Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Been a while, s'pose I'll write something.
Timeline
Last weekend (like a week ago) involved dinner with some summer students, supervisors, and an SMA operator from Hilo followed by a trip to the bar. On Saturday Luis and I toured Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall before meeting some other summer students at Ximen station to walk Ximending (I believe I mentioned this place before?). Really great stuff, CKS Memorial Hall; large and beautiful traditional Chinese architecture (though the concert hall and theater were both under construction). Chiang Kai-shek must have lived a very busy and fulfilling life what with fighting wars, starting new governments and running them, meeting an insane number of people important to modern world history.
That Sunday the gang here in the dorm room headed to Wulai, somewhere outside Taipei. Known for its aboriginal culture and waterfalls, it was nice to head into the mountainous terrain. We ended the night in Wulai with public hot springs.
Another week of work. Oh yea, work was cancelled last monday on account of the typhoon. Nice lazy day (i think). Finally started spectral emission-line imaging. Lots of work to do.
I honestly don't remember anything from this past Friday. Yesterday was pretty special, though. Some of us in the program decided to meet up last evening to catch a fireworks show. I had no idea what to expect and I still don't know why the show even took place. Before it started I decided it was going to be a big show as the amount of people gathered at the edge of the river can only be described as a gigantic clusterfuck. We found ourselves a great place to watch the show on the roof of a building next to the river.
Indeed, the show was pretty mindblowing. The fireworks from the bridge were appealing, even showering down to the water like a waterfall of sparkling orbs of death. A building across the river was used as a base to shoot off loads of pyrotechnics from anywhere they could be placed.
A boat on the river, closest to the audience, was the show stopper. Some of the artillery shells were by far the biggest I've witnessed, and the climax/end of the show was the most impressive piece of pyrotechnics seen in my life. Sorry, though, no pictures. I took the selfish road and decided that taking pictures would have totally ruined the experience.
Finally, today, I tagged along with two roommates and two other summer students on a trip to Yongge and.....some town across the river from Yongge with a name I can't remember. Outside Taipei. The area is known for its ceramics and they let that be known; there is some fantastically exquisite work done there (we even toured the museum in Yongge devoted to ceramics). The town across the river (a town compared to Taipei anyway) has a quaint Old Street that's pleasing to walk through. Not much else, though, so we headed home.
Well what else is there to say? Lots, to be sure, but I don't feel like continuing this much further for now. I've never been one for details, so don't look for any on this blog and we'll all save some time, heh.
Timeline
Last weekend (like a week ago) involved dinner with some summer students, supervisors, and an SMA operator from Hilo followed by a trip to the bar. On Saturday Luis and I toured Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall before meeting some other summer students at Ximen station to walk Ximending (I believe I mentioned this place before?). Really great stuff, CKS Memorial Hall; large and beautiful traditional Chinese architecture (though the concert hall and theater were both under construction). Chiang Kai-shek must have lived a very busy and fulfilling life what with fighting wars, starting new governments and running them, meeting an insane number of people important to modern world history.
That Sunday the gang here in the dorm room headed to Wulai, somewhere outside Taipei. Known for its aboriginal culture and waterfalls, it was nice to head into the mountainous terrain. We ended the night in Wulai with public hot springs.
Another week of work. Oh yea, work was cancelled last monday on account of the typhoon. Nice lazy day (i think). Finally started spectral emission-line imaging. Lots of work to do.
I honestly don't remember anything from this past Friday. Yesterday was pretty special, though. Some of us in the program decided to meet up last evening to catch a fireworks show. I had no idea what to expect and I still don't know why the show even took place. Before it started I decided it was going to be a big show as the amount of people gathered at the edge of the river can only be described as a gigantic clusterfuck. We found ourselves a great place to watch the show on the roof of a building next to the river.
Indeed, the show was pretty mindblowing. The fireworks from the bridge were appealing, even showering down to the water like a waterfall of sparkling orbs of death. A building across the river was used as a base to shoot off loads of pyrotechnics from anywhere they could be placed.
A boat on the river, closest to the audience, was the show stopper. Some of the artillery shells were by far the biggest I've witnessed, and the climax/end of the show was the most impressive piece of pyrotechnics seen in my life. Sorry, though, no pictures. I took the selfish road and decided that taking pictures would have totally ruined the experience.
Finally, today, I tagged along with two roommates and two other summer students on a trip to Yongge and.....some town across the river from Yongge with a name I can't remember. Outside Taipei. The area is known for its ceramics and they let that be known; there is some fantastically exquisite work done there (we even toured the museum in Yongge devoted to ceramics). The town across the river (a town compared to Taipei anyway) has a quaint Old Street that's pleasing to walk through. Not much else, though, so we headed home.
