Normbrero

Pushing Buttons?

2011-07-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

Most of this has already been written elsewhere, but I merge it together for the sake of leaving it as a talking point somewhere in the cyber-vomit of this blog. Now and again I feel the need to post here. I mean, when I'm not in Taiwan. I guess today is one of those days.

Anyway, here goes some form of recap and merge of the discussion...

The Original Thought

I listened to a Radiolab podcast the other day, or was it Freakonomics? It doesn't matter which it was, or what the topic was. That's fine, as I don't remember the topic either. What the key point was, is this. A researcher gave 2 control groups sports drinks, and put them on bikes in a lab. The 2 groups had different sports drinks:

1. Real calories for the first
2. No calories for the second

Here's what they did, and what they knew:

1. They rode their bikes (obvious)
2. They did not know if they had a real or fake sports drink
3. They drank the drinks, but spit them out

What do you suppose happened? In theory, you would think that both groups would perform the same. But why would I be writing this if that were the case? In fact, the group with the "real" drink performed better than the one with a fake one. This, even though they did not ingest the sports drink. Odd, right?

So I don't have much more, but the theory is that your subconscious mind and your conscious mind do not, in fact, communicate much at all in this transaction. So when the body tastes the sugar, it releases energy in anticipation of your receiving some energy, even though you spit it out. The fake drink does not have this same effect. Disclaimer: I did not read up more about this. The study may have been proven to be BS. I don't know.

To me, this really begs the question, are eating habits and energy systems somewhat out of our control? At least, are they out of our control as we think of them? What if you could actually trick your subconscious mind into acting a certain way even though you were consciously doing so? I mean, without a miracle pill. Is it possible? Desirable? Does it bother you?

This strikes me in various ways as I listen to more and more Radiolab episodes. Could I control my hunger better? Could I do something that made me less nervous before bike races? Might I find some magic combination to release a flood of energy when it's time to line up? Perhaps some sequence of events that would tell my brain to shut down and sleep better?

I find this all interesting.

Ok, I remember now. It was Radiolab, the podcast was about limits:
http://www.radiolab.org/2010/apr/05/

As recommended by Eric. It was a good listen. Give it a shot.

The Next Day

Pushing Buttons

We all have these buttons we push, right? Everything can probably be boiled down to that metaphor, or simile, whichever it is, if it's either of them. You can see several of them here. Training & racing, weight loss & appetite control, and social interaction.

The reality is that all 3 are a mystery. What button do I push to affect what outcome? This morning, I went on a bike ride. Or I pushed a button. I pushed a 20 minute button, which is 1/3 of the normal Thursday hard hour. This is a series of buttons we call a taper. Will this series of buttons produce the outcome as I hope? I don't know. History tells me that no, it won't. These peaks and tapers almost never work out as planned. So to expect the button to trigger what you want is probably sheer lunacy.

Yet I push the button anyway. It's good to believe something. If the monkey keeps pushing the button and eventually a peanut comes out, he'll keep pushing the button. This is why you keep hitting New Posts or Get Mail.

Those of us north of 150 pounds seem to always look for the button to push to control our appetite, and lose weight. If I push the right series of buttons and get a cat 3 upgrade this year, then push the button to sign up for Battenkill, I shouldn't even show up to that race unless I can push the right buttons to be 170 at most when that race rolls around.

And social interaction is another quagmire of button pushing. One I'm not even going to talk about.

Eric Replies

For me, the takeaway from all the Radiolab-type neurosciencey bits is this: we are less in control of ourselves than we think we are.

In which case, the corollary might be something like this: If we want to be in control of our ourselves, then we must understand how our conscious and subconscious minds work. And, we must be skilled in the art of mental jujitsu so that we can trick our minds into actually doing the thing we really wanted to do in the first place.

If you like radiolab, read Jonah Lehrer. He's a frequent (perhaps too frequent) guest on the program. I recommend his book "How We Decide" and also his blog on Wired (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/frontal-cortex/). In fact, he has a recent blog posting that might be right up your alley in which he discusses a new scientific study about vague information vs. precise data and how they related to performance and weight loss. Rather than trying to paraphrase it I'll just quote the Study's conclusion:

"Is the eternal quest for precise information always worthwhile? Our research suggests that, at times, vagueness has its merits. Not knowing precisely how they are progressing lets people generate positive expectancies that allow them to perform better. The fuzzy boundaries afforded by vague information allow people to distort that information in a favorable manner. This latitude positively influences behavior by affecting outcome expectancies. Conversely, the very nature of precise information prevents people from distorting it and forces them to be objective about their expectancies, which in turn may have a less positive influence on performance."

Toss that into the data vs. no-data debate.

To Which I Reply

And yet, remember the Choices episode about the guy who essentially had his emotion cortex (or whatever) removed in that surgery? Without emotion, he was basically unable to make simple decisions such as which pen to pick up (black versus blue in the example).

Sort of them saying, Do you even really want to do what you think you want to do? I'm not sure what the answer always is.

The data vs no-data idea strikes me as very Alan Watts-ish, specifically in regard to spotlight versus floodlight consciousness. Having a conversation in a car highlights both of these. Spotlight is the conversation, while floodlight is your ability to drive without really paying attention.

I'm *this close* to unifying the world's theories.

In Conclusion

I thought I had more to add. But I don't.I feel that while everything is unique, it's also all connected in a way I don't understand. As it is, maybe this whole discussion begs the question of my really wanting to understand "it all" anyway. Would any of this be fun if I figured it all out? What if I found that series of buttons which would allow me to lose 40 pounds and crush on the bike? What if I got everything I wanted with a series of doing simple things? Would that render the ends less desirable once I actually got there?

Or would it just cause me to redefine my ends? I don't know the answer to that question. Since the buttons appear to be so obscure, or non-existent, I probably don't need to worry about any of that.

Taiwan - One Month Later

2011-03-11T12:13:00.001-08:00

Here I am, one month later.

Today (when I sat down to write this), it is actually 3/14, a month and 2 days later, though the weekend we got back was a sort of jetlag-hell hole blur in a way. So a day or 2 isn’t going to make much of a difference, though I may not actually hit publish on this post for a few days. Whatever. Where am I now, how does the trip look, do I know Chinese, are we going back, am I a practicing Daoist? I hope to have all of these answers and more in the post, though nothing in life is ever simple, so there may be more uncertainty than not. But this is life, and the only thing that is certain in life is, well, nothing, since nobody knows what happens when you die and it seems like half the world doesn’t actually pay taxes.

House Changes

Coming back from any trip usually involves a rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic in some way, and it was no different for us this time. What was different this time, however, is that we’ve really kept the momentum and changed the house for the better. The living room is almost back to being a normal room, and a huge amount of Julia’s stuff has been ported upstairs, which was also considerably cleaned. We gave several hundred pounds of stuff away to one of the veteran charities that come pick up stuff, and we tossed an old futon mattress that was just wasting space and of no actual use. We’ve ordered some furniture for Julia and we’re going to paint the big bedroom upstairs in her favorite color, which of course is pink. We’re having central air installed imminently, I think.

The bedroom was cleaned a bit, as well as the walk-in closet. The basement is only partially done but is coming along quite nicely. In all, with the exception of the old play room in the basement, the house is looking good. Why do I even mention this in a follow-up post about our Taiwan trip? Because this was driven by our returning from the trip and saying: hey, this place is a freaking disaster. Let’s make it more livable, like a house should be. The kitchen remains a bit of a losing battle though.

