Mountain as I can. I was realizing about a week ago that I work right next to this mountain that is well known for beautiful trails and scenery and I have not once been to it. My powers of oblivion know no limits.Anyway, that is resolution number two. More may follow as I examine my life.

So after Katy and I had a delightful brunch to kick off the new year I went to said mountain and attempted to find a trail from a book I borrowed from a friend. I of course managed to get lost, but I did take some pictures along the way. 

 

The Beitou area where I was walking is well known for sulfurous hot springs. The water gets up to 100 degrees centigrade. It's fun to stand by the water as the wind is blowing and feel the heat from the water wash over you when it's cold out.

 

Palm trees, just because.

 These people do not want you climbing the wall.

 

Taipei used to have very bad drinking water so there were water machines like this everywhere. You put a container inside and pay for however much water you want. This water gives you spirit apparently.

These last two pics are just because I liked the way they looked.

 

 

I plan to find the original trail I was looking for and of course take pictures of that to, along with many others.

Dang that drilling is annoying

It seems like anytime I have a day off during the week and I'm at home one of the apartments next to mine is doing something that involves drilling and lots of noise.
It's really annoying.
I'm packing and cleaning in preparation for my trip to South Africa and listening to this noise. 
It's making me really eager to get the hell out of here. I'm excited to go anyway, but this is a little extra push to get out the door.
Anyway, look forward to about 8 bagillion pictures.
Talk to you soon.

It's a bit nippy

Something that I don't know if I've whined about or not here is the lack of indoor heating in Taiwan.  Most of the time the major concern is not cooking while you're just sitting in place, but for a couple months out of the year it gets quite cold. And wet. It's been raining almost continuously for a couple weeks now and doesn't look like it's going to let up anytime soon.  The longer we are covered by clouds and damp the colder it gets. 
What's even better is that school's do not have indoor heat either.  When the building you work in has the hallways open to the elements and everyone insists that windows should be open at all times it gets uncomfortably cold.
There's also the matter of the general lack of insulation in buildings.  The whole concept seems to have completely eluded them.  The building I live in now seems to be okay on that aspect, being surrounded by a couple hundred other apartments also seems to help. In general though, you must be bundled up in several layers, with a hat and mittens to feel remotely comfortable.
Then there's the extreme opposite. Cabs and buildings that do have heat tend to go into panicked survival mode and turn it up as high as it will go.  It feels good for a few minutes while you thaw out and then you're just sweating.  Of course once you start to sweat you have to head back out into the chill. Lots of fun.

 Please send warmth my way.

New Year 2011

Happy New Year and Xinliang Kwai La! (also happy new year in Chinese).

This is my third New Year's day in Taiwan and this year I actually got to go out and do what I planned to do. It didn't go off without any hitches of course, but that's part of what New Year's Eve is all about I think.
My only requirement for this year was that I wanted to see the fireworks at Taipei 101 (second tallest building in the world, but still first in many people's minds).
My first year here I had been heading into the city to meet some friends and things happened and I never made it. Read about it here if you're curious.
The second year I was sick and didn't leave my apartment.
This year I had a couple different friends suggest things to do, but nothing was followed up on or just didn't pan out. Finally I got a hold of Taryn who had invited me to something she was invited to, and we agreed to meet up with Zac, Matt and Adam and go to the party together. The plan was I would meet Zac, Matt and Adam in one place at 9, because Adam had to work until some ridiculous late hour and then we would go together to meet Taryn at another location because she had a class that went until 9:30 (another ridiculous hour on a holiday).
I got home from work at around 5, because I don't have to work until a ridiculous hour on a holiday, and chill out for a bit. I then get a text from Zac asking if we should meet up at 9 so I give him a call and we work things out and I find out that Matt and Adam aren't going because Adam is sick. I'm sad to hear this, but the rest of us are still on.
I head out a little early so I can stop at the Carrefour and pick up some champagne (sparkling wine if you're a purist).