Well what else is there to say? Lots, to be sure, but I don't feel like continuing this much further for now. I've never been one for details, so don't look for any on this blog and we'll all save some time, heh.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Another eventful weekend has slipped by. I remember friday as not being the greatest day of working. That night, though, the five of us room mates plus Hung-Miao went to KTV, karaoke. I had no idea what to expect so when we turned up at what seemed like a very fancy hotel I was suprised. We missed out reservation at this particular venue, however the karaoke consierge hailed us some cabs that took us to another KTV Party World in town (and paid for them!). The highlight by far was watching Luis and Meng-Yuan team up on My Humps.
Saturday afternoon I found myself wandering alone through Ximending, a popular area of town filled with cinemas, street shops and vendors, some street performers; not far from some very old temples. Inadvertendly found myself down by Longshan Temple before heading back. I stumbled upon a street parade (for lack of a better turn) blasting intensely loud music from the backs of automobiles. Live, though, not recordings. I came upon it right in front of a temple too, which was a plus because a brave man was lighting off firecrackers in front of the entrance.
That evening Luis, Kotaro and I made our way to Taipei 101. Currently the tallest building in the world, it's quite a marvelous structure. It houses the fastest personal elevator in the world, too; it takes 37 second to travel the 84 floors from the 5th floor to the 89th. My pictures from the "top" (we were still 20-something floors from the final floor!) suck so I urge anyone reading this to check out pictures of Taipei 101 yourself.
Yesterday the gang took the MRT to the last station on the route, Danshui. Nice historic and tourist town at the mouth of the Danshuei River. Ungodly hot but lots of sights and sounds and foods and peoples.
Come sunset we headed to XinBeitou, known for its hotsprings. Capitalist pigs have seized many of the the springs and built hotels on the land, so we had to enter one of them and sit in a tub inside. I was fully prepared for a total Goron experience; outside in the public with a friendly atmosphere calling eachother "Brothers!" This hotel was indeed public but I guess it was a slow night? Just us; total sausage fest if I've ever known one but thems the breaks.
Back to the grindstone again today. Hard to believe it's our fourth week already; I've so little work to show! Oh, I guess I'll try to get up some more pictures before the apathy establishes itself.
http://flickr.com/photos/28336996@N08/
Saturday afternoon I found myself wandering alone through Ximending, a popular area of town filled with cinemas, street shops and vendors, some street performers; not far from some very old temples. Inadvertendly found myself down by Longshan Temple before heading back. I stumbled upon a street parade (for lack of a better turn) blasting intensely loud music from the backs of automobiles. Live, though, not recordings. I came upon it right in front of a temple too, which was a plus because a brave man was lighting off firecrackers in front of the entrance.
That evening Luis, Kotaro and I made our way to Taipei 101. Currently the tallest building in the world, it's quite a marvelous structure. It houses the fastest personal elevator in the world, too; it takes 37 second to travel the 84 floors from the 5th floor to the 89th. My pictures from the "top" (we were still 20-something floors from the final floor!) suck so I urge anyone reading this to check out pictures of Taipei 101 yourself.
Yesterday the gang took the MRT to the last station on the route, Danshui. Nice historic and tourist town at the mouth of the Danshuei River. Ungodly hot but lots of sights and sounds and foods and peoples.
Come sunset we headed to XinBeitou, known for its hotsprings. Capitalist pigs have seized many of the the springs and built hotels on the land, so we had to enter one of them and sit in a tub inside. I was fully prepared for a total Goron experience; outside in the public with a friendly atmosphere calling eachother "Brothers!" This hotel was indeed public but I guess it was a slow night? Just us; total sausage fest if I've ever known one but thems the breaks.
Back to the grindstone again today. Hard to believe it's our fourth week already; I've so little work to show! Oh, I guess I'll try to get up some more pictures before the apathy establishes itself.
http://flickr.com/photos/28336996@N08/
Saturday, July 12, 2008
SMA data was finally given to the three of us working on low-mass star formation yesterday. It should be very interesting to see how well I can reduce the data. Finally I ate something with which my stomach did not agree. Lunch yesterday was a big plate of god knows what; bubble-gum flavored tea (I thought, anyway), noodles that tasted like waffles, all covered in thick sauce, seafood (octopus, shrimp, some mystery white animal components), a little beef and pork, very interesting (and tasty). Later in the afternoon it gave me some pains that eventually subsided in my sleep.