Cooking & Chinatown

Speaking of the kitchen, my cooking exploits have more or less ended with rice milk, soymilk, and scallion pancakes. I still have some pre-made scallion pancakes in the freezer and there’s fresh, cold rice milk in the fridge currently. So I haven’t folded up camp entirely. But the fire to try to cook different things has died out a bit, as can be expected. I did find a guava in Chinatown last week and Nat brought one home from the Asian market yesterday, which was a nice, albeit expensive, treat. Funny how much I didn’t like them 10 years ago and how much I love them now.

Speaking of Chinatown, I’ve gone twice since we got back, on each of the last 2 Mondays. I’m pretty much going into the office once a week now, only on Monday. At lunch, I run up to Chinatown to scout it out and grab some buns from the bakery and to look for other assorted foods that might be better than the decent-not-great food we can find in Jersey. Last week I did find some sticky rice treats that were good, though they did have coconut on them which screwed with the flavor a bit.

Daoism

Speaking of Chinatown I found a temple there the first time I went in, which was a pretty cool find. I had to go in, and I think the lady there was a little surprised when I grabbed some incense and walked to the back. I went again last week, and will likely go again today if I manage to make it out of the office in time. I have a meeting this afternoon which may put a hamper on that. At the same time, being stuck in the office all day is a drag so I’ll likely force myself to go head out early.

I don’t have much to add on the subject though, as I think it’s a bit early to say. I’ve been listening to some Alan Watts stuff, and I do find it interesting. I’m not sure he’s strictly a Daoist so much as what’s called a Zen Buddhist, which is apparently a Taoist interpretation of Buddhism, whatever that means exactly. He does talk about Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, so he is well-versed on all 3, at least to my uneducated ears. At the core though, he is still a Westerner talking about Eastern Mysticism & Philosophy. So as it pertains to what I observe in Taiwan, I really haven’t gotten to any rubber-meets-the-road material just yet. I think that will take some time.

I’ve also bought some books on the topic but have yet to read any one of them completely and have not formulated much of an opinion either way. What I can say is that many of the philosophies I already live with are very resonant with things I’ve been absorbing, so it’s an easy win in a lot of cases. As 1 example, I’ve always been a firm believer in, “The journey of 1000 miles begins with the first step,” which is credited to Lao Tzu, though who the hell knows who actually said what 2500 years ago. I also firmly believe in the "wu wei" tenet which basically translates as "inaction" which can more accurately be translated as "not meddling with the nature of things."

I went to Chinatown again today, and I found a new Daoist temple, which was located on the 3rd floor of some building a bit off Canal Street. I was iffy about going in at all, since it was just a door with some writing on it. But there was a yin-yang symbol on the upper corner of the door so I went in, climbed up the somewhat creepy stairs, and found myself in the quiet of a fairly good-sized temple. The guy there talked to me for a bit, which isn’t usually the case when you go to these. He was a friendly sort, and we actually spoke a mix of English and Mandarin, which I only get to use for about 20 seconds once a week on Mondays when I go into the city.

Chinese Learning

On my learning of Chinese, I think I’ve made it clear how discouraged I was through the whole trip there. On that note, I have not picked up the audio lessons again since coming back, though I do plan on revisiting them and trying to figure out exactly where I went wrong. I think I may have been doing too much listening without actually trying to understand or memorize anything. Part of me seems to have just assumed that if I listened enough, it would just come to me. Well it didn’t, and hasn’t. So I’ll need a better plan if I want to move forward on that. I also need to figure out how to be more "street" fluent, which was a big disconnect while I was there.

One thing I have done is to slowly pick up the characters again. Most of the opinions on the matter categorically say that you should not do this, but I’m going against the grain and think that it will fit my personality well. Once I get to the point where I can read, even at a first grade level, that probably opens up so many avenues for me in terms of learning sentence structure and patterns. Right now, all I seem to have is Internet radio, which goes too fast, and the podcasts which are obviously too academic most of the time.

Plus, it will allow me to read the signs, which are everywhere in the country. Many times a sign will help bridge the understanding gap when going somewhere.

Passport and 2012

I went and got my passport renewal application and a haircut last week. The haircut is so I can go get a passport picture taken, which allows me to send in the renewal form. I’m not on the edge of my seat to get this done, though I would like to, so if we do decide to go next year it will be all taken care of. On that note, we have only vaguely discussed plans for going again next year. The same sort of hurdles remain, specifically the cost, my work situation, Julia’s school, a place to stay, and of course if we even want to go or not.

Don’t get me wrong, we both liked our stay there. But in thinking about going back we’re not sure if we want to do it quite so soon. Things get difficult to manage, and in looking back there were logistics problems which we may or may not want to deal with again. In a year from now we may both be itching to head back. But right now I think we’re both content to put off the thought process for another year and figure it out when it gets closer. It would obviously put a huge damper on my bike season, to the point that it would more than likely be a half season which ended when we left here. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s a small trade-off for an opportunity like this.

And really you never know what work will dish out so we might not even have the option. So for now, we’ll figure it out later. Having said that if I had to lay odds I’d say it’s slightly more likely than not. Summer is hot as hell but the fruit is awesome.

Calvin & Grace

The idea of going back next summer probably begs the question of what Calvin and Grace plan on doing. If they’re not there, the trip becomes less appealing. Their plans now are to come after Lydia is done with second grade, which would mean she finishes out this year, then has 2 more full years of school. That would put them in the states in the summer of 2013, which would make a trip then much more difficult since they’d be coming here. Nobody knows what state they’re moving to, or if they’re moving at all. So that’s a pretty wide open variable at this point.

If we take them at their word, 2012 becomes the last real good shot to go for the summer. If we do go, we’d likely spent the full 60 days there this time. Might was well get the most of the visa if we’re going to go.

Stuff & Memories

A month later, what physical things have made it into what I call, the "rotation of life"? The monkey mug has. I use this almost daily to drink tea from. Nat also likes it, even though it’s a bit on the small side, being just under 12 ounces I believe. That may have something to do with the goofy metric system or something, I don’t know. I brought 2 more back with us to give as gifts, and I’m strongly considering taking 1 of them and putting it into our rotation since we both like it.

Aside from that, the tea set I got sits on top of the fridge looking pretty, but not performing a big role since it’s from the "form over function" school and looks nicer than it performs. The wok is great, as is the blue rice scoop we brought back. Not sure I can think of anything besides that which made it into the life rotation. Some of the food remains, but that’s slowly disappearing. And of course the tea is in the freezer, waiting patiently to be inundated with hot water.

The glass dragons sit on a table, and Julia's things have made it back. But overall, we brought back 240 pounds of stuff and I can name about 15 pounds worth of that, most of which are the lions and the tea set. What was so heavy?

As far as memories, the bike holds most of the things I remember. In particular I remember climbing up Monkey mountain and being yelled at by the monkeys, as well as the open view of that river bed on the suddenly sunny day. I also fondly remember the snow-capped peaks the day after it snowed up on the mountain. The farms on the climb to Hero Hill, the grit of the roads, the MeiHua temple area at the base of it, the river trails up in Taipei – all things I remember fondly, and miss tremendously.

Off the bike, I always think of the food places. Night market, the breakfast place around the corner from Calvin’s place, 7-11 down near the apartment, the place we went to eat 3 times in a week while the in-laws were still there, and the glorious scallion pancake, the likes of which I hope to duplicate some day in my very own Eureka moment.

The One Thing...

