Jonathan Biddle – Made in Taiwan

Blog

  • Deaflympics Parade

    Beijing gets the Olympics. Taipei gets the Deaflympics. Or is that being unfair?

    Anyway, some sort of opening ceremony was passing by at the end of my street, so I grabbed my camera and was met with a Batman-esque (Tim Burton vintage) floating barrage balloon parade. Sports shoes, frogs, sea horses … and all guarded by a team of Star Wars’ Storm Troopers. It just makes so much sense.


    Frog (the mascot) I understand (although why choose a frog? What do they have to do with hearing impairment?) Training shoe; I understand. Sea horse? …


    Storm Troopers. Yup.


    Storm Troopers avec floating training shoe. Use the force!


    These are not the droids you are looking for.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Playing with Wolfram Alpha


    Taipei to Cambridge

    Spending an hour or so playing with Wolfram Alpha – the new darling of the internet world. Google’s intellectual cousin? It doesn’t seem to impressed by many of my questions …

    Comparing Apples to Apples

    Hmmmm … will play with it some more some time.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Wulai – Sanxia Hike


    Suited and booted

    After finding the rather great hiking blog, Pashan, we were inspired to go and trek pastures new around Wulai. It’s Labour Day weekend here, and the weather has just been impeccable for the whole time, so no excuses could be found not to strap on the boots and get motoring.


    Indian Jones-style bridges.


    Abe illustrates his bike-handling skills.

    The hike was well graded, and punctuated by groups of improbably old Taiwanese hikers coming the other way. It’s a sad fact, but hikers that we bump into tend to be old, and complain that the youth today are not interested in Hiking. Although I usually take these types of comments with a grain of salt (‘in my day…’), I have to say I agree. However, I do hold out hope that in the grand rollercoaster of Taiwanese trends, hiking will follow folding bikes in rising popularity – perhaps it will be some local tech GPS gadget that kicks it off – who knows.

    After reading the Pashan article, detailing the Sanxia-Wulai Trail, we did manage to get one minor detail wrong… the starting point. As a result, the fantsatic diving pools ‘in the first third of the trail’ were not quite where we expected them to be, but no matter; we’ll be back soon to do it properly. Here is a map of the starting point / ending point:


    View Wulai – Sanxia Hike in a larger map


    Team Taipei


    Air conditioning for whom?

    After the hike, we headed straight for the smoked chicken roadside restaurant, and devoured all manner of vegetables and delicious bird. It then did not take an enormous amount of persuasion from Tasha to head to Gonguan and rather a special chocolate shop, where we each ordered a brownie large enough for 12 people. Food coma. Bed.

    Link to my Flickr set for Wulai-Sanxia

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Birthday Redux

    It’s useful being friends with designers and photographers; they have a habit of injecting that extra element of quality into capturing events. In my case, I was lucky enough to have Abe shooting away on his rig, and Gerhard & Klara mounting their time-lapse cam in the corner of the room – lovely.

    http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377
    Kicking off proceedings was dinner at my favourite local ‘restaurant’ – the getto shrimp van at the end of the street. We grabbed, wine glasses, bread and candles, and created a few raised eyebrows, dining to the sounds of music and shrimps being fried with a hairdryer. As the parking lot filled up, we decamped to the apartment, where a super spread of friends gathered to wish me well as I successfully managed to circumnabulate the Sun 30 times.

    On top of that, I am now the proud owner of a 20″ Apple Cinema display, which is significantly more pleasant to work on – to the point that I am pretty sure I am processing more photos for upload to Flickr now, and the blog. Awesome.


    Nick and I discuss vases


    Really special to have the HK crew in town. Appreciated!


    Candlelit / neon – lit supper


    Strike a pose.


    Onizou Idea Nomads in Town


    Shrimp pots.


    A very special cooking style – eat your heart out, Heston.


    Make a wish!


    The team.


    Champers.


    After managing to offload this trash to Sam last year, it managed to find its way back here. Someone will pay for this!

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Hiking Yangmingshan in the Rain

    http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=70933

    It’s been a great couple of weeks of visitors, with Gerhard & Klara in town, touching down in Taipei as part of the Onizou world tour. Do take some time to check their web site at www.onizou.com to see the things they are up to, and the places they plan to go.

    We hiked up into the clouds below the peak of Yangming Mountain to sample the sights of the volcano and smells of the hot springs on the other side. Super good fun, and great to get into nature on foot rather than wheels.


    Village on a hillside looks Italian (from a few miles away, at least)


    Cooling off after hot spring action


    The team waiting to get back to Taipei, and eat Pizza!

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • 30

    http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=70933

    Blimey … I am 30!

    And you know what? It feels pretty good. This is in no small part due to the amazing efforts of my friends, especially Abe who put quite some effort into setting things up, and Tanja & Michael who jetted over from Hong Kong to join us. Biking, partying, eating and hot springing – just like the old days! Cheers everyone; it was magic.


    Tanja approaches with caution


    Cables haven’t moved.


    Preening and Prodding


    The coolest old man.


    Perspectives.


    Changing Rooms


    Feet.

    As you might notice from the box at the top, I am also jumping into Flickr, after years of not really diving into it. The new camera rather warrants more than 410 pixel-wide images. Speaking of which, it is becoming increasingly clear that I might need to think about transitioning to a new format that supports better photos. I’ll need to give that some thought.

    More birthday photos and videos on the way, as I sort them out.

    Come check out Jonathan Biddle on Flickr!

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Doggles

    While I recover from another weekend, I thought I would post the most appropriate photo taken by Michael while waiting at traffic lights, that sums up the weekend … like he says, in Taipei, you don’t need to go looking for crazy things, the crazy things come to you.

