Beers of the Week

I'm going to drink each and every one of these that I can...hopefully without having to share ;)

An Amazing Bird Formation

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=8704649

I believe the link on Yahoo! indicated that this was a flock of Starlings. I just find it remarkable how they move around like some kind of amalgam jellyfish! Nature is just wild!

Peer Gynt in Wonderland

As the result of our recent trip to Australia (more on that later), Melanie and I decided to pursue our renewed interest in attending symphony orchestra performances by checking into what sort of concerts were available here in Taiwan.

It was thus that we went over to the National Concert Hall here in Taipei on April 5, 2008 to see what we had expected to be a traditional interpretation of Peer Gynt. That was our first mistake.

For those of you that may not be familiar with Peer Gynt, odds are that while you might not know why this name should sound familiar to you, there is a very good chance that you know many of the songs from this symphony. Especially for those of you who grew up watching the old Warner Brothers cartoons (like Bugs Bunny, etc.), songs such as Morning Mood and In The Hall Of The Mountain King will most certainly ring a bell within the first few bars.

In preparation for this concert, both Melanie and I did a little bit of research online to learn more about the story. The idea of an anti-hero and trolls and belly dancers was all very intriguing, so we were both full of anticipation.

Anyway, getting back to our experience here in Taipei...

To start it all off, we (I) began to suspect that the evening would not go as planned when, as we approached the concert hall, we noticed a distinctly high concentration of children being accompanied by their parents. Melanie later admitted after the show that she had an inkling of what we were in for when, after she had just purchased the tickets from the box office (where, she insists I add, Chinese was exclusively written and spoken), she noticed the word "Choreographer" in the credits of an advertisement as she was heading back home.

For me, I would have to say that things were more clear when we went in and saw that it was pretty much mostly children, running and screaming through the aisles, jumping up and down on the chairs, and staring at the two of us like we were fresh off the mothership in Roswell ("Look, Ma! Foreigners!!!"). Everything crystallized when the MC came out dressed like a giant red rhinoceros beetle.

I will spare you the details of what I was personally subjected to for the next two hours; however, I will offer a brief stream-of-consciousness rant in an attempt to capture the gestalt of the whole experience.

Kids. Ballet with distinctly Chinese movement forms. Butterflies, Beetles, and Bees. Crazy MC in a Rhinoceros beetle outfit. Absolutely intended for an audience of small children. Moral message at the end that combined a commentary between filial piety and the importance of not being an arrogant braggart with little regard for the concerns of others.

The MC did a great job of engaging the kids and explaining the message. Great approach to getting kids involved in different forms of storytelling, the theater and the symphony. Not so great when you're all dressed up for a night of "Serious Music", as the Hungarians would say.

It was surreal watching wings and antennae fall off. Initially tried blocking out the dancers, but the sounds of their footfalls during their leaps and prances ruined any possibility of success there.

So, there you have it. Our night of culture. Next time, perhaps we (Melanie) will do a little (lot) more research before we do something similar. In hindsight, it was a fun and surreal and enjoyable and educational experience that was definitely worth doing once.

Once.

Yeeeeeeeeeeehaw!

I had a fantastically surreal conversation with one of my colleagues recently.

Just to properly paint the picture here, he is a well educated engineer, currently living with his nuclear family in Shanghai. However, he hails from a village far, far away from Shanghai - both in geography and urbanity - and he often makes me smile with his (at least for me) unique stories and perspectives.

So, my colleague was visiting out Taiwan office from his China office on a business trip, just before Chinese New Year. The team took him out for a nice dinner on one of those nights, and we had an interesting evening of conversation covering topics ranging from travel during Chinese New Year (you've heard the stories) to political party associations (turns out he's a card carrying member of the party) to the US election, etc.

Somehow, and I think this might have been over the third or fourth glass of plum wine, the conversation took a distinctly surreal left turn.

My colleague made the assertion that people that have, at some point in their lives, ridden a dog like a horse will find that it will rain on their wedding day.

That's right - riding a dog will make it rain when you get married.