If I could bring a single thing back with me, what would it be? My first instinct is to say the breakfast place by Calvin. Then I think the Hakka place we went to 3 times in a row down in Luodong might be it. But then I think maybe the rice ball stand in Ludong would be best. They only have 1 thing, but it’s the best rice ball you can get. If I could have that just once a week I’d be thrilled. I’m also strongly pulled by the bakery down in Luodong. I’ve scoured the bakeries in Chinatown with little luck in trying to find one even half as good as that one. The selection there was great, and I’d love to have it here.

Without question, it would be something to eat. If I'm forced to pick 1 place, it would have to be the breakfast stand near Calvin's. The rice ball is solid, and the fresh soy/rice milk is good. They also have a dozen other things you can eat. I've never ventured into Chinatown for breakfast. Maybe I should next Monday. Get up early and go, see if I can find my very own holy grail of rice balls there.

I made Nat answer the question and she wanted to bring the entire Taipei 101 here, which is a good answer but I had to strike it from the record. There are like 150 stores in the basement and it would be roughly the same as saying a 1 square mile area of Luodong. She finally answered that she'd take the dessert stand down in Luodong, which has tapioca balls and different starchy desserts.

Grooves & Ruts & Conclusions

So now it’s a month later and I’m back in my normal groove. I’ve always said that what 1 person calls a groove another calls a rut. It’s really the same thing with a different hat on. I think a groove is a good thing, though it can also be a way to delude yourself into thinking that what you are and where you are is better than it is. I’ve sort of gotten over the disappointment I experienced when we came back to the mediocrity that is New Jersey. Wait, I should be fair. New Jersey is actually quite good in many ways. But it’s not great in any way. To that end, I think we’ve both sort of fizzled out in our enthusiasm in trying to find any Chinese food worth a shit here. Just give it up, it’s not really that good.

After a dead 10 day period following the trip, I’m biking again, and I have a plan and goals and such. My race season has started, having done 4 races already. The past 2 Saturdays have seen me lining up at 7:15 in a small park in Newark to race a bunch of equally insane people who come out when the temps are still in the 30s. You’d think that the weather being so bad this year, and my having had carte blanche to ride, I would be killing it. I’m not, a point which has been exacerbated by the extra weight I still carry from the trip. I’m getting there, but I have some work to do still.

I do like riding with the guys again, and as much as I loved riding there I was on an island in regards to my biking, both literally and figuratively. The blog helped me connect my distant reality to anything at all. Left to my own devices with nobody to "talk" to, and I’d likely fall off and ride less. I think I would do slower but longer trips if I lived there, as so many awesome destinations await you if you’re willing to put the hours in to get there.

I make it sound like Taiwan is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and it’s not a fair thing to do, because it’s not. It’s just something different, an opportunity to do something most people rarely, if ever, get to do. I enjoyed myself and wish we could have stayed 8 weeks, or even 12. I don’t think the scale likes the sound of that, and if we do go back next year I’m going to need to keep better tabs on what I eat, when I eat, and how damn much I eat. And of course the air pollution is pretty bad, so you have to keep that in mind.

But I do miss it, and look forward to going back. I have no idea what will happen with the in-laws, my job, Calvin & Grace, or even our desire to go. But at this point, I remember the trip fondly and hope that we can do a repeat performance before too long, even if it doesn’t turn out to be next summer. One of these days I have to imagine we’ll be back, for some decent length of time. As Julia gets older, her desire might change from "I don’t care" to "I want to stay here for the summer," so this is something we’ll need to factor into the equation. But like anything, that’s just speculation.

So anyway, that’s a month later. I’ll probably be back for yet another follow-up of some sort, unless the thread of this trip entirely snaps in the next month. Again, I hope you enjoyed it.

Here's a video Terren passed along which is pertinent to the topic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vksdBSVAM6g

Taiwan - One Week Later

2011-02-14T23:48:00.000-08:00

One week later, and here I am. Here we are. I wanted to sit down 1 week, and then 1 month, later and write a little about the trip now that I've had a chance to decompress a bit. I'm pretty much over the jetlag, though I always contend it takes a solid week and with the stomach virus running through the house I don't think anyone is quite "normal" just yet. It was certainly harder coming back than it was to go.

On that note, the first few days, almost the whole week, I hated being here. I'm still not loving it, but it's a little better. Everything about "here" is just drab, so dreadfully boring. I've gone on a few bike rides, and the landscape just sucks. You have to drive everywhere and the drivers here, while fewer, all think they own the goddamn world. I also realize how much people here live an existence where they hide in their cocoons and come in contact with as few people as possible.

Jetlag and Being Sick

I'd like to thank all the parents out there who bring your children to school when they're sick. You know how people say "it's going around"? Well the reason it "goes around" is because your kid spikes a fever or throws up all night and you still send them to school. It's pretty easy to figure out really. If the kid has a fever, or is shitting and throwing up all over, yeah, go ahead and keep them home.

As you might guess, Julia and I are both sick with this stomach thing that's "going around." She got it from school of course, where some of her classmates have it. Mine was pretty low-key, maybe a 24 hour deal with some light residual the next day. Julia had a day of fever, then a day of crapping fire which was the most intense I've ever heard her cry, then yesterday was a day of vomiting all day. She must have thrown up 12 times. Awesome stuff.

Combine that with the jetlag and you have an awesome week. By "awesome" here I mean "not awesome" of course. On top of the jetlag, the past few days have just been a total drain on all of us. Julia was in constant pain with a stomach ache most of yesterday, which made all of us want to jump out the window many times. Living on the first floor takes some of the oomph out of that statement but you get the point.

I like jetlag sometimes. It's an opportunity to see the world in a time frame you normally wouldn't. One of the things a trip like this produces in you is a desire to get out of the ruts and routines you've established in the past whatever-time-frame. Waking up at 1-2-3:00 am makes life different, a little more interesting for a few days. Nothing is open, of course. So it's kinda limited. But it's not like you can run down to the breakfast shop and grab an early breakfast for $4. We went to the diner the other day and it was $25 for breakfast. This country is seriously cash mad. When the heck did 3 eggs start costing $6?

Speaking of diners, Utah said it best to me the other day when he said NJ is like a diner. Lots of things are good, nothing is great. Really hit the nail on the head with that one I think.

Diversionary Constructs

I used this expression the other day when talking to Bill. I think I create these diversionary constructs to remove my brain from the "here and now" a lot of times because it is so boring here that I need something else to make life interesting. I'm sure a lot of people are cool with the routine, and I'm sorry if I'm offending you in some way. I know that living elsewhere for 6 weeks like that seems like it would be a chore, and in some ways I admit it was. But for me, the routine often times means rut. I greatly dislike that in life.

So we, or at least I, setup what I refer to as diversionary constructs. And of course, you all know that this comes in the form of biking for me. Just 23 minutes into my first bike ride since being back, I started to think about training plans and how my race season was going to go. This is in stark contrast to my desire to just wing it this year, do fewer meaningless crap races, and do more epic rides and events to make life more interesting. I have time to rearrange my thinking. But it took all of 23 minutes of riding here to lose interest in where I am and start thinking about those diversionary constructs.

I think that's a lot of why I race and blog about it, because it gives me a vehicle to create this alternate world where NJ is more interesting than it really is. I've long contended that a place is as interesting as you make it. I still believe that, to a point. But I also have to admit that the grass field across the street is damn boring, no matter which way you slice it. So some places have additional perks which mean you have to work less to make it interesting.

Language

I've spent a lot of time trying to learn Chinese and several people have said to me since I got back that my Chinese must be rocking now. Well, my "street" Chinese has gotten better but the textbook language that I've been learning has gone to shit. I can survive in the country, scallion pancakes and coffee being an obvious example of one narrow window of how I can do that. But the scores of audio lessons I've listened to and reviewed amounted to almost no use while we were there, other than showing off to the taxi driver that I can say "seatbelt" in Chinese.

