Ninja vs Penguin

Penguin January 10th, 2009

My 6th aunt, uncle, Round and Clock went back to Hsinchu and dropped off my mom and I in Taipei. It was so much warmer here. This was the sort of weather I had packed for.

My mom went to visit her friend. While they chatted, I played NDS.

We got a chance to ride the Taipei metro system which was pretty nice and really well designed. Everything was color coded and had both Chinese and English on all the signs. There were also plenty of digital signs to light the way.

Afterwards, we went to Taipei 101, the world’s tallest skyscraper. We went to the food court downstairs for lunch.

We went up to the observatory deck to look around.

Then we came down and went shopping. Now that it was warmer, I didn’t have much need for clothes. It was also hard to shop with my mom in tow. It’s been so long since I’ve been shopping, I pretty much forgot what I was doing. I still knew what I liked, but I didn’t know what I wanted. This made shopping really difficult.

We had tons of time to kill before our train back to Hsinchu. So we went to Eslite Bookstore to find some seats. My feet were killing me. I was so excited when I found a free public internet station. My feet could stand a few more minutes so I could check my mail.

We sat around a bit before deciding to head back. I suggested we try to change the time of our train. We were able to get a half hour earlier trip.

For dinner, we stopped by 7 Eleven to pick up some pork bun and what I thought was water. I ended up being this other thing that was sweet and tangy, which wouldn’t have been so bad had I not been expecting water.

The high speed rail is really fast.

We got back to my 6th aunt’s place and I was really happy to have real internet.

-Penguin

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Penguin January 9th, 2009

Got up pretty late and felt a lot better. Had some guava and peanut butter and bread for breakfast. After eating, I still felt lousy and opted not to go out. Considering how cold it still was, I figured this was the better choice.

I slept all morning and woke up again at 12:30. My cousins Round and Clock, who had been staying in to study for finals, already had lunch, so I had to fend for myself. After lunch, I went back to sleep.

I woke up later, but was still pretty weak. Not much else to do, so I just played DS.

We didn’t go out for dinner because it was raining. Instead, we had left overs.

Later, they went to night market and brought back some food. I finally had a chance to have stinky tofu.

-Penguin

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Penguin January 8th, 2009

It managed to be colder today than yesterday. My uncle lent me one of his jackets which was much better than my North Face shell, but it didn’t have much of a neck. I wish I had one of the scarves Ninja knit me.

We drove about an hour to this mountain preserve. I managed to fall asleep on the ride up.

When we got there, we stopped off to use the bathrooom. There, I ran into Grace and Newman. What a small world, that I would run into people I know from America half way around the world in this little remote area of Taiwan.

We walked a bit to see a lake and some trees. Then we saw more trees. I did manage to bond with my cousins Smell and Hans a bit in our boredom.

For lunch, we went to this little tea shop half way down the mountain. While we waited for lunch to be prepared, we sat and sampled some “award winning” tea. The tea competition was from this area, so although special, not as special as, say, a Taiwan comp.

The tea was good, but I cared more about the warmth it would bring me as I drank it.

Lunch was good. Everything was cooked either in tea or had tea leaves in it. Some of it, you could really notice the tea flavor which was nice. Others, you couldn’t notice it at all.

After lunch, we went to try some more tea. I had to stop by the bathroom to drop a deuce. I had the choice between a stall with a regular toilet, but there was a sign on the door and a stall with a squat toilet. I didn’t know what the sign meant, so I chose the regular. I dropped my deuce and when I went to flush, discovered there wasn’t any water. I realized that the sign meant it was out of order. I felt really bad and decided to run away in shame.

Next, we stopped by a tea farm where there were little tents to let you try the tea. We were pretty high up and could see a good deal. Again, not very exciting.

When we got home, I was too tired to even off load pictures. Not that I had many. But I jumped in bed to try and sleep it off. I didn’t sleep much and got up for dinner. I realized I had a cold. I popped some Tylenol, put on my iPod and went to sleep.

-Penguin

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Penguin January 7th, 2009

Woke up around 4 and jumped online for awhile. With the time difference, not many people were on, but I did manage to get some pictures together for the upload. Eventually, Ninja jumped online and we were able to chat a little bit before leaving.

We left for Yilan at around 6:30a with Round and Clock. The two of them along with my mom and my 6th aunt piled into the back of my uncle’s Lexus R300.

We drove to Taipei and hit traffic right before we were to get on Highway 5. Luckily, there wasn’t that much traffic and we started through.

We drove through a whole bunch of tunnels. One of them, the longest tunnel in Taiwan, was over 12 KM. It took them 10 years to dig.

We finally arrived at my 7th aunt’s place. This was their weekend and retirement home that was built fairly recently. It was pretty cold out here, much colder than it was in Hsinchu.

We sat around a little bit and then went to the traditional art center. What I thought would be like a gallery or something was actually a bunch of little stores. It wasn’t too bad, being able to buy traditional stuff. It was a little too commercial.

We went through this one place, which we all thought was some sort of tour, but ended up being a long advertisement for activated carbon. I love inanimate carbon rods as much as the next guy, but this was a bit much. Some of the things the guy was saying about the carbon was a little far fetched. Sure, it can block EM signals, but common, we’re surrounded by EM signals. it’s really not that big a deal. Especially front lights, TV, monitors, etc. The water filtration stuff was pretty common, since we have Britas and stuff. But he was trying to sell us on putting it in our rice as we cooked it. I don’t think so.

