Things In My Neighborhood

One thing that is nice about Taiwan is the convenience. Within 50 meters of my studio/apartment is just about everything I could need. There's a dentist, a vet, 7-11, Watsons Drug Store, a catalog furniture store (order out of the catalog and they deliver to your apartment in a day), a cleaner and a laundry, a few pubs, several street food vendors, a sex shop, a pizza place, and a blind massage parlor. Blind massage parlors are quite popular in Taiwan. Maybe the government trains blind people, but it would seem that every blind person works in a massage parlor judging by the number of blind massage parlors. The massage parlor in my neighborhood is next to the laundry so I can hop in there for a ten minute head and neck or a ten minute shoulder and back massage for about $3 USD. Sometimes I will get both. It's not a bad way to kill some time while I'm waiting for me meatball sandwich at the pub.

Glass Art Studio, Taichung

 I'm opening a small glass studio in Taichung this year. I found a glass art supplier in Taipei in late May. A shop with an apartment was available in a familiar part of the city. Infact, I rented the apartment my first year in Taiwan. It was my Taichung city weekend apartment while I lived in Wuchi. It's on a pedestrian mall called Soho Street in what I consider to be the middle of the city. The street is lined with a couple pubs, a sports bar, a pizza shop, and a few miscellaneous shops. A few of my regular hang-outs are now conveniently located near my studio and apartment. These pictures show the evolution of the shop. I had new lights installed by an electrician and then I patched, sanded, and painted the walls. The electrician, lights, labor, and paint cost me about $180. I'll probably invest another hundred or so on more glass shelves and displays. My rent is about $400 plus utilities which will come out to around $50-80. Not too bad for a small studio/shop where I can live upstairs.

  

My studio is the place on the left. That is a KTV or karaoke bar next door. Sometimes I can hear Chinese pop songs mumbling through my walls.

 The studio with new paint all lights. You can see the wall where I need to install more shelves and displays.

  

My work space is along the opposite wall in front of the window. I want my workspace to be public and attract attention.

Climbing Yushan Mountain, 玉山, or Jade Moutain

Yushan is the tallest mountain in Taiwan. It is 3,952 metres (12,966 ft) above sea level. It is the fourth tallest mountain on an island. Wikipedia writes, "On July 21, 2009. Yushan was elected one of 28 finalists in the New7Wonders of Nature voting campaign." To give a greater sense of how remarkable the mountain is Wikipedia also writes, "The ocean waters off Taiwan's east coast are deep; in fact, submarine slopes plunge down to the Pacific Ocean at a grade of 1:10 and the ocean reaches a depth of more than 4,000 metres (13,100 ft) about 50 kilometres (30 mi) from the coast.^[1] From this perspective, Yushan is even more magnificent if you consider it rises 8,000 metres (26,200 ft) steeply from the nearby ocean floor in such a short distance — est 100 kilometres (60 mi)."

Yushan is also featured on the $1000 NTD.

It was an overcast and rainy day on Yushan. But, always trying to be the optimist, I thought it could be worse. It didn't rain all day, and it started raining about half-way down. The weather could have been a lot worse.

 Some birds looking for handouts at one of the rest stops.

 We'll be climbing into the mist soon.

 Those trees will be shrouded in mist and rain on the way down.

 On the summit with the clouds and my friends from Wuchi.

On The Road - Guguan

I am the proud owner of a 10 year old, 125cc Sym scooter with almost 70,000km. The sense of freedom. Riding for the sake of riding. No particular place to go. I've been renting a 50cc scooter, but that wasn't big enough to ride in the mountains. And, since I'm planning to stay another year. It makes sense to buy a used scooter. The used scooter cost the same as renting a scooter for five months, which was about $400 USD. So, in old-West speak, I got me a pony. I took a trip into the mountains last weekend. A two hour drive will get me to Guguan, a resort town with natural hot water spas.

A small town on the way to Guguan.

 Somebody left their beer and smokes on the bridge. It was a holiday weekend.

 The spa town of Guguan. It's a very popular place in the winter.

Penghu

Penghu is an archipelago off the western coast of Taiwan. The best way to describe it is quiet, clean, and colorful. The main island is about 8 km long and about 6 km wide. It's around 50 km from the coast. A 20 minute plane ride from Taichung airport gets me to the Magong airport on the main island. There are lots of cactus on the island. This thorny guy greets me at our first stop at the visitor center.




We land in the afternoon on Friday. We take a bus north and cross a bridge to Baisha island. There are little ports all over Penghu. We stop at the Tongliang Great Banyan tree. The banyan tree is three hundred years old. Since fishing is the main industry in Penghu there are many temples. Fishing is a dangerous job.

Coral is used in all the old structures of the island, and throughout the islands are coral walls protecting small gardens from the winds.

                                                                             

 Prickly pear fruit near the banyan tree. A vendor sells prickly pear ice cream. Yum!

 After Baisha we cross another long bridge to the island of Xiyu. There we see a traditional Erkan village.

The houses have coral walls with stucco.



Tiles, wood, and stonework adorn the walls, doors, and streets of the ancient village.

                                                                        
A small rock garden with coral walls.        

 

 On Saturday we get up early and take a boat south to the island of Hujingyu. This is the port of Hujingyu. We take a bus to the bluffs over the town and visit a large statue of Buddha and some of his disciples. The pose and expression reveals each disciples view of Buddhism.

                       

                                                                                           














                              

















                                            

 This is our next stop on the island of Wan-An. We stop at the Green Sea Turtle Tourism and Conservation Center before visiting the traditional Huazhai village. 

On our way back to Magong we stop at the island of Tongpanyu to visit the Tongpanyu Geopark. Many of the island in the archipelago have dramatic cliffs of columnar basalt. You can see how prickly pear flourishes on these islands too.

 This is a flower indigenous to Penghu.

                                                             What do they do with all those old buoys?