The best analogy is like this. Here is how I learned to speak:

I walk into a bar in England and want to order a beer. So I say, "Hello old chap. I was wondering if I could have a full glass of your finest barely-based alcoholic drink."

Someone then says, "Kibbles! Hey Stumpy, Blarney here wants an up of the old nig-nug. Primp up on the quick!"

It's kinda like that. All this time I feel like I've been learning stuff that nobody says. I mean here and there I recognized some words. But people speak in more of a street talk, not the "proper" way that they teach. For instance, they teach you to say, "I do no understand what you're saying," if you are confused. But in real life, they say the equivalent of, "hear no understand." It's very simple, "ting bu dong." A street vendor selling scallion pancakes more or less taught me that. So all the time I spent learning Chinese seems to have been somewhat of a waste. Or rather, I've gone right to high school conversations where most people speak grade school, at least as far as actual conversation goes.

That sounds like people speak like hacks. But it's more like if they taught you to say in English, "I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying." But then you went to the market and everyone just said, "Huh?" The sad reality is that nobody ever teaches you WTF "huh" means.

Huh?

On that note, I have not rolled out of the vacation trying to continue my Chinese skills. I'm not sure what my plan is. I need to do something, or give up entirely.

Food & Fat

I'm not going to deny it, I got fat on this trip. I don't yet know how much weight I gained because I've been avoiding the scale. Well I got back on it 2 times. The first time was right after the trip, and it said I gained only 3 pounds. The second was like 2 days ago and it said I gained 9. So it appears that I have gained 6 pounds in the week we've been back. I'm still sick right now so I'm going to wait to normalize a bit since my weight goes up when I'm tired/sick. But the takeaway is that unless I carefully track my calories in/out numbers, I get fat. Of course, those who saw me in the old days can attest to that. But every now and again I need to make sure. I'm sure.

Since we've been back, I've made my own soymilk, rice milk, and scallion pancakes. The soymilk was really good (though Nat thought it was a bit "beany"), the rice milk was once good and once so-so. And the scallion pancakes were ok, still a WIP.

Nat made one of the stewed pork & bamboo concoctions which came out great:

This looks good but was lacking salt, and may have been a bit too thick:

Open invite for any of this stuff to those people who a) still read and b) don't scare me.

Terren's Comments

I have cherry picked these, but I'm trying to pare stuff down. Terren gets his own section because he was the most consistent person to comment. I really had no idea who was reading the whole time but I did know T was. So in no particular order...

Look forward to next year's 60-day trip even if it means we don't get to see you guys for two months.

As I sit here now, on Saturday, kid vomiting up a storm and the weather sucking out there, I'm thinking that another winter trip is what I'd like to do. I'm actually bummed that we missed the Lantern Festival. I can do without the Chinese new year, since it's kinda meaningless in terms of public outings.

But there are a few considerations which might roadblock this. First being work. I need to make sure that whatever role I'm in allows it. Second would be Julia's school, and if she can bow out of kindergarten for 2 months. The final piece would be Nat's parents, and their plans to be there at the same time which would make things more difficult.

The lean right now would be to go for summer next year, or perhaps spring. Summer would eliminate 2 of the 3 issues, with the only remaining 1 being work. Spring would eliminate the in-law's trip plans. We'll see what pans out but at this moment, I'd say we're likely a lean to go again.

Anyway, looking forward to whatever you have to say about it. I'm a big fan of Alan Watts as you may know and everything he said about Taoism was fascinating, to me anyway. It might be the only mystical type religion I'm actually interested in.

Unfortunately I have nothing to add on the subject of Daoism right now. It's on my radar, but I'm too busy with work and vomiting child to think about much right now. Also rearranging the deck chairs on our own personal Titanic we refer to as a house. I get like this after every trip, but this effort has been the most effective so far.

Hey, know what, I dreamed last night that I was in Taiwan with you guys. I was driving around and kept messing up because the traffic was so strange. And then we made it the apartment you guys were staying in and Natalie proceeded to unfold this incredibly complex contraption which turned out to be an ironing board. I wish it was more interesting then that but I had to share.

I really have no comment on this but I wanted to share it with the larger audience.

You weren't kidding about the Betel Nut stands... just found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betel_nut_beauty.

There used to be many easy-to-look-at Betel Nut girls but those days are mostly gone now. You can still see them in Taoyuan county, but by and large they're manned by, well, sometimes men, but more often than not middle-aged women that don't exactly turn the eyes like the Wikipedia pic. We did see maybe 3 really nuts stands, all of which I missed the pic on. I wanted to go back and get a good shot but like many other things, we just never made it. If they sold good beer and had hot betel nut girls at the top of Taipei 101, that might have been 1 trip I was sure to have made.

These days, the girls that used to "man" the stands are working at cell phone stores or the mall, among other places. There's too much money elsewhere for most girls to slum to the truck drivers, which is the majority of the business of these drive-up shops. You often see the stands on busy roads that lead in & out of the towns, easy pit stops for the trucks as they leave town.

By and large, that era has passed in the country though. They will almost always draw my attention still, since there remains the off chance that you may catch a real Betel Nut Beauty. But more often than that, it's a middle-aged man who could stand to lose a few or 20 pounds sitting in the booth watching TV.

Stay Tuned

I hope to come back again with a last follow-up, 3 weeks from now, to put a final cap on the trip. Like many of the small plans we had for Taiwan, it may fall by the wayside and never happen. But I have some things written down that I'd like to address. I also hope to be done with the deck chairs here and maybe the weather will be nice and I won't dislike this state so much by then.

One thing I will add because I have it written on a post it note is that we brought back far too much snack food and far too little real stuff. In all, we seem to have carried back 20 pounds of things to eat, none of which will be around in a month from now. But the persistent things, like the tea seat and the glass dragons, were pretty sparse. In hindsight I wish we would have done more of the permanent additions and less of the stuff that turn into little piles of shit you flush down the toilet. Oh well, live and learn.

I also hope to be able to report back that I did not, in fact, gain as much weight as feared, that my Chinese is at near high school conversational level, and that the spring came astoundingly early this year. Alas, I won't hold my breath on any of those points but one can hope.

Taiwan Day 44 - Saying Goodbye

2011-02-13T02:10:00.000-08:00

Last breakfast of the trip is the same shop we've been going to for the better part of the last few weeks. I was resigned to only get 1 thing, but when I got there I couldn't choose, so I ended up getting the same as the last 2 days - rice ball, soymilk, and scallion pancake/egg combo. This time I only ate half of each, and ended up throwing the rest away. I'm not a big fan of waste but in this case I felt it was necessary since I won't be able to get this stuff for another who-knows-how-long.

After breakfast I tied up the packing and got ourselves ready to go. The plan was to be ready to go at a moments notice so that when we got back, we could pick up and go if we had to. Not the ideal plan, but if we came back at 3:55, we could shoot out and not be late.

We met up with Calvin & family at the American Club. They had been out visiting Grace's parents that morning then had to run to Taipei for something, so we met there. Usually I'd reject the notion of the American Club for my last meal, but after something like 130 meals, really it didn't matter. Here's a shot of the inside:

For lunch, I got the sha cha jiang beef, which is Chinese BBQ sauce beef. I really enjoyed it so it ended up being a good stop for the last lunch:

Coming back from the bathroom I noticed someone sitting behind me that looked familiar. It turned out it was the guy from the liquor store who lived in Manhattan for 17 years. I said to Nat that you know it's time to go when you start "running into people" in a city of 3 million people.