After work some of us in the summer program hung around the office to watch Satoki-san (and some grad students?) do SMA remote-observations. The SMA antennas can be operated from the Hilo office, I think from California, and from Taipei. Somewhat interesting but it turned into a nice informal hang-out session for us.
Woke up at noon today, very strange. My plans changed through the course of the day; Luis and I eventually ended up walking from the MRT main station to the Confucius temple (which is closed for renovations). The temple across the street (I believe is Bao-an, not sure, though) was easily accessible. Very much like Longshan temple in architecture and layout, less crowded. Very good for the spirit. Lots of walking today, i'm quite tired.
I've come to realize bloggers can put pictures directly into their blog, though that would make things very ugly. With photobucket apparently you can make a slideshow of photos and put that into a blog on blogspot. I've put my pictures on Flickr, though, so I'm just gonna give you the URL hyperlink and tell you to go there and see my pictures. I'm not photographer, I just document things with my camera. I credit some photos to Meng-yuan.
http://flickr.com/photos/28336996@N08/
After work some of us in the summer program hung around the office to watch Satoki-san (and some grad students?) do SMA remote-observations. The SMA antennas can be operated from the Hilo office, I think from California, and from Taipei. Somewhat interesting but it turned into a nice informal hang-out session for us.
Woke up at noon today, very strange. My plans changed through the course of the day; Luis and I eventually ended up walking from the MRT main station to the Confucius temple (which is closed for renovations). The temple across the street (I believe is Bao-an, not sure, though) was easily accessible. Very much like Longshan temple in architecture and layout, less crowded. Very good for the spirit. Lots of walking today, i'm quite tired.
I've come to realize bloggers can put pictures directly into their blog, though that would make things very ugly. With photobucket apparently you can make a slideshow of photos and put that into a blog on blogspot. I've put my pictures on Flickr, though, so I'm just gonna give you the URL hyperlink and tell you to go there and see my pictures. I'm not photographer, I just document things with my camera. I credit some photos to Meng-yuan.
http://flickr.com/photos/28336996@N08/
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
God I Love Food
Just wanted to relate the dish I had for dinner (before i forget completely). A few of us from the program went to World of Curry for dinner after work. We were the only people there. Whatever the name of the dish was, it was surely worldly. Spaghetti curry with some chinese style vegetables, french fries, and japanese style fried prawns. Mmmm.
I don't know if it's just because I'm in a big city or if it is Taiwan in particular but the plethora of food choices, availability, and affordability are impressive. Local food is a great way to experience a culture and eating is a wildly entertaining experience. I will enjoy returning to a diet of Safeway french loaves and tap water for school but until then I will eat like a king.
I don't know if it's just because I'm in a big city or if it is Taiwan in particular but the plethora of food choices, availability, and affordability are impressive. Local food is a great way to experience a culture and eating is a wildly entertaining experience. I will enjoy returning to a diet of Safeway french loaves and tap water for school but until then I will eat like a king.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
One Week
I must begin with the disclaimer that already I am growing weary of updating this blog. It can be rather time consuming, and my memory is so poor some things aren't worth writing because large chunks of information are missing. I've been meaning to add pictures for days now and I probably will not put any on this blog tonight, either.
Oh well, I'll write what I can. Yesterday (Saturday) after lunch i went off to experience some temples. Shandao Temple was stop one, however I did not access inside the buildings (which are huge, like ten or twelve stories), just took some crappy pictures from the street.
Stop two on the train route was far more fruitful. Longshan Temple is one of (if not the) oldest temples in the Taipei area. It is multi-religious, so to say; people pray to buddhas, deified teachers, and other gods. It is tough to take any artful pictures there as it is jam-packed with people praying, making offerings, sleeping (all outside). What floored me was the architecture. The roofs are excrutiatingly beautiful, sky blue and emerald green dragons, incredible red tiling and every beam on the inner roof told a story through imagery. At first I couldn't imagine how anyone could pray or have any spiritual concentration with so much action taking place but after making my own rounds of reverence and gratitude my attitude changed. A connection is made; connection with the fellow prayer-makers, a connection with the temple and the location, and a connection through time, with all the people and all the prayers, hopes, wishes and emotions that have passed through the gates. I hardly think anyone leaves dissatisfied from such a place. Oh, and who would have thought that a temple would house the largest concentration of beautiful girls? Everywhere, just everywhere!
Saturday night, after dinner, the five of us in the room went to a night market (I think). Maybe not, to be honest I can't remember. I'm beginning to think we didn't go to a night market. Who knows what we did? Not me.