Dog riding = rain on wedding day

It sounded (and continued to sound) like crazy talk, but then when we went around the table to try and disprove this theory, we soon discovered a direct 1-to-1 correlation. Those of us (that's right - I said "us" - I was 8 years old, so back off) that had ridden a dog at some point in our lives did have rain on our wedding days, and those that had not found the air dry when they uttered their I Do's.

I have since asked several people the two questions that just don't seem to go together, and have continued to come up against the fact that the correlation has remained defiantly present and unimpeachable. It's not even that the people that I have asked have exclusively stayed off the backs of dogs - you would really be surprised how many people have tried it when they were young.

So, in an effort to gather more data in a scientific manner, I have decided to put this survey to you (my audience of 2) to see if you can help me shed any further light on this topic...

RESOLVED: Riding dogs is tantamount to doing a rain dance.

Please use the voting feature on the side-bar to help me to either prove or disprove this theory. Feel free to encourage any other folks you might know to also fill out this survey, and feel free to leave any comments or anecdotes that might help us figure this crazy situation out.

If You Can't Laugh At Yourself...

I always appreciate it when people have a good sense of humor. This video was shown at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, and it really cracked me up.

Johnny Chung Lee Creates "Minority Report" Effect with Wii Remote

So this is pretty neat.



Since I work at a company that makes input devices, this does make me wonder if we'd better think about trying to hire this guy...

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

Further proof of job openings for Copy Editors in Taiwan

This motorcycle has a license plate that few in the US would feel comfortable displaying

Don't we usually try to AVOID passengers that are ticking???

See what happens when you just do a word-for-word translation?

I know you are, but what am I?

My parents read this, so I'll exclude the comment I originally had in mind...

Come on!

It's hard enough to fight the stereotype of the stupid, fat, ugly American. It's nice to see that Miss Teen South Caroline decided to join the battle...

...she just chose the wrong side...



Seriously, WTF is she saying?

Songs from the 90s

Actually, this is more wacky stuff spotted here in Taiwan, but I've managed to observe a theme on this one, so here goes:

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• Found this one in one of the local stores that carries pet goods.
  
  

---

• You can...
  ...in the morning, you can...
  
  
  ...in the night, you can...
  
  
  ...when you want to...
  
  
  ...
  
  
  
  

---

• I was kind of thinking about the theme from "The Love Boat", but somehow cheezy 70s disco music rings more true...
  
  
  I'm not sure what they are implying here, but I do know that there's know way I'm drinking this...
  

Are You Ready For Prayer Time?

Many (if not most) companies in Taiwan will engage in a semi-monthly "bai bai" ceremony, wherein they sacrifice food, incense and money (actually just paper) to their ancestors to bring fortune and luck. I have yet to really figure out the exact significance of this rite (and admittedly, I haven't really tried), but I think that the ancestor worship is some sort of a cross between Taoism and Confucianist beliefs.

Our office typically does not show many signs of having these sorts of religious/spiritual beliefs, so it was interesting when I noticed my coworkers preparing for this particular holiday, the Mid-Autumn Festival. I consider it a privelege to have been able to witness one of these ceremonies first-hand outside of the usual temple environs.

Talented Street Performer

Check this guy out:



Very impressive style and technique.

He reminds me of Stanley Jordan.

Mexican Food in Taiwan

Bean-o-rama's recent post on Mexican food has inspired me to put on this ol' blog with regards to Mexican food in Taiwan.

I'm not sure how to start this, so let's start with a silly scenario.

Let's say that you come to Taiwan and decide that rather than partaking of any of the local cuisines (spanning all of Asia with admirable verisimilitude), you instead opt for getting some Mexican food to avoid the dysentery. You might be curious about how they interpret a burrito. You might be wondering how a culture that only peripherally socializes with cheese would go about making an enchilada plate. You might just hate Asian food.