We took our time eating then drove back to the apartment and jammed even more shit into our luggage and let the kids play for another hour before loading up the car and heading to the airport. There was no traffic so we were there early. Here's our mass of junk we're bringing back:

We asked which line to get into and the guy saw we had a kid and put us in the first class line. Sweet! However, when we got to the window the guy said he had no record of us. He took off for 10 minutes and came back and said that he found us, but it turns out that our return flight was booked for January 12th, not February 12th. That kinda sucks, but it turns out the flight wasn't booked so we not only got 3 seats, we got them together.

We had just over 110 kg of luggage, which is more than 242 pounds. That's absurd.

Wasting time before the flight, Julia wanted to look in the bathroom for who-knows-what-reason and I took a picture of us. I don't look like I got too too fat on the trip:

We then found a Hello Kitty gift shop where I dropped almost $30 on a Hello Kitty doll worth maybe $5 on a good day. We grabbed our last meal of mediocre beef noodle soup and bubble tea, then we got in the fast line to board because of the 4 year old. Once again, sweet!

The plane took off and once we got in the air I took a look at this, which hurts to even think about:

As long as the flight was, it ended up being only (only? only?) 13.5 hours and not 14.5. No idea why it was so fast but I'll take it. I'm not going to describe the flight because everyone knows what a plane is like. The food was so-so at best, kids cried on and off, and I slept about 12 minutes total, in 3 different attempts.

When we landed the gate to get out was broken so we were delayed slightly, but not long. Immigration was easy and we passed through to grab our luggage when the Fruit & Veggie dog identified us as being smugglers. Awesome! The lady asked if we had any fruits, veggies, or meats and we said no. But we forgot we had brought 2 bananas to snack on so we got nabbed for having them. She said it wouldn't be a problem but she took out immigration paper and put a big red mark on it, like in grade school.

Once we got to customs we had to go through the "troublemakers" line where the guy just told us we had to scan all our bags. The lady took the bananas and randomly searched 1 bag. She looked at the preserved eggs and said that they were ok since they came from Taiwan and not China.

Nat had called Joe (our ride home) when we got off and it turns out they had no idea we were coming home that early. We suck at planning but it worked out for the best. Actually, they were supposed to be in South Jersey but had come home early by chance. So once again, we got lucky. We got home about 9:30, in all just over 18 hours from door to door, which is as about as good as it gets.

I unpacked everything and listened to Wilco's Sky Blue Sky because of the memories I have of that album from the last return trip from Taiwan. I managed to get through all 242 pounds of stuff (plus the 2 carry-on pieces) before going to bed. I also had 2 Victory Storm King Stouts because I had to make amends for all the bad beer I've had in the last 6 weeks. Here's all the junk I managed to pack in the wok box, I needed to be efficient:

And that's just about that.

Oddly, I don't feel like I said a proper goodbye to the country. I don't know why I say that. I gave it a fair sendoff on the bike. But I feel like I should have said goodbye to the 7-11 coffee clerks and the breakfast shop lady, among other regulars we saw routinely. Maybe it's because I know we'll be back sooner than later. In the flight back, Nat and I already talked about possibly doing the same next year, but for the full 60 days of the visa. Usually when we're heading back, we're not thinking about coming back.

Coming back to the house, I didn't feel like I was "going home" so much as just going somewhere else to live for a little bit. I think a trip like this changes you in ways you don't actually understand, and may not ever understand. That may be part of it, I'm not sure. If I figure it out I'll let you know. In the meantime, I'm just doing what I can to keep my eyes open when they should be open, and closed when they should be closed.

There's probably no better way to end the story of our last day than to describe the last moment of the drive back to the house. When I backed the minivan into the driveway Nat said to Julia that we were home. Julia looked up, peered out the window, and said, "What parking lot is this?"

Thanks to all for reading my War & Peace on our Taiwan trip, and all the comments. Everything you guys have contributed have made me realize how special of an opportunity this really was, and I'm glad I took it. We'll see everyone next time.

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 43 - YingGe and Winding Down

2011-02-11T04:16:00.000-08:00

Breakfast shop again this morning - rice ball, scallion pancake with egg, and soymilk. This is too much food but I like it so much that I need to get my fill in. Plus, they say something about eating like a king for breakfast is best. I guess they also maybe say to eat like a king for lunch and dinner too?

The morning is the first official day of Calvin's office opening after the holiday, so we go over there and they do the traditional burning of ghost money and lighting of fireworks and setting up the table with offerings to the gods. Like I said before, religion is just part of the culture here, though something like this is as much a "thing to do" as anything. How can you not agree to stand on the sidewalk and feed a fire?

After this we hit the road and head to YingGe one last time. This is the pottery village where we need to pick up a few more things, including a teapot I ordered to go with the set I bought last time we were there. I'll probably go home and put it away and never use it, which is what I seem to do every trip here. I also got a teapot from my man Darin, which I had forgotten about until it was time to start packing. I probably have 10 teapots at this point.

The traffic was bad, but we didn't have too much to do so it didn't disrupt our day too much. We had stopped at a photo place to print out some 12x18's for Nat's dad but they said it would take 3 days, which seems a little heavy to me but whatever. So we scrapped it and headed to YingGe and found it this time with no problem.

Here we ended up buying like 40 more pounds of shit but at this point my back isn't going to notice the difference between 14,443 pounds and 14,483. Nat liked this and I thought it was cool, but we weren't sure what it meant and we didn't want to bring evil spirits into our house:

After a generally crappy lunch of rice noodles, soup, and turnip cake (which was the 1 good thing) we drove to Taipei to pick up some pineapple cakes at some place which is famous for this stuff. This is the general script here. In the last few days you run to the food & snack shops and buy food that you can't get in the states. Of course, it has to be very good to lug it all the way back home. Once you get home, you'll eat 1/4 of it and let the rest go stale. But much like burning ghost money, it's part of the ceremony of the vacation.

One last look:

We never made it up but I've been there before and I was up on so many mountains with cloudy views that I didn't need to pay for a view of the clouds with 100 other people and a line. Maybe next time we can make it, maybe not. It was cool but I don't feel I missed out on anything.

We made a few stops on the way back for more odds and ends (14,489) and then Nat finished off by making dinner, which was pulled pork on top of mashed potatoes and candied carrots. It was really good, even though it was ultra simple. I topped it off with my last hurrah of beer drinking, what I would consider the best of the mediocre beers, Asahi Black:

Much of the night was spent packing. We have a lot of stuff, somehow we bought more than I thought.

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 42 - Cleaning Up Luodong

2011-02-10T06:30:00.000-08:00

Even though I'm done with the bike I wake up early and shower by 7:00. I head out to get breakfast, at this point unconcerned about being able to communicate. I get 2 rice balls with egg and 2 soymilks. Nat and I enjoy a quiet breakfast while everyone sleeps. It's nice to just sit in silence once in a while.

We're out the door early, by 9:30 or so and we get down to Luodong before 11:00, which is a remarkable feat considering our general history and the fact Julia stays up past 11:00 every night these days. Even though the weatherman says rain, he really sucks ass at his job:

We start cleaning up the apartment for the last time and I get the bike a little cleaner and put it away in the back foyer, for lack of a better word. It's a covered area that is open to the air, which means the chain will be a pure pile of rust when I get back. I decided not to clean the chain because the muck on it will probably keep it protected for longer. I cover it with an old sheet as a token gesture to keep the in-laws from getting sick of looking at it.

