Tag: Taipei

  • How to Pack Your Life into Boxes

    How to Pack Your Life into Boxes

    How to pack your life into boxes, in 12 easy steps:

    1. Identify the most important things in your life and loosely throw them into the living room
    2. Invite a team of highly-trained strangers into your life, with inappropriately large amounts of packing material.
    3. Stand there helpless as they start work. Nod and say yes to whatever questions they pose to you.
    4. Marvel at the amazing lengths they go to, to pack every single thing you own (since you have a huge 20ft container it doesn't what you take anyway)
    5. Go outside to get away from the insanity. Consider taking up smoking.
    6. Stare lovingly at your prized possessions, before the inevitable happens.
    7. Marvel (and shake your head repeatedly) at the volume of stuff you seem to have accumulated.
    8. Wander around as you pathetically fail help them do their job.
    9. Choose around now in the process to look for very important visa documentation, that has accidentally packed away.
    10. Stand outside looking at the truck, as would a small child watching a construction site.
    NOTE: The final things that should be packed, and the first to be shipped, should be your computing equipment. Stop your iTunes sync halfway through completion to make sure you have no complete albums for the trip ahead.
    11. Wave goodbye to your stuff, as it might be the last time you see it.
    12. Inform your friends it is now too late to return borrowed items.

    Voila!

  • Final Graveyard Ride

    Final Graveyard Ride

    I have had some of the best days of my 20s up in the hills around Taipei – the days spent up there rooted in my memory. That’s why I was so delighted that, after six years of pestering, Ken finally decided to come up to Taipei for a round of mountain biking. Sadly, I managed to miss my alarm call leaving the rest of the guys stranded at Starbucks without us, but Ken and I managed none-the-less to string together a great day of riding and catching up before my departure.

    Looking out from Starbucks at the rain
    Making some adjustments to the Heckler brakes
    A new office chair post will probably change the riding dynamic; ie: less chatting!
    Need to do more of this in future.
    The rock drop section is never a cake-walk, but heading into this cameras blazing, knowing it was going to be my last attempt in a long time, combined with fuzzy status of medical insurance, definitely sapped my fluidity.
    The addition of steps on the intermediate section is not my favourite modification to the trail
    'Honestly, this is the way!'

    I am itching to see what the trails are going to be like in San Francisco, and beyond …

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  • Cloudgate – Annual Outdoor Performance

    Cloudgate – Annual Outdoor Performance

    Cloudgate – and our sunshine account in the red

    Cloudgate (雲門舞集) are an institution in Taiwan; and one of its most treasured cultural exports. Combining traditional Asian and Chinese motifs, they combine them in extraordinary ways, mixing digital media, human-scale calligraphy, old folk tales and contemporary dance. It’s always a challenge to get seats for their performances in Taiwan, since they are so often on the road abroad, but they have an annual open-air performance; this year at least in the grounds of Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, and in the shadow of the National Theatre.

    Seats were first-come-first-serve, so Yuyin and I wandered over a couple of hours early, camping mat in hand and laid out a pretty good plot for our friends that were planning on joining later. Taipei for once served up a rather splendid sunset, and we enjoyed hanging out in an unusual environment with kids running around and old people bisecting the audience loaded with shopping bags on their way home – hilarious.

    With the clock counting down, Abe, Lin and Steve arrived packing fizzy wines, cheeses, hams and a plethora of treats; if we were going to do this, we were going to do this in style! We were certainly the only ones I saw drinking out of about 10,000 people, quaffing out of champagne glasses and getting increasingly giddy as the evening progressed.

    The dance? I give the troupe full respect for not holding back, and not pandering to the lowest common denominator; the accompanying audio and performance were challenging, and at moments poignant and beautiful. The strength, stamina and control on display were extraordinary – and that for us just sitting still on a camping mat for two hours.

    Sitting in the shadow of Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
    Yuyin at work!
    The girl with the sun in her hair
    Sugar wouldn't melt in her mouth
    Enjoying an afternoon in the sun

    Abe arrives with a basket of style
    Team CULTURE!
    The warmup was hilarious – 10,000 people doing stretches; try this in the UK and you would get beer cans full of piss thrown at the stage – only half joking.
    Captivated
    Looking down at the amphitheatre down below
    Steve inspects the door … need one of these in my next place

    Video

    Check out this video here which introduces the performance we saw:

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  • DIY Sous Vide

    DIY Sous Vide

    Our friend Dave, who is an engineer at Microsoft in Seattle, paid us a visit last week. Reports had been circulating that he had assembled his own Sous Vide; a device that enables highly-accurate temperature control for cooking, in the manner of Heston Blumenthal.

    By first vacuuming the food into sealed bags, then immersing it a water bath, it is possible to cook meats and other food stuffs in a way that prevents over-cooking, and because you can cook over more sustained periods of time, it can extract better results from cheaper cuts of meat.