Regardless of your reasons, I am here today to tell you that you should not under any circumstances follow this urge to try Mexican food here in Taiwan. I am sure there are exceptions to this rule (i.e. you have a friend that makes it at home), but I have yet to actually encounter any. Here are some examples of experiences that I have had:

• There is a very nice restaurant that also doubles as a jazz club here in Taipei called Brown Sugar. It is very snazzy, the jazz is actually pretty darn good, and the drink menu is downright spectacular. The food menu is also pretty interesting, and they somehow manage to do a great job on their Western fare. In spite of all of these things that they have going for them, their version of Nachos (which costs about US$7~8) was a basket of Nacho Cheese Doritos served with a little bowl filled with crappy picante sauce. Seriously.
  
  
• I can't recall the place where I had this, but at one point I ended up seeing somebody order a taco that consisted of a fried shell, corn, mayonnaise, and what appeared to be Campbell's Chunky Beef Stew. Not a single shred of lettuce, tomato, pineapple, or salsa in sight...
  
  
• This isn't really an example of issues with Mexican cuisine, but I also once received a Mojito that consisted of nothing but rum, peppermint schnapps and ice cubes.

There are other examples, but suffice it to say that I have completely given up. Now and then, I might run across a Churro that's probably safe, but I'm even a bit scared to try those out.

I used to complain a bit about the fact that there was no good Mexican food in central Texas - only Tex-Mex. Now that I've had Tai-Mex, I have learned that there are far worse things in this world than black beans served with my fajitas.

Talk About an Understatement

A China Airlines flight exploded on the tarmac today, with no injuries or fatalities. Here is the article from Yahoo! News.

While this in and of itself is not particularly exceptional, the statement from the President of China Airlines (a Taiwanese company) was just a little bit unsettling:

"We are prepared to do its best to get to the bottom of this incident," China Airlines president Zhao Guoshi told reporters at a press conference at Naha airport late Monday. "I apologize for the trouble we have caused our passengers."

For those of you that have wondered why I am so adamant about not flying China Airlines for my various Asian business trips, hopefully the stats towards the bottom of the above article will shed some light on my position...

Greece 2007

Monday
Arrived in Athens at 4pm, took the Metro from the train over to our hotel (Evangelismos), walked 3 blocks over and checked into the Athens Hilton (thank you Hilton Honors Points!), where we had a direct view of the Parthenon from our balcony.

After freshening up, we headed up via funicular to the restaurant with the coolest view in Athens, perched atop Lycabettus hill. The restaurant’s food was pretty good (this is where we first discovered Greek wine – their whites are lovely!), but the view was outstanding! Take a thin sweater if you go in the evening (better view then) because it does get drafty.


Tuesday
Woke up early and started walking eastward towards the Acropolis. We just wandered without paying too much attention to the map, so we ended up in a couple cool neighborhoods (Syntagma, Kolonaki, etc.) that had charming tabernas (restaurants) and coffee shops and wine bars.

We eventually figured out that we were going SW, which was cool because we ended up right next to the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which is a major attraction. It’s a little worse for wear, but you can still imagine what it must have looked like thousands of years ago. TIP: Buy the all-inclusive entrance ticket, which is good for a week, and will get you into all the major attractions.

We ended up walking in to the Plaka pedestrian area, which is cool for souvenir shopping (at tourist prices, of course) and eating and we decided to have lunch here (gyro…mmmmm). With our bellies full and our fluids replenished, we made our way to the Acropolis.

Plan to spend about 3-4 hours wandering around here if you’re a culture/history buff. Also do your best to get here earlier in the day than we did, since it gets pretty full with tourists over the course of the day, and it gets pretty hot around mid-day. Also, bring good walking shoes as you’ll do quite a bit of climbing up steep walkways to get up to the top of the hill.

We started out at the Temple of Dionysus, wandered through it all up to the Parthenon proper, and then came back down through Ancient Agora, stopping for pictures at the Temple of Hephaestus. TIP: Don’t wander alone through the trees in the Areopagus area – we did and accidentally interrupted a pot deal…cannabis baggie exposed, replete in all its glory.

Afterward, we were all cultured out, so we made a half-hearted attempt at walking through the Roman Agora before giving up and heading off to dinner in Monastiraki. We ended our day wandering back through the shops in Plaka before heading over to the Metro station and going home around 11pm.



Wednesday

We woke up fairly late (and dehydrated), so we headed straight for the National Archeological Museum and had breakfast around there.