Lunch is mediocre rice from a place in the night market. The holiday is over so the shops are back to normal business hours, which means not much is open during the day. After lunch we go and feed the fish one last time. They got a treat, as we had at least a pound of food to give up before we left:

One last look from the gazebo-in-the-sea:

After we pack up and leave the apartment for the last time (after Nat realizes she walked out with her slippers on and had to go back and get her shoes) we head over to Nat's cousin's to return the bike, then hit up her aunt's house for a final goodbye, where we are joined by her other aunt. We hang out and have tea for a bit then set sail and head for the hills for a quick detour.

I took the family up to a local road I had ridden on a handful of times to look for monkeys, and sure enough they were there. It's getting pretty easy since they seem to pretty much be everywhere other than the breakfast shop. As we rolled up to the area they instantly started barking at us, and before long we spotted them:

This time I actually took a video:

Finally, monkeys on film!

Up the road we took a look at the aborigine bridge and noted that there was a Catholic church in this tiny town:

After one more drive by past the monkeys on Nat's side, we went to the Mr. Liu peanut shop and got a bunch of cans of various snacks to bring back with us. After that, we headed to the temple for our last stop. This is the Daoist temple that I've gone to several times, the Meihua temple which I've mentioned quite a few times before. Here's a look at the front, coming in:

To answer Terren, I use Daoism though Taoism is more widely used. The pinyin system, which I've used to study, spells it "dao" which of course is the word for path/road/way. So I go with Daoism instead of Taoism. I've seen both used. Either way, it's not Buddhism, even though they both use the Laughing Buddha, which is the fat dude always pictured in the statue, which makes it more confusing, especially since he was supposedly a Zen Buddhist in real life, if he existed at all.

So we did the ceremony as a last step before we left the county and headed back to Taipei. Grace said we should go there, as it's a headquarters for Daoism in the country and before you leave you should go (I mean "should" if it's your religion). When I say "ceremony" here I really don't know exactly what I'm talking about.

Of course, neither of us are Daoist, so we watched what others were doing with the incense and did the same. Apparently we did it wrong, but no big deal really. I have to admit I felt strange doing this. I don't know how to explain "strange" here, other than I felt a bit spacey walking around with the incense.

Nat said she remembered taking a pic at one of the stone lions when she was a teenager, so we took one of Nat & Julia so she can remember when she brings her husband here in 30 years:

We hen drove an hour in rush hour traffic to make dinner with Calvin & family, but thankfully the traffic wasn't too crazy and we were only about 15 minutes late. We went to Tina's again, the organic place. One again good food. This time I got what Nat had last time, the pork:

Back at the apartment, I realize what a huge amount of shit I have to pack still:

It's funny, but a week ago I was ready to go home. Being back in Luodong today made me realize that I'm not. I mean, some part of me is, but then I feel like I've spent so much time building up a comfort zone that I have a lot of the details down here. I no longer feel like I'm vacation but that I partially live here. New Jersey seems years away. In some small way, I've grown roots here in these 6 weeks that make me want to stay.

I'm sure we'll be back. Hopefully there's less rain next time.

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 41 - Out With a Bang

2011-02-08T23:34:00.000-08:00

Today was it, the last day on the bike. The whole day is mine to take, if I so choose. So what do I do? Go back to Yangmingshan? Shoot for 100? Something else? I woke up early and really didn't know what to do. I rolled out at about 6:30, the sun pretty much done making it's appearance for the morning, and traffic still pretty light. I rolled down to the bridge the fastest way I could. This opened up any of 3 different ways I could take. I essentially punted the decision until the end.

As I got to the bridge I said fuck it, let's go to the Queen's Head rocks out on the north coast. The bike map looked reasonable, and I was over the bridge and on route 2 in no time. Traffic was normal, nothing crazy, and the pace was solid. No rain, despite the forecast calling for morning showers.

The coast was awesome because it was a different kind of terrain than I'm used to. Gone were the big trees and mountains and instead there were smaller blocks of rock covered in long grasses, almost like an ocean prairie, but vertical. These grasses must be super tough to be able to withstand the storms that ravage the coast. Another interesting thing I noted was that the area was somewhat dead.

Witness this apartment complex. I have never seen anything like this here, just totally abandoned. The shops on the bottom level were in shambles, as if some sort of blight hit and everyone just up and left. I'd love to know why this area is so neglected, especially with the ultra pricey shore town of Danshui not even 30 minutes away by car.

Maybe it has something to do with the weather. Shortly after I saw some massive, power-generating windmills. Maybe it's just too harsh here to support much of anything. Who knows, but I enjoyed the coast today, and in just 2:08 I was at the entrance of the recreation area with the Queen's Head rocks. But they charge admission to go near it. I said screw that and just took a long-distance picture and rolled out.

After a quick stop at 7-11 for some water and a Snickers bar, I turned off the coast road and started climbing up the backside of Yangmingshan. I had looked at the map quickly and saw that 2 connected to 101 up there somewhere. I guess I'm getting a bit blase as far as getting lost is concerned. With the GPS I know what direction I need to go, and where I've been. So unless I fall off the mountain, I should be good to go. Sure enough, it all worked out.

I decided to throw this in as my second goal of the day. Last ride, go for broke. So after the nice coast roll I hit the hills with the big mountain as the next target. As usual, it went up, and I slogged up with it. I think this pic somewhat goes hand-in-hand with what I quoted below. It's pretty epic here sometime. Shortly after I took this pic it started to rain, which was only appropriate for my last ride.

My average speed crapped out on the hills, dropping from 18 to 15 in no time. That happens here, which is to be expected when you go up 3000 feet. As I was getting to where I thought I should turn, sure enough a road took off to the right and said it was for the Datun Scenic area, which is what I was aiming for.

I was riding along the ridge on the side of the mountain and a cloud just started dumping down the hill. It was such a strange and unique moment. I wrote the following elsewhere, which I'll just quote here:

"Gotta say that riding in the hills here so much makes me understand why religion is so prevalent here. I was riding up along a ridge on Yangmingshan today and a cloud/fog just poured down the mountain onto the roadway. I've never seen anything like it, and was concerned for a second that I had found myself in the middle of some insane weather phenomenon. It was like a giant was pouring the cloud down from above. It literally ran down the hill at 20 mph, just rushing down on top of the road. Pure insanity."

It was really awesome. If you live up in these hills and farm them, you likely feel as if you're seeing the hand of god (or some set of probably constantly bickering gods) almost daily. When the clouds go and you can see the valley, I imagine it only reinforces that feeling.

The top was so-so clear. You could see much of the 800 foot detour to the top, but not all of it. I was under no delusion that I'd be able to see anything but thick fog, so I skipped the leg-grinding extension and started down the mountain after a quick pit stop at the bathroom and vending machine at the visitor center. I'm actually fairly sure bikes aren't allowed up to the top, and it was a bit of a mob scene today, as many people have the whole week off.

I took the downhill fast, as everything was dry on this side. It was the very last test of the bike, and it did not disintegrate, nor explode, which is fairly boring as far as the narrative goes, but it did allow me to actually make it back to tell the story.

I came off the hill about 70 miles in. At this point I certainly had to go for the hat trick and bag the century, which is 100 miles for those non-bikers reading (ie, my mom and Maureen). I rolled out another 20-ish on the bikeway and then headed up the hill the most reasonable way I could, which still hurt. At the top, I stopped at the Family Mart for 2 teas and a pork bun. I was 98 miles in at this point.

This was good, regardless of how good it actually was. I sat down and watched the world, and enjoyed the non movement for a bit. I got back on the bike and rolled to the front door of the apartment and the GPS said 99.3 miles. I usually don't do this, but I rolled around the block to top it off at 100.1. On the way, everyone else happened to be coming back to the apartment for a quick stop before going out to get a haircut for Nat & Julia.