Anyway today (Sunday) we met two other summer program students and headed to the National Palace Museum. It's supposedly the largest collection of ancient Chinese artifacts in the world, and I'd believe it. Everything from the early Neolithic Age to the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty in the early 20th century, all has it's place and description. Imperial funiture and curio boxes, neolithic pottery, bronze age pieces of literally all kinds, jade in almost every exhibit, seemingly a whole library of chinese books, documents, paintings, and calligraphy, stunning reliogious pieces, it was breathtaking. And all for only NT 80; that's under $3 US.
We made our way to a night market tonight. A large one, too. Carnival games, tons and tons of foods of all kinds (I had the pig heart soup), arcade games (I had to play some DDR), and a large avenue of shops full of useless materialism (but it's fun to see). Oh and the market cut right in front of an interesting temple. The main goddess is Ma-tsu, a goddess of the sea. Very lovely.
I'm feeling too enervated to go on. Maybe one of these days I'll actually discuss how I'm feeling or express some thoughts of mine. For now we may assume that no news is good news.
Oh yea, I think my parents with my aunts and uncles left yesterday for the West on a motorcycle adventure. May the skies smile upon them as the road befriends their bikes and leads them to happiness. The Buddha is attributed as saying 'It is better to travel well than to arrive.'
Oh well, I'll write what I can. Yesterday (Saturday) after lunch i went off to experience some temples. Shandao Temple was stop one, however I did not access inside the buildings (which are huge, like ten or twelve stories), just took some crappy pictures from the street.
Stop two on the train route was far more fruitful. Longshan Temple is one of (if not the) oldest temples in the Taipei area. It is multi-religious, so to say; people pray to buddhas, deified teachers, and other gods. It is tough to take any artful pictures there as it is jam-packed with people praying, making offerings, sleeping (all outside). What floored me was the architecture. The roofs are excrutiatingly beautiful, sky blue and emerald green dragons, incredible red tiling and every beam on the inner roof told a story through imagery. At first I couldn't imagine how anyone could pray or have any spiritual concentration with so much action taking place but after making my own rounds of reverence and gratitude my attitude changed. A connection is made; connection with the fellow prayer-makers, a connection with the temple and the location, and a connection through time, with all the people and all the prayers, hopes, wishes and emotions that have passed through the gates. I hardly think anyone leaves dissatisfied from such a place. Oh, and who would have thought that a temple would house the largest concentration of beautiful girls? Everywhere, just everywhere!
Saturday night, after dinner, the five of us in the room went to a night market (I think). Maybe not, to be honest I can't remember. I'm beginning to think we didn't go to a night market. Who knows what we did? Not me.
Anyway today (Sunday) we met two other summer program students and headed to the National Palace Museum. It's supposedly the largest collection of ancient Chinese artifacts in the world, and I'd believe it. Everything from the early Neolithic Age to the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty in the early 20th century, all has it's place and description. Imperial funiture and curio boxes, neolithic pottery, bronze age pieces of literally all kinds, jade in almost every exhibit, seemingly a whole library of chinese books, documents, paintings, and calligraphy, stunning reliogious pieces, it was breathtaking. And all for only NT 80; that's under $3 US.
We made our way to a night market tonight. A large one, too. Carnival games, tons and tons of foods of all kinds (I had the pig heart soup), arcade games (I had to play some DDR), and a large avenue of shops full of useless materialism (but it's fun to see). Oh and the market cut right in front of an interesting temple. The main goddess is Ma-tsu, a goddess of the sea. Very lovely.
I'm feeling too enervated to go on. Maybe one of these days I'll actually discuss how I'm feeling or express some thoughts of mine. For now we may assume that no news is good news.
Oh yea, I think my parents with my aunts and uncles left yesterday for the West on a motorcycle adventure. May the skies smile upon them as the road befriends their bikes and leads them to happiness. The Buddha is attributed as saying 'It is better to travel well than to arrive.'
Friday, July 4, 2008
FRI-Day best day
Our fifth room mate arrived last night, Luis. Smart guy, from U of Kansas. He's also working on the low-mass star formation project with me (though we'll be using separate data). Special tea time today with lots of people and lots of food in the office area. After work some of us students took a bus to a relatively close and relatively small night market. It was really just a road/ large alley way full of stores, small businesses, street merchants, and tons of street food. I can't quite describe what I ate, other than the egg-batter pancake/waffle in the shape of a gun. Anyway we'll see what the weekend turns up.
oh before i forget, it was revealed to me that the trash cars here play Beethoven.
oh before i forget, it was revealed to me that the trash cars here play Beethoven.
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