Sadly, we only had about 2-3 hours there since we’re both museum buffs and there was SOOOOOOO much to see. If you’re into lots of artifacts from the ancient world, and enjoy reading the placards, then I suggest planning a full day here…otherwise, it is possible to rush through in 2~3 hours, although I would not recommend it. High points here were…well…legion. Seriously, you NEED to go here.

We unfortunately ran out of time, and had to run back to our hotel to get our bags so that we could take the Metro over to the Piraeus pier to grab our boat. We upgraded to business class (cuz I felt like it, darn it) and enjoyed the 5 hour ride out to Santorini. You can get there a lot quicker by plane, but I’ve always wanted to take a boat through the Aegean, so we went for it. The boat left on time, but somehow arrived a couple hours late. Also, the Aegean is named after the waves propensity to jump like goats, so that should give you an idea of what to expect of the ride. We arrived at the pier in Fira (AKA Thira), where our pre-arranged ride for the cave hotel was waiting for us.

Not sure if you’ve ever been to Santorini before, but the cave hotels are basically hotels that are built into the sides of the cliffs overlooking the relatively inactive volcano crater (caldera). The views are spectacular, and the sunsets will stay with you forever.

They’re a little on the pricey side, but I think they’re totally worth it. Our hotel was the Regina Mare, which was pretty decent and had great service. I wouldn’t expect more than 3.5 stars at any of these caldera hotels, but they nearly get by on charm alone.

We ended up going with Imerovigli, which is half way between the two major towns on the island (Fira and Oia). We chose it because it is fairly close to both, but not nearly as touristy and much quieter – you can actually hear the waves at night as opposed to the various boatloads (literally) of people coming and going from the major cities.

If you’re looking for nightlife, then you might want to stay at Fira. If you’re looking for more rustic charm and more restaurants, stay at Oia. If you’re looking for peace and beauty, stay at Imerovigli.

For dinner, we headed over to a local restaurant (take that with a grain of salt) that was pretty close to the hotel. The food was great and the local Santorini wine was fantastic.



Thursday

We just basically wandered around Fira and enjoyed the general ambience of the place. We enjoyed various meals at various places (can’t recall them off the top of my head) and then went home and called it a night.


Friday

We decided to rent a car and head out to explore the beaches. Renting the car was a good move since the bus and taxi systems are unreliable and sporadic at best (apparently pretty typical for Greece). Looking for the beaches…well…let’s put it this way. If you’re expecting broad sandy beaches with warm waves of blue water washing over you, at least you’ll be happy that it’s blue. Santorini was formed through volcanic activity, and its original round shape was devastated a long, long time ago, resulting in its current crescent + point shape today.

This resulted in the formation of spectacular landscapes and beautiful cliffs, coastlines, and beaches. The bad news is that the beaches are all made of stone. The Black Beach has scorching hot black stones. The Red Beach requires navigation across the cliffs of insanity, and the White Beach requires an off-roading experience to reach. The waters are all crystal clear since there is no sand to be seen anywhere. The waters are also very, very cold for some inexplicable reason.
I got a kick out of the drive and the adventure of getting around. It was cool passing through the vineyards full of lazy grapevines (they sprawl on the ground, vines akimbo vs. having posts to follow) – try to make some time for a winery if time permits. We also accidentally ended up driving up an insane mountain towards a place called Ancient Thira – the roads are 1 to 1.5 lanes wide, which makes it extra fun when you’re trying to get around the vans containing tourists. I’d advise against going here unless you like literally living on the edge.

After spending the day in search of and ultimately hanging out at a beach, we headed home to watch an amazing sunset from our terrace, freshen up, drop off the rental car, and then we headed up to Oia for dinner at what is purported to be the best restaurant on the island. This was GLORIOUS – words cannot describe how good this was. It was pretty darn expensive, but it was also our last night in Greece, so we just went for it. You also NEED to go here if you visit. Afterward, we staggered back home (after waiting 45 minutes for a taxi to show up) and finished packing before we crashed for the night.