(you can't tell from the picture, but I've drunk about half of the bottle)


Zac and I meet up and hop on the MRT to meet Taryn. We check the time and he notices that we have a fair amount of time to work with and should be able to make it to his friends place on time for the fireworks. He then says, "famous last words."
As many of you know, going somewhere in a big city during a major holiday can be quite a cluster fuck.
We meet up with Taryn and hop in a cab. Half an hour later the cab driver basically kicks us out because the road we need is blocked off. He gives us directions and tells us it's only a half hour walk. If we don't get lost. Zac's famous last words are coming back to bite us in the butt.
We head off and things seem to be going pretty well. I notice that despite all the walking I do Zac and Taryn are faster than I am and I have trouble keeping up. I must make it a point to start exercising more and stop being so lazy.
Anyway, we seem to be in the right area, but then we start getting turned around and lost. Zac keeps calling his friend and asking for directions and Taryn asks the guys directing traffic. The traffic guys send us back down the hill. (by the way we're walking up and down hills, because Zac's friend lives in the foothills, which is actually really close to Taipei 101). We even get in a cab and the cab driver tells us we're right where we need to be and kicks us out. We were not where we wanted to be, by the way.
Zac calls his friend one more time and we find him waiting for us to take us to his place without getting lost again. He lives in a six floor walk-up. We got to his place at 10 to 12. It took us an hour and a half to find the place. It was all worth it though because George (Zac's friend) lives in a rooftop apartment and has a clear, beautiful view of Taipei 101. We got to watch the fireworks and meet new people and finally relax for a while.
I took video of the fireworks, but my camera didn't do a great job of capturing them so go to YouTube if you'd like to see the fireworks.

Cthulu Claus

It doesn't matter if you've been naughty or nice. Cthulu Claus will get you.

2010 Thanksgiving

I really like the Thanksgiving holiday. When I was young it always meant time off of school and lots of delicious food. My sister and I developed a love for the cheesy movie reruns that would always play over the holiday in place of the t.v. shows we usually watched. In high school in was a good time to hole up alone until the food was served. Once clean-up duties were served it was another good time to disappear. In college it was a great time to return home and see friends and get in trouble with my parents for being stupid.
As an adult it is a great time to go home and just be with family and get away from real life for a day or two. Living overseas I can't do that so I improvise by having my friends over.
This year I made a list of all of my friends still here in Taiwan and sent out an invite fully expecting half of them to be busy and unable to come. Only 1 person said they couldn't make it. That left me with 20 people that would be coming. Oh dear.
My apartment is a good size. For one person or a couple. It's not really designed to hold 20 plus people. I figured I could always just send people up to the second floor or out to the hallway if it got too tight.
I had a lot of fun looking up recipes and deciding what to make, but then I actually had to make it all. I usually overestimate how much I can handle when it comes to making food for a crowd in a timely manner. Thankfully Dylan offered to come over and help with the food prep. Between the two of us we got everything made and we served up a large amount of food roughly on time.
I expected people to eat a lot more food than they actually did though.
Half of the food. I thought I got a pic of the rest, but I was wrong.

The festive Thanksgiving turkey came with a santa hat for whatever odd reason. Tania tells me the chef was smiling proudly when she picked it up.

It was really handy, my school fed us Thanksgiving lunch on Thanksgiving day. For some reason they gave us two huge bowls of mashed potatoes and gravy. The 13 of us didn't even finish one bowl so I took home the other bowls thinking that 20 people would handily finish off that much mashed taters. Nope. I have a ridiculous amount of mashed potatoes left over. I will be testing out many recipes this week.

The evening did not go off without any drama though. I had planned to have everyone leave their shoes outside the apartment in the hall, because that many shoes inside would be in the way. I even printed up a nice little sign. By the way, leaving shoes outside is a common practice in Taiwan and most Asian countries. Apparently in my building this is unacceptable. I had no idea because I don't normally leave my shoes outside. When I went downstairs to get Tania we rode up in the elevator with some lady that also lives on the same floor and right up the hall from me. As she walked by my apartment she saw the shoes and informed me that this was not allowed. In Chinese, but I got the point. I replied in English that it was only for a few hours and they would all be gone before the night was over. She did not care for this because five minute later the security guy was at my door trying to explain why this was not okay.
He doesn't speak English and I had no idea what he was trying to explain and I was trying to explain that it was only for a few hours and he didn't understand what I was trying to say. Someone who speaks Chinese was called and I was essentially told that the shoes need to be neatly lined up so the hallway looks "special." Ooookay. I had thought about getting a shelf to put the shoes on, but I didn't really want to spend money on something I would use once.
We initially tried a big box that I have, but the box was too big and wouldn't look nice. We finally just lined them up neatly and he left. I realized this was not going to end the problem, because a lot more people were coming and the shoes would not stay in neat lines and that woman was probably going to be checking the hall and reporting me. Marilette came up with the solution of just putting the shoes in the shower. Genius.
Once that got taken care of everybody else started arriving, snacking and mingling and generally having a good time. I loved it.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.