    Buying ready-made, commercial Sous-Vides is still very expensive, so Dave lead the way in bringing a temperature controller and the major components over from the USA. All that was left was to fashion an enclosure, and assemble it all together. After heading to the tool district, we found a cornucopia of electronics component shops, and had immense fun selecting the most clicky, over-the-top switches and widgets for the control box.

    Results? Melt-in-mouth good, but without disintegrating. I wonder, in fact, if some of the more famous steak houses cook their steaks in this way; we had a relatively good value cut, but it would be interesting to see the results with even better meat.

    Next project are eggs; apparently it’s possible to cook poached eggs in the shell that, once opened, are more like custard.

    The control box.
    Bringing the water up to temperature.
    Dropping the vacuum-packed meat into the water.
    Bubbling away …
    Plonk
    Cutting open the packs of meat, and suddenly filling the kitchen with rather a nice smell!
    You still need to finish it off in a pan to attain the colour, and to add a touch of caramelised burnt flavour to the meat. The Lodge cast-iron pan that I idiotically hand-carried back from the USA (6kg!) does the job perfectly; better than non-stick.
    Served with pureed cauliflower and jus of bell pepper. Yum!
  • Lipstick on a Pig – Taipei Floral Expo 2011

    Lipstick on a Pig – Taipei Floral Expo 2011

    I had deep reservations with the Taipei Flora Expo, even before getting the tickets.

    China gets the Olympics; Taiwan gets the Deaflympics and World Games. Shanghai gets the World Expo; Taipei makes a ‘Flora Expo’ for itself. I don’t see anything more than a cynical distraction from real issues, and a vote-grabbing exercise; ‘lipstick on a pig’. Rather than actually fixing the environmental, architectural and pollution problems of Taipei, just put on a 400 million US$ flower show. And then tell the people in Taiwan it’s an ‘international’ event.

    Despite the claims of corruption and environmental destruction, vast queues have regularly formed both inside and outside the event for the last few months. So, instead of just sitting in my apartment all cynical, I popped along with Yuyin to check it out.

    Welcome, one and all!

    The exterior of the Future Pavilion

    … the outside, formed from recycled plastics, is likely to stick around after the event.

    Yuyin, and the best colour of leather ever.

    The Taiwan Pavilion (joking, joking!) … although wouldn’t it be cool if it was; I think the government takes itself too seriously for that to ever happen.

    Roof detail of the Taiwan pavilion. Made from basket-like materials, for some reason.

    Some level of coherence in the public building structures …

    … reflected in the details of the drainage. Rather nice, I thought.

    Different varieties of plants on display.

    I think I actually want to make a clock, after seeing these fake clocks made from security mirrors

    I think it’s great that Taiwan is making an effort to become progressive, innovative and ‘green’, but I think there are more authentic, effective ways than this. Let’s hope there is at least some legacy.

  • Finding an Industrial Design Job in Asia

    Finding an Industrial Design Job in Asia

    Leaving design school, it can be really tough to pick a career direction; let alone find a job.  Believing ‘change brings opportunity’, after graduating in 2003 I decided to head east and cut my teeth in Asia.  Now all I needed was a job, and a destination.

    Since I had never been to Asia before (it seems ridiculous to write that now), I lacked any connections or experience in the region.  What I did have was a resume that I had been building since leaving high-school that packed a solid range of work experience and internships in some well-known companies.  Crucially, a design education that included engineering and management training gave me the advantage of providing something a little different.  All this provided a good foundation to start the search.

    Leaving Europe.  The night before, I had a pain in my stomach unlike anything I had ever felt before … but since the cost of changing my ticket to come home was only €25, I tricked myself into leaving anyway; and almost seven years later, here I am.

    Working remotely, it was difficult to get a grasp of the ‘landscape’ of the design industry.  I naturally applied through the variety of HR web portals that larger companies maintain, but was not surprised when I did not hear anything back.  I browsed design company web sites, pestered my lecturers for alumni contact information, targeted conferences and design festivals looking for speakers and sponsors, and even pored through design award books looking for names.  Anything that could give me the crucial ‘@’, that allowed me to crack the e-mail code was considered.

    After months of freelancing, interviewing in the UK, and more than a little frustration, I finally hit pay-dirt when an innocuous ad for Asus Computers’ design team in Taipei popped up on Coroflot.com.  Phone interviews were followed by a face-to-face in Germany, and before I knew it, I had an offer.  I finally hit the ground on May 14th 2004; a solid ten months after graduating.  Do not underestimate the power of resourcefulness, patience and perseverance (and even a little cunning).

    My first few weeks on the ground were at first a little perplexing.

    I struck it lucky with that advert, but a cross-section of my international friends in the region reveals a similar picture; get stuck in with research, and don’t give up.  Nothing beats getting your feet on the ground out here, so book that plane ticket (ask your school to see if there are travel or research bursaries).  No-one is going to begrudge a meeting with you if you have flown half-way round the world, and it’s likely that if you do meet with other designers out here, your spirit of adventure will likely mean they are more open to help you.  You’ll be surprised.