Saturday
Woke up at around 4:30am and had a tiny little bit of breakfast on our terrace (we were too full to eat it all, but the hotel had packed us a nice breakfast the night before and left it in our room). We cleared out of the hotel and headed to the airport and managed to catch the sunrise over the east coast. Our flight took off at 6:30am, and thus ended a great (albeit far too short) vacation in Greece.

Typhoon Sepat Hits Taiwan

Melanie was treated to her very first typhoon (also known as hurricane or cyclone) last weekend when Sepat slammed Taiwan with 100+ MPH winds and rain. This is the third such typhoon to hit Taiwan in the last month, but thankfully Taiwan is well equipped to handle these sorts of events, as you can see in this article on Yahoo.


I went downstairs to the front of our building and managed to capture a short video showing the winds and rain hammering our neighborhood. Note that this was during a relatively quiet time during the storm...

The picture above is taken in front of my office on the following Monday - as you can see, aside from the fallen palm, there really wasn't a whole lot of damage.

Thankfully, the storm only lingered for about a day. We had plenty of warning so we rented a bunch of videos, stocked up our pantry with water and instant noodles, and settled down for a weekend at home. In the end, we didn't even lose power, so it was hardly very exciting at all. The worst we experienced was that the windows creaked a bit as they withstood the tempest, and a little bit of water leaked into the ceiling of our little terrace. All in all, considering the recent news of the conditions in India, we got off extremely easy.

Great Drawing

I just thought this was pretty cool:

http://www.emagi.co.uk/2006/08/12/bush-vampire/

English Lessons for Markus

Melanie and I were having dinner with her family in Großaspach, Germany. Her youngest cousin is relatively close to our age group, and he is a blast to hang around, so we were spending most of our time talking to him. At this point, my German language skills are decent - since his English skills are also decent, the conversation kind of drifted between German and English.

At one point, he was asking us to teach him English phrases, so we gave him a few useful ones (that I can't remember). I am not sure what triggered it, but I was suddenly taken with the desire to teach him an interesting phrase by first writing it down on a little notepad and having him read the text. The video below is young Markus doing his best to read it:





Puerile - maybe. Hilarious - absolutely!

In China today

Just wanted to point out how surreal it is here. I was in Beijing yesterday and am visiting our Shanghai office through Saturday. I wish I could more adequately describe the overall impression it leaves on me (this is roughly my tenth visit), but words escape me. I understand nearly everything that's being said around me, and I generally understand the culture, but the overall gestalt of the place is just beyond words.

I'll try to think up some anecdotes to capture this, but I simply felt the need to at least put something down that captures my utter sense of bafflement...it might take a while since I can't even do a Google search to grab a picture that's even remotely related to China...

2007 Dragon Boat Races

I had a chance to check out the Taipei 2007 Dragon Boat Races down at the river this year. Per Wikipedia, the tradition can be summarized as follows:

The exact origins of Duan Wu originated in ancient China. One traditional view holds that the festival memorializes the Chinese poet Qu Yuan (c. 340 BC-278 BC) of the Warring States Period. He committed suicide by drowning himself in a river because he was disgusted by the corruption of the Chu government. The local people, knowing him to be a good man, decided to throw food into the river to feed the fish so they would not eat Qu Yuan's body.

Naturally, this holiday is not celebrated in modern day China - no doubt the Communist regime had no desire to venerate a day of opposing the government, and summarily did away with the holiday all together.

Taiwan, on the other hand, along with various other countries with ethnic Chinese residents, has a great time with this one in spite of/to spite the mainland. There were attendees and racers from all over the world, including South Africa, the Philippines, the US, etc. Lots of expats also turned out to watch the races despite the 35C (95F) weather.

To be honest, the races weren't nearly as dramatic as I had expected them to be - even the final race was a little anticlimactic. Still, the crowds were friends, the racers and their friends/family were definitely pumped, and the atmosphere was highly enjoyable, so it was worth braving the heat.

I'm going to try something new for this particular post. I brought my camcorder with me for this trip and I figured I'd use the software that came with it to try putting together a little video to capture the day. It's my first attempt, and frankly the software did most of the work, but let me know what you think.

Dramatic chipmunk

This is just pure genius...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=a1Y73sPHKxw