I am a happy bunny today. I bought a new mountain bike and it is simply perfect. Most Taiwanese frames have 16.7 million colour painting, but this one is matt black with silver line art Giant logos (the manufacturer). It is a great frame (worthy of a £1500 bike) but with middlish components that I will upgrade when I need / want to. And I got the whole lot, plus accessories and helmet for £500. Very happy indeed.
I’ll stop being geeky now
I had a very pleasant walk today with Anke, Lars and Alex (Aussie dude). We planned for a 6K hike, which was slightly waylaid due to ignoring the wrong things in the hiking book, but the result was a splendid wee series of random events that made us all laugh over the Pizza in the evening.
The star of the show was certainly Ah Fu – the Chinese pig that thought he was a dog. He was the coolest thing to be walking with and much calmer than most dogs, and had the amusing habit of eating the plants as he went his oinking way. A definite hit with the other walkers, a source of total bemusement to the other dogs (“hey, you are supposed to be dinner!”) and was truly full of character.
Ah Fu investigates
A loyal pig, it really liked walking between its owner’s legs
We stumbled across a few amusing things. The Taiwanese are masterful at turning public spaces into community spaces. You can see what I mean here – at a break in the path we found a small medicine cabinet with some supplies in it, and alongside it were tethered 3 pots of various balms and lotions – one of which was Tiger Balm.
Alex and Anke dig the whiffs
As a hilarious post-script to the walk, we came up against an army check point, complete with guns, guards and bunkers. We wondered how to get past or around it when the station commander came storming out claiming we were on army property, and ‘what were we doing there?!’ Somehow, we had breached the defences of the back door to the base so we actually came to the gate from the wrong direction … Taiwan eh! We gave the guards a quick nod, but on second glance we could see them laughing as well, in on the joke.
Special Agent Anke cracks the security at the maximum security check point … with a stick
I had an absolutely fantastic final weekend with my family away in Wales for a weekend. We stayed in the village of Llanwrtyd for a welcome break – hiking by day… eating at the in-house Michelin Star restaurant in the evening. The food was simply exceptional – the finest possible ‘British Cuisine’.
Llanwrtyd is home of the World Bog Snorkelling Championships and the Man V Horse V Bike race, plus it is Britain’s smallest town. A bizarre little place in the middle of the mountains … with a world-class restaurant.
Bog Snorkeller in Action
Stranger still is the World Mountain Bike Bog Snorkelling Championship. I think the name explains the concept, but this is the result:
The wheels are lined with lead, by the way
Anyway, onto the hiking. We managed to happily side-step the torrential floods effecting much of the rest of the country and enjoyed 2 days of glorious weather. The navigation was more than a little difficult (I blame the Forrestry Commission for insisting on moving the woods every few years) but the scenery was breathtaking; especially so as a result of the astonishing winter light that drowned the hills with beautiful glowing tones all through the day.
Casting a shadow on the mountainside – and contemplating which of those trees had moved
View towards the lowlands, over the sheep / dinner
Me and my old man
Had a sustained day of drinking with Phil n Graham today in town – it felt great to be with all the guys again and was just what I needed. We did the obligatory curry, pub run and of course ended up in life oh life which was sadly much shitter than usual (yes, even more shit).
Cambridge, near The Eagle pub and impending hangover
Myself, Phil, Ewan, Mark and Joanne in formation
Took good advantage of being up early and wandered out to take some photos of the local area while it was still cold and frosty. I had a nice little walk through some of the local woods and thought a photo of a Church would be appropriate, seeing as it’s Christmas ‘n’ all. What blue skies.
St. Andrew’s Church in Histon
I landed after travelling for what felt like days without sleep and obviously took the wise decision to meet the guys in the pub immediately after saying a quick hi to the fridge and to my family.
In The Anchor are: Phil, Omar, Ele, Moi, Karen, Ewan, Rich and Gray made me feel really welcome (except for their game of ‘let’s ignore Jonny’ when I arrived which I can tell you was hilarious!)
I just had a superb video conversation with Mum, Dad and Granny in Taipei airport … wirelessly. I hooked up Skype, MSN and my digi cam and was talking to them from the middle of the check in hall (I am now in the departure lounge and chatting away with my sis now). Amazing.
I took some great screen shots of the conversation with the family:
I am now waiting for my check in gate to open since I am 3 hours early for the flight. Very organised. Typically, I left packing until the last moment and therefore only had a few hours of sleep. This was delayed somewhat by wrapping your presents, which took absolutely ages… and I had my first web conference with my Gran last night!
I am in quite a reflective mood at the moment. An enjoyable place to be. My last couple of months have been quite hard and stressful, but I fell that I have come through them and learnt rather alot from some of the experiences. Certainly, I am harder, and more sure about what sort of person I want to be. Sometimes it takes a big test to prove these things.
Work has been good, which is novel. I am now firing on most cylinders for learning my design software / nightmare ProE. Boy has it been difficult to learn but it is a great feeling when people start asking you questions about how to use it!
So, 6 months. A little more. My Chinese is not as good as I want it to be, my life is a touch unbalanced and there are sure plenty of difficulties, but calmer waters (and a little more moolah) are ahead. Plus, cheap flights have been announced to Singapore, which is super good news.
At 8:00am I will take off for Hong Kong, then wait around for a few hours, fly to Frankfurt, run for the next plane and land in the UK at 8:00pm tonight! I just hope the HK flight takes off on time. Otherwise, I miss out on valuable drinking time with my mates…
Dreaming of England.
The Taiwanese really dig Christmas. I think it gives them an extra excuse to go shopping and certainly to decorate everything with more flashing LEDs. This is the local shop of lights – at any time of the year you will find appropriate lighting systems for Halloween, Chinese New Year, Christmas… or for any family occasion that requires a high degree of fire risk. Observe the restrained point of sale display.
A world of lights
We had a nice wee celebration for Andrew’s birthday in the office today. It gives me a chance to introduce some people, too.
Claire, Andrew, Cesare and Diego in festive mood
The Incredible Fukang works it for the camera
… and Mitch looks after the details (with Debbie in the background)