    More photos on the way soon.


    Doggles. My new word. And happy birthday to me!

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Taipei Mega Architecture


    Intersections.

    I live pretty much slap bang downtown in Taipei, and I am forever amazed at the scale of my local motorway at the end of the street. The thing is, they posted it up on stilts, so it really does the double trick of magically disappearing and providing an incredible space right in the centre of the city. It also seems to be lit professionally, although I suspect that was more by accident than design.

    Anyway, on my way back from my semi-regular trips to the computer market, I thought I would take a few photos.


    Stairway to heaven


    Painting on the ceiling with light.


    Cathedral of the Automobile


    Juicy couture. And home.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Hong Kong Sevens

    The Hong Kong Sevens – carnival of the Rugby world – landed in Hong Kong the same weekend as me, but I managed to assemble my own team to compete with anything they had to offer.

    As is customary when I visit Hong Kong, I seem to gather an improbable number of friends and family members together in one place at the same time – belying perhaps how quiet life really is these days. On this trip in question, my Mum & Dad were travelling back from New Zealand, Anke, Lars and Linnéa were en-route to/from Taiwan, Sam from England dropped by for a beer, and of course Tanja & Michael were on hand to provide the floor and great hospitality. Adding to the melée were Geoff and Kipp (designers from HK) and Kai (designer from Germany). So, that sorted dinner out then.

    We managed to squeeze one of most activities into 72 hours – hiking for those craving nature and escape, shopping and urban safari for Mum & Dad who spent the last six weeks staring at mountains and sand flies, and for myself a great window to spend some time with the team. Well, multiple teams, it seems. Intense and exhausting as ever; but brilliantly exhilirating all the same.


    Michael in the house / on the bus.

    Mum on a boat – we headed out for hiking in the really rather remarkable national park. Minutes away from Hong Kong, and you are dropped in wilderness (almost).


    Dad in wide-angle mode.


    Hellooo!


    Okay, so maybe wilderness is stretching it a bit. But we did see some Scouts.


    Tanja and Kipp chat on the beach.


    Anke, radiant.


    G’day Mum! Oh – you mean they don’t say that in New Zealand?


    First of about 500 shots of Linnéa in the sea (for the first time?). She seemed to enjoy it almost as much as us!


    Legless.


    Soaring


    Lunch in the surf shacks.

    On Sunday, we spent the day cruising the stomping grounds of Tanja & Michael: up in the north of the city near the flower, bird and fish markets. I visited there a few years ago, so it was great to go back, and indeed it’s nice to know they live in such a vibrant area. Always fun to walk around. And so we did, indluging in a bit of light retail therapy on the way (or I did at least).


    Bag o’ fish?


    Out like a trout (funnily enough, at this precise second, I am listening to Mr. Scruff’s ‘The Fish Song’)


    Geoff checks the LASER-ETCHED FISH. Yes, those are Chinese symbols on the side! I’ll try that with the cats.


    Miffies!


    Airing the house


    Shoes for a dog … or twins!


    Bird’s life


    Widescreen


    Apartments for sale


    Wherever you go in Asia (or the world?) you’ll always find groups of men doing improbable things with their spare time. Is life with their wife that hard? I supposed throwing yourself off a mountain on a bike is much the same.


    Forever amazed by the scaffolding.


    Linnéa seems as bemused as me.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • A.L.L. (Anke, Lars & Linnéa)


    Hi guys!

    It has been a really busy, really brilliant couple of weeks of having friends and family converging on the region. By luck / design, Markus has been here (need to work out what photos I have of that … seems so long ago now!), Anke & Lars have brought Linnéa on her first world tour, and even my parents have been traveling through HK on the way back from New Zealand. The fun hasn’t stopped though – fear not – Gerhard and Klara will be trucking through in just a matter of weeks.

    But first, Anke & Lars, and their little bundle of ice-cool baby style, Linnéa.


    Wulai ho! The river has been narrrowed, I think. The hot springs remain, and the diving board is removed much of the time (like all areas of water in Taiwan, people tend to throw themselves and die at alarmingly regular intervals).

    Since the guys left the island, the amount of hiking I have done has dropped significantly. I can’t be too worried as I am in the mountains most weekends on my wheels, but none the less it was great fun to jump into Mattieu’s car (pretty much the only forriner that I know that has one) and jaunt down to Wulai; world capital of the crazy hot spring.

    It was more or less impossible to stop taking photos of Linnéa, but for that I am not sorry; she was an utter delight for the whole time. Great work, guys.


    Back on the trails – feels good.


    Linnéa – stop it!


    Tongue-tied.


    Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.


    It was amazing to see her at this age – prodding, probing, testing, fondling … and just occasionally falling over (usually when Anke walked over to Lars and I).


    Okay, I’ll stop for a while.

    We stayed overnight in a sweet little hotel, and the next day considered what to do. Somewhat as a joke over breakfast, I suggested we ride the cable car at the waterfall, and see what was up there. No foreigner I have ever met has been up there; most of us avoiding it, assuming it was a Taiwanese tourist trap. Everyone I know just rides past it on the way to waterfalls / hiking / camping.

    We were correct about the tourist trap; stuffed toys, haunted houses, boating lakes, cross-bow firing ranges etc. But it really was a bit of a magical feeling up there: completely absurd, but set in a wonderful environment above the valley. So, I hate to say it, but it comes recommended!


    The Waterfall.


    Boating lake at the top of the waterfall.


    Bye bye guys! (see you in Hong Kong)

    Now, I need to get posting the other stuff, and exporting the photos of Linnéa … A.L.L. have been chasing me!

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…