So that's it, my last ride of the trip. While I'm ready to go home I do have to say I'm going to miss the biking here. The mystery of this island is such a huge draw to me. Once again, I'll quote myself from something I wrote today:

"I'm going to miss the biking here. I really like it here. So many things are just awesome, new, wild, and raw. Having said that, I'm pretty sure if I biked like this for 2 years I'd kill myself before the 2 years was up. I'm getting way, way too comfortable in traffic now, sometimes riding 6 inches from cars/trucks/scooters doing well over 20 mph. Today I jumped in front of a 5 ton cement truck that was cutting us off at a traffic light and yelled at the guy. Have to imagine that would bite me in the ass eventually."

Back at the apartment, the reality strikes me that the value of salty Chinese breakfast food cannot be overstated. Calvin bought me some stuff and it is nothing short of remarkably fantastic.

I'm going to more or less wrap up the post with that. The afternoon was my doing a lot of email and messages and catching up on personal things while everyone was out. Then I made dinner for everyone, which was a Chicken Florentine Casserole I picked from allrecipes.com. And I drank some red wine, like 3 glasses of it.

At dinner, I also learned more about the religion of the country, and what I have been calling Buddhism is actually Daoism. I'll cover more on that in the next few days, when I learn more.

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 40 - Danshui

2011-02-08T03:25:00.000-08:00

Slept in a bit today, felt like I could use it. We bought some bread from the German place yesterday so I had some of that for breakfast then headed out the door for a quick 2 hours on the bikeway. There really wasn't anything special about the ride other than it being an actual loop as opposed to the usual out & back. I did have 1 instance where some dude I passed tried to hang on, but he was shortly obliterated by my massive pectoral muscles (Ren & Stimpy, and no I'm not drinking yet).

Back to the house and I decided to take Julia out to Guanyinshan which is the local mountain I've gone up and over a few times now. Nat decided to go as well and we tooled around the place a bit, checking out the massively hazy view and then the sculpture park, where Julia played the fool like usual:

We then went to the visitor center and talked to the people in there and decided to drive out to the Queen's Head rock out on the North Coast. Nat called Calvin and asked if they wanted to go. He said we could meet for a quick lunch and then go. Or something like that.

I thought about Terren while waiting for lunch. I love that I'm using Terren to take these pics. Ok so this one isn't like Vanity Fair material but the vast majority of people here were salty Taiwanese betel nut-types. These 2 are back to work, just like many people on this day. The holiday has pretty much ended.

Almost 2 hours after we had decided to go, the trip to the Queen's Head is scrapped and we instead go to Danshui which is a touristy ocean-ish town with loads of shops and so on. It's usually good for some solid junk purchases, finger foods, and coffee. On second thought, we really should have gone for lunch since there's so much good food I had to pass on because I was full.

It was a beautiful day, great for checking out Danshui. Glad we got to go here, as it's a middle ground for everyone involved. Not too far, outside, and lots to do. I managed to score 2 team issue bikes:

We sat down to have coffee and people watch, though just as many people were looking at me. I felt sort of like a zoo animal, but I still get a kick out of it. I took a bunch of pictures today, so check the gallery to see a good cross section of interesting people. Today I decided to...Represent!

Who dressed this freak? It's literally 80 degrees out:

Life is pain:

Are the girls here *really* that innocent? These 2 girls embody the look I get from about 100 people a day, often younger kids like this who I guess are just curious. I mean, I see white people every hour up here in the Taipei area. Am I that hot and/or freakish looking? Maybe it's the cute kid.

I like this boat:

After coffee, the kids play. Here Julia is enjoying just running around:

This is blurry but I like it. Some days I think my daughter is cute, but I'm her dad and she's probably just normal looking. Other days I look at her and think that her teen years are going to be really, really tough for me:

On the way back Nat stops to get new glasses. And of course the spirit of Terren was with me here. I admit that I'm pressing my luck now. But if I didn't try I wouldn't be very entertaining would I?

Back at home, we get Pizza Hut by my suggestion. Seriously, I've eaten so much Chinese food that it just doesn't matter anymore. I'm in need for something else. I've had noodles and rice every day for 40 days. A little pizza is good for the soul. And it's actually pretty good here.

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 39 - Beer

2011-02-06T19:52:00.000-08:00

Once again running tight on time so I'm going to make this a quick one. I'm almost a full day behind so I need to give the brief details. This morning I was tired, no surprise, hit snooze 3 times, and woke up. I learned from my mistake and "acquired" a bun for breakfast, so I didn't have to eat power bars and cookies for breakfast. Hit the road with the idea to do 3 hours of random river trail exploring.

I shot straight down 106 to the river and managed to get there in about 22 minutes, which is a record time for me. I went up the river and learned how to cut off the duck's head, which I'm sure you've forgotten the meaning of. Then I turned left even though in the back of my head I was supposed to turn right. When I realized it, I was a bit too deep to go back so I took this small extension which brought me to the south side of Yangmingshan. I decided to just go up, this is what I saw:

The thing up there was a temple, and when I got to the top I had 2 options, right and left. I started with the right and there was a small temple more or less carved into the crevice of the mountain. Have to say it was very moving, very cool. I took some incense and did the traditional motions and put them into the urn where many thousands of people have done the same. It's the first time I've actually done this. I'm not entirely sure what that all means.

I went back down then hiked up the other side, which was steps to get to the top. As I was walking up with my bike over my shoulder an old woman was slowly getting herself up, and gave me the thumbs up and a smile. As clear as the mountain had looked, the view down into Taipei looked more like Pittsburgh from the early 1900s:

Coming back home I decided to once again take breakfast matters into my own hands and I swung by the breakfast stand and grabbed 2 rice milks and 2 rice balls. I have to say I feel empowered when I'm able to go out and do this stuff. And the looks I got from people was totally priceless. Aside from the white man in an entirely non-white residential area, me being in full spandex standing in line with a bunch of salty old Taiwanese men is extremely rich. The woman at the stand didn't miss a beat though. I guess she gets all kinds.

Calvin, Julia, Nat, and I later tried to go to the temple for some stuff of theirs but it was too crowded and we turned around, basically making a 7-11 run. We then headed down the hill to go to a German restaurant for lunch. On the way we saw a solid betel nut girl who smiled when we rolled down the window and waved back when I waved to her. I missed a good shot though:

Then I went to have beer, and German food which was quite good:

The kids could care less though, and just wanted to play games:

Back to the apartment, the Family Mart, the apartment, and the playground. We had grabbed some fireworks a few days ago and we lit them off while we were there. As soon as we did people started coming out of the woodwork to see what the fuss was about. It's great, as there are constantly people lighting fireworks here. So there must be people who run at any sound like this.

Here is one of the people who came out, a woman who is not dressed for the 80 degree day we had. I guess she was expecting snow:

Headed into Taipei for some food shopping and to hit up a much nicer mall than we hit the other day. Julia vomited, which is pretty good as she's been pretty vomit-free this trip. Then we did some shopping and I forget if we bought anything of note. We had some vegetarian fare as well as sushi which came on a conveyor past your table:

And I finally said screw it and splurged on the $4 beer:

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 38 - Dim Sum in Taipei

2011-02-05T18:43:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up and realized I had nothing to eat, so I ate some Pepperidge Farm Chesssmen cookies and a protein bar for breakfast. That's go to be a bad sign. I know the rules say I'm not supposed to bring food into a guests house. But I need to stop eating so many cookies. Though some of these buns are probably the nutritional equivalent of sugar cookies.

