Tag: Taiwan

  • The funniest people in Taiwan

    Some of the names of people I have met, names I have heard, or names I have seen are simply astonishing in their originality and vision. This is a summary of my favourites:

    Adolf

    Angle

    Asterix

    Audi

    Ball

    Bighead

    Bluck

    Bossism

    Cupid

    Dodo

    Dog

    Dolphin

    Dracula

    Dreck

    Ear

    Echo

    Electric

    Element

    Eleven

    Elfex

    Enigma

    Forever

    King Horny

    Lover

    Loyal

    Marijuana

    Moses

    Mountain

    Mouse

    Muscle

    Penguin

    Pop

    Popkiller

    Porch

    Poseidon

    Prairie

    Putin

    Shadow

    Style

    Sweet

    Sword

    TiTi

    Unicorn

    Urania

    Variable

    This is a work in progress, so expect it to develop over time!

  • Familiarity Breeds Contempt

    I simply had to take a photo of a cup of tea I had the other day. As you can see from the top it says: “Familiarity Breeds Contempt” …



    Familiarity Breeds Contempt – I think they thought it meant ‘content’

  • Model Shop Boyz

    I visited the model shop today to get my phone model ironed out. As ever (and this only seems to happen to me) it turned into an episode that of course everyone in the office found hilarious. It brought back delightful memories of my previous visit to Sun Li – which you can see here.

    So I rock up to meet Adam at Che John Models (who is alarmingly non – Taiwanese in immediately expressing his views without holding back) and we cruise out to a really rather nice wee Italian restaurant where I have the very best Lasagne I have eaten in Taiwan so far (ie: bad). We shoot the breeze for a while and go back to discuss business. Before we got into it he showed me around and introduced me to the team of model shop workers, who immediately took an intense interest in me and fed me a pile of betel nuts. These things are common place on the streets of Taiwan – the “betel nut girls” post is a post for another time, though.

    Anyway, they fed me a couple of these things. You bite the end off, chuck it in your mouth and chew away. You spit out the horrific blood-red expectorant and continue chewing, and after a while you get a pretty strong hit of nicotine and this coincided with beginning to discuss the details of my proposal. A spinning world does not help in this and I think I approved all the short cuts they suggested – very smart of them, eh. They then presented me with a large pile of porn and suggested I take it before also giving me a book of fake blank Taxi receipts that I could make some nice money from. I managed to escape at this point with only sporadic feelings of weightlessness and gentle involuntary acrobatics.

    Perhaps I will make the following week my ‘Betel Nut Special’ – Markus is planning a Betel nut party for his birthday – it promises to be… blinky.

  • Chilin in Shilin

    I had a quiet weekend (relatively speaking) and saw the Bienniel at the Contemporary Art Museum. I was quite impressed, and I plan to go back to catch the permanent exhibits as well. The building is pretty mental, in a modern Taiwanese mentally modern way. I’ll take some shots and you can judge for yourselves.

    On the way home I swung by Shilin night market and took some shots of the food area. It is an amazing place, truly, and at the heart of Taiwanese culture (ie: food) . My favourites tonight inclide this mini shrimp fishing zone. You may have seen my first shrimp fishing effort… if not, go here.



    As before, the general idea is to tempt the shrimps with tasty morsels of liver and shrimp babies, then you whip ’em out, ram a stick up their back-side, and burn them alive until cooked well.

    Doing a quick zoom in on the background you can see the kid fishing for something a little different … turtles. They each have a paper clip attached to their back (held on with some alarmingly-coloured tape) and the guys ‘fish’ for them with magnets … not quite sure if this is in the spirit of things, or if good old dynamite would be fairer. I will have to ask the guys at work on Monday if people eat the things… after going to Longshan market I know they do quite a bit more.



    Ninja Turtles



    And a quick one of a lady cooking oysters in a sort of Omelette – quite tasty.

  • Ele in Taiwan

    A quick few extra fotos from Tanja… Ele in Taipei, during the moon festival (and hey Ele, if you have more photos please send them to me!)

    Moon Festival

  • We Reach for the Sky. Neither Does Civilisation.

    One of the most distinctive aspects of life out here is the transport. A day never passes without seeing something head-shaking strange. It could be a fork lift truck on the motorway, glass being transported by bike, food vending machines on the back of motorbikes… I have an ever-growing list of strange observations, but for now this is a wee summary.



    So above, we have 1. heavily modified scooter for disabled access, 2. & 3. ingenious parking methods and 4. SCOOTER ENGLISH which is a great hobby to have in Taipei as the tag lines on the sides of scooters make you stumble for superlatives.

  • Taipei Tourist – The Return

    I am at the 6 month point out here, and have reached a transition point somewhat. Work has felt like a drag of late, I am getting a bit tired of not being able to meet people so easily (what with my 4 year old’s Chinese skills) and in general I am at the bit between knowing the place and feeling comfortable, but not having the infrastructure of friends and scenes to be part of.

    This weekend and the last I have lurched from some slightly irresponsible behaviour and have come back down to earth. I have started looking things with curious eyes again, have some of my more typical vim back (and vigour at work I hope too!) and overall am a bit more happy. So that’s nice, for all you folks back home. Anyway, I took some photos this weekend of things that interested and amused me – esp. while looking for art museums with my friend Luisa. The Taipei Artist’s Village was a bit of a let-down (no exhibits) we lost the Chang Foundation of Fine Arts (it must have been really fine) and wandered to the Hua Shan Arts District to see some slightly mediocre environmental art. Next week I will check out the more controversial Bienniel and hopefully walk away more impressed.



    Near to Main Station there was frantic activity where they had recently finished building an attractive small temple. What I did not understand was why they were preparing to wrap this in steel (see the frame). Will it be in glass? Bricks? Concrete (most likely).



    Bored on the job – an enthusiastic policeman near Sogo + laser sword



    Some cool stripes that caught my eye in an underground car park near to the Breeze Centre (another over-priced shopping mall)

  • The Bright Lights of Taipei

    This week I have made a concerted effort to get back into exercise – it is too easy on this island to slip into a routine of staying until ever more impossible hours at the office.

    Tonight, while riding on my way home from the gym at work I spotted an old man selling disco lights by the side of the freeway. I had to stop, and to make it extra-Taiwanese the Lau Ban got on the phone as soon as I turned up.



    Disco Fever

    It also reminds me of a couple of other recent photos, or at least June! These are from near my house where a guy was selling lamps on the street.



    ‘Ave you got a light, boy?

    And finally, a rather nice effect outide on of my local bars along Jhongshan N Road (Bat 75).



    Happy trees

  • Tremors

    We have had some tremors recently… several in a row following the big one the other day. Here is the report… and a pic.



    Interesting how they make a series…

  • Sing…

    “…I feel the earth move under my feet

    I feel the sky tumblin’ down, tumblin’ down…”

    … join in when you want to

    Last night it was recorded at an initial 5.9, but has since been upgraded to a more exciting 6.3 As a result, the map on the below shows a larger blob than the one I posted.