The rest of the time, we just walked around looking at stuff.

Then we went to lunch at Suea Port. Some great fresh seafood over there.

Then we went to try and see some birds but only saw a handful of ducks. It’s freezing cold.

Not impressed by the ducks, we continued on to a sport park.

There was this crater we went to and my uncle and cousins had a fun time there. I didn’t quite enjoy myself considering how cold it was. I was so low on battery, that I didn’t take many shots.

Then we went home to rest up a bit. I recharged my battery a bit before dinner.

Dinner, we went to a local restaraunt.

My cousin played my NDS a bit. He was playing New Super Mario Brothers and wasn’t being very successful. Whenever he would die, I would sing the death music. My cousins found this really amusing.

After dinner, we went home and I off loaded the pictures. I wanted to start tagging them, but I was so tired I just went to sleep.

Didn’t sleep much when we decided to go to a hot spring. It turned out to be a spa, but it was a lot of fun.

-Penguin

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Penguin January 4th, 2009

I’m at a free internet terminal at the Eslite bookstore in Taipei, just outside of the Taipei 101 building, the tallest building in the world.

It’s been an interesting last few days. But I just wanted to give everyone a quick shoutout that I’m still here and alive. I’ll be uploading pics later tonight once I get real internet access. I have tons of pictures of trees and food. Exciting!

I was a little sick the other day. Just a cold, but it put me out of commission for a day. Much better now.

Peas,

-Penguin

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Penguin December 31st, 2008

I woke up this morning to a surprisingly brisk day. I hadn’t expected it to be this chilly, so I hadn’t packed many long sleeve shirts or pants. The pants that I did bring were pretty thin.

In the morning, I just bummed around and caught up on some blogs and other reading. I sorted through the pix I had taken and uploaded them.

For lunch, we met up with my cousin “clock” at this Japanese place.

Afterwards, we walked around the Taiwan University campus a bit.

Then we went shopping.

I was hoping to pick up a hoodie and a pair of jeans, but I was unsuccessful. The 2 hoodies that I did find didn’t have anything in my size. Most of the jeans that I looked at weren’t my style either. They were either too loud or too baggie for my tastes.

Then dinner, we met up with my other uncle at BBQ place. Think Korean BBQ, but without the Korean, just cook your own meat.

Throughout the day, I would roll video of whatever I thought would be interesting. Not sure what I’ll be able to throw together, but hopefully I have enough interesting shots to make it look nice, even if it lacks a narrative.

-Penguin

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Penguin December 30th, 2008

It’s been over 10 years since I’ve been “home” to see family. A lot has happened and changed in that time. I’m looking forward to spending time with them and just relaxing a bit. Though there is some work that I can do. I wish I had a new laptop to do some real work.

I’ll be in Taiwan until the 14th. Until then, I’ll have sporadic internet access. Hopefully I can jump on my cousin’s network.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to post pics and vids along the way.

Until then, have a very happy new year!

-Penguin

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Penguin October 11th, 2008

We got in late Tuesday night. Our flight was delayed about an hour and a half, but we did make up some of it in the air.

The first night, we just kind of settled in and watched Planet Earth: Seasons in BluRay.

In the morning, we woke up to this:

The view from Nancy and Tim’s balcony is amazing. They’re such gracious hosts for letting us crash at their place.

I could really get used to weather like this.

After a quick breakfast of french toast, we went to the Amoeba:

This is a crazy large music and DVD store. They sell tons of used stuff. It’s not a place where you go to browse, but to go in with a plan to find something cool and obscure.
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Penguin August 9th, 2008

I wanted to wake up to shoot the sunrise, but that didn’t happen. I ended up waking up around 8:30. I wasn’t too eager to have breakfast after the previous night’s dinner. They did have the potato bread that was pretty good.

At 10, we went to the beach. I stripped down to my underwear and went into the water. The water was definitely colder than yesterday. I had goosebumps all over my legs and stuff.

I stayed in for about 10 minutes and then came out and slept on the beach. Just as the weather was getting nice, we had to leave. I was starting to get a nice tan.

We left the beach around 1. We still had some time before lunch, so we picked up a rotisserie chicken. We did want to get some other stuff, like a cake and dried fish for Kostya’s birthday. But Daniel suggested that we just take him to shishkabob instead. After the different meals, we figured the chicken would be the only thing we ate.
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Penguin August 8th, 2008

Woke up around 8:30 and had pancakes with apricot jam for breakfast.

Then we had service at 9:30. The team performed Mission Impossible, then Charles spoke, and then they performed Lifehouse.

After service we chilled before lunch. While we were waiting, Charles came and showed me an email between Paul and Mr. Yang. Essentially, Nazira, Elena, and Christa had concerns about what I was doing here. There was all this bullshit about if I was going to do an expose on them. They were afraid that I was just going to do a film about all the dirt that I had found.

Mr. Yang also had a really nasty comment about what I was doing with Larisa. I don’t understand how a Christian could be so against the work of other Christians, just because they’re not affiliated with their organization.
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