    18 months on Asus’ design team was followed by almost three years in design studio, DEM.  And this bring me today, working for Dell on the notebook design team, deeply ingrained in the Taiwanese ‘industrial organism’, and a full paid-up member of the Asian Industrial Design Community.  More about that next time.

    Taking trains to visit vendors in China.

  • It’s Election Time, Bitches!

    It’s time to vote, people!

    Yes, leave your reason and logic at the door; it’s election-time in Taiwan.  What does that mean?  Tanks.  Tanks and LEDs!

    Cruisin’ for a bruisin’.

    Underlighting.

    But wait a second!  Haven’t we seen these before?   2004? 2006?


    Shilin, 2004

    This seems … familiar … except updated with LEDs.  What next?  LCD screens all over it?  I should not joke.

  • Taipei Biennial 2010

    Misgivings about the limited arts scene in Taiwan always evaporate when the Biennial sets up shop; the curators are clearly highly adept at collecting a thought-provoking selection of work.  This year’s, while seemingly smaller than in the past, none-the-less tackled some spicy political subjects, not least directly criticising the Flora Expo being held on its doorstep.  It didn’t pull any punches in illustrating the number of trees killed as a result of the construction work outside.  Anyway, some quick images:

    Building site for the Flora Expo next to the Art Museum.

    Preparation for the Flora expo proceeding as planned.

    Aggressive wall murals at the Biennial

    Map of the damaged or destroyed trees that made way for the Floral Expo.

    When I walked past this on the way in, I just thought it was a Bali-style bust of a religious figure.  Coming out of the exhibition, I was pleasantly surprised to see a stack of Yellow Pages!  It’s these little surprises that I appreciate, even if they are slightly gimmicky.

    This room had a set of rotating discs, and alternated having lights on or off, creating shadows and glowing … impossible to sum up in a photo.  Anyway.

    I was extremely taken with this infinite picture frame.

    Double hat.  Tres chic.

    Hanging at an angle.

  • New Rig

    I love mountain biking.  It’s ‘my sport’.

    At 13 years old, I remember looking with fascination at my neighbour’s bike when I went round to feed the cats – a guy called Paul. Mountain biking seemed glamorous and Californian, and the shiny metal and the expensive parts no doubt contributed to my eventual selection of Industrial Design as a career. I don’t quite remember the turn of events, but somehow I was lucky enough to be bought that very bike – an 18 speed Holdsworth Montana, featuring first-generation Shimano Deore XT shifters and a mud-sucking U-Brake.  Clearly, it attracted my Dad too, as he picked up a trashed Saracen Tufftrax frame and built up his own bike.

    And so the riding started. Dad and I jaunted off along local lanes, up into the French Alps and all the way to the home of mountain biking in Marin, California.

    I upgraded that bike as far as I could, but managed to save up enough money at age 16 to buy myself an Orange Clockwork – featuring 21 speeds from Shimano XT II, Zoom components and tasty Dia-Comp cantilever brakes. That bike, finished in matte black with orange decals was my love affair for endless summers, and was the steed of choice for Britain’s amateur cross-country racers. Indeed, I still ride that bike when I return to the UK – it might even be appreciating in value, based on it’s retro parts.

    Then University happened, and while I did ride when I was home, I decided other things took priority while studying. It’s a shame, as there is no doubt that more riding in Scotland would have been fantastic, but you can’t have it all.

    It was landing in Taiwan that ignited the flame again. Home of global, high-end bike production, it was inevitable that I would buy something for exploring the hills. I ended up with a Giant NRS, finished in matte black again, and furnished with all the components that I could afford. Most of the guys I was riding with had various descriptions of NRS, and serious skill-building commenced. The rocks and roots and slippery, off-camber cornering call for a certain style of riding, and the NRS gave me a good start – and trip to hospital with a broken wrist. 80mm of travel initially did not fit with my philosophical ‘ideal’ of completely rigid bikes, but the terrain called for shock absorption – and starting off on rigid bikes probably helped my skills, vision and ability to pick lines.

    But 80mm was not enough. When the opportunity came along to pick up a Giant Trance 0 at cost (direct from the R&D Director of Giant, no less), I jumped at the offer. Decked in XTR and XT, and with a 100mm Fox fork it provided a great platform for more adventurous riding, and I soon upgraded the fork to an adjustable 100-140 Fox Talas unit. Serious fun.

    But the market for 4″ trail bikes was being usurped by competitors, finding a ‘sweet spot’ of 5″ bikes; companies like Santa Cruz refining bikes that really can ‘do it all’.

    And this is what I just bought myself.

    The arc of my story just delivered 140mm front and back. Full XTR. Fox Talas. 26.5 lb. This baby is going to form the basis of the next few years of entertainment for myself. It’s the bike way above my abilities, if the Trance wasn’t already.  It’s had several excursions into the hills and mountains, and getting better every ride.  What I am really looking forward to, though, is a weekend of mountain biking in HK in August … still some time to tune and fettle before I leave!

    Yum!

  • Taipei Plastic Surgery

    Tasteful plastic surgery adverts on display in Taipei … Plastic surgery is fun!

    Taipei Plastic Surgery