With the lunch plans at noon that gave me about 3 hours to ride because we needed to do a few things before we left. I've said it a few times, I'm pretty tired. I've ridden my legs into the ground but I need to get my time in now. It ended up being 73 degrees and sunny today, so I need to take advantage of it. Coupled with the fact our house currently looks like this and I have to get out there when I can:

Rolling down the hill this morning I have to admit that I think this thing may disintegrate at any moment. I really just need to make a few more rides then I can hide it in a corner and deal with it when we come back, maybe next summer or the one after that. The rims of the wheels must be about ready to buckle and collapse from the constant grinding away of the surface. I think that's what I would replace for the next trip. That and maybe the frame and all the components.

Went up to the close hill with views in both directions and the wild dogs were out in full force this morning. I wonder if people are being extra generous this week and they're just everywhere because of it. Where I might normally see 5, I saw probably a dozen today. Until I got to the bike path this was the theme of the ride. Lots of dogs.

The view was ok. The haze was pretty solid so you couldn't really see a whole lot. Here's my token iPhone pic from the river paths:

That was my ride, up & over the hill, down the river paths around a small island, then back home up and over the hill again because I didn't feel like dealing with too much traffic and that's the best way to avoid it. The day was nice, I was tired, and that was the best way to enjoy it and get back home. Many people were out today, people up at the peak looking out, people climbing that hill on their bikes and on foot, and many people out on the river paths. It was a good day to be out.

Back at the house I eat another protein bar, a steam bun, soft guava, and a coffee for recovery. I'm not eating enough of the guavas, which isn't smart since I love them and I just can't get them in the states. Well, you may be able to get the hard ones which I also really like. But the soft ones you can't. When I get home I'm going to eat nothing but fruit & veggies for 2 weeks straight. My diet here has gone to crap.

After much discussion about what we should bring for the lunch cousins, we set sail and quickly hit the Starbucks to pick up some gift boxes for the 4 cousins that are going to be there. Key number there is 4, some of which are vegetarian which is what the discussion was about. The vegetarians here tend to be Buddhist vegetarians, which means that in addition to the standard of not eating cow, pig, and monkey, they also don't eat any dairy, eggs, garlic, leek, scallions, and so on. They key here was dairy and/or eggs, which is in like everything.

So anyway, we stopped to get 4 of these things in a tin with gift bags, and made it to lunch at 12 but the parking lot was full so we ended up being 10 minutes late. When we walked in and sat down, the first thing Nat says to me is, "There's 6, not 4."

Crap.

We kinda got lucky though, as there just happened to be a Starbucks right outside the door of the hotel where we were eating. So I went out with Julia under the pretense that we were going to do some speedballs and get her lunch (which we did, a glazed donut), and at the same time I grabbed 2 more tins to make 6. I'm sure some of them caught the make-up, but it was the best we could do.

It was a long lunch, and by the time we got out it was about 2:30. All Julia had to eat was a glazed donut (and a bottle of anything, to go, naturally). So we took a pit stop at the McDonald's to grab some fries and a coffee. Here she is posing for a pic with her new kicks. I love these shoes:

After McD's we started towards the car and saw Hooters, where I had to try and do Terren justice with a pic. I took 3 in all but this one is the winner:

Right next door to the girl was a wine shop, where we stopped in to get some wine for Calvin and Grace since I've been drinking all theirs. One advantage we have here is that, while most people speak some English, most people can't understand it well enough to follow what we're saying. So Nat would talk to him and she would talk to me. At some point, he chimed in, and said a few words in English, and Nat called his bluff. Turns out Dude Man worked in Manhattan for 17 years.

Julia was bored but she did pose for a pic. Still loving the kicks:

We then found some shopping, where we stumbled upon the Taipei City Mall which is underground. I got more looks than usual, which is odd for Taipei, so I have to imagine that this particular area is not a real common place for white people to hang out. On that note, I did see a white dude with a kid outside when we were going to Starbucks and the look on his face was priceless. I nodded to him and he looked away. I'm still puzzled by this white-hate by other white people. Sorry man, none of us are really that special. Well I am because I ride a bike faster than you. As a side note, I'm not doing this recap under the influence of beer. Really.

We did find a bong shop back out in the daylight. When I walked in I got a sly smile and a knowing nod from the girl working there. Those days are 15 years gone for me but I still enjoy going into these places and checking them out. Yes, my mom reads this blog.

We met up with Calvin & Company real quick but many of the shops were closed so we grabbed a scallion pancake (decent, not great) and hit up the mall real quick one more time then took off. Calvin gave me directions on how to get out so we didn't ride around in circles all night.

On the way back we stopped to get some chicken and Grace cooked 2 veggies and the pork/bamboo/egg leftovers. They were still awesome. We need to get the recipe for this.

Ok I'm too far behind to proofread this. So I'm just posting it.

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 37 - Traffic Madness

2011-02-04T18:03:00.001-08:00

Woke up early with the idea to get some sort of riding in, very tired as I have been for the past few days. All the riding is finally catching up to me and the busy days add on to that. Nat woke up too, she had trouble sleeping. So I got up, went to 7-11 for coffee, and grabbed a few cheap buns from there. Had breakfast together and then we both hemmed and hawed around the house, not really knowing what to do. Nat eventually laid down and watched TV and I decided not to ride, simply because I was too damn tired.

When Julia woke up she ran in and joined mom, who decided that sleeping more was a better idea:

We had talked about starting the day early, which also played a little part in my staying in but truth is I probably need to sleep more. But the best laid plans end up bearing no fruit, as we didn't even manage to get out of the house by 10:00 and when we did our second breakfast pit stop, the rice ball shop, was closed anyway for the holiday. We'll have to make sure we get that when we come down the last time for our final sweep through the apartment.

So we walked around a little bit and dipped into the traditional market which is sort of like that video I posted but in a building, and a bit less crowded as it was not Chinese new year's eve. Much meat and so on, and of course the big vat of chicken testicles, which seem to be all too common here:

After, we stopped at a soup bun stand and get a small pack of buns and a cold soymilk for second breakfast. The soymilk was really good. Following that small sub-meal, we started packing things up to bring to Taipei. Our stay down in Luodong has pretty much run its course, so it was time to start moving our load of junk north, one step closer to the airport. You'd be amazed at the amount of shit you can amass in 5 weeks. We still have 1 to go.

We left the apartment around noon. Keep that number in mind. First stop was Nat's cousin who is also the owner of the McCruiser. As a hobby he tells people's fortunes, and here he is telling me about myself:

He said a bunch of things about my personality which were true, though the rational side of my brain wonders if they would be true for most people. He didn't say anything of particular interest other than a) I needed to be very careful of heart disease and b) my career will do very well from age 42-51, at which point he says I'll be able to retire. Oh and he mentioned something about growing a horn out of my forehead and learning how to fly, but I'll give him a pass on that one.

From there we went to Ilan, just 5 miles up the road and tried to find the other mall in town. After riding around for too long, we finally found it, then had to leave immediately and go walk to find food, as there was none there. Julia had KFC (thank god for Western influence here or this kid would never eat) and we had some beef paste-sauce over rice, which we ate at the dirtiest stand I've ever eaten at. It was ok.

We then started to go towards the highway but the traffic was backed up pretty badly, so I hopped out and over to one of the roads I took to Taipei that avoids the main drag. We took it all the way to the hills and hit even more traffic at the highway entrance. A sign said something about falling rock, and we could see that traffic going into the 13 km tunnel was barely moving, so the traffic was at least that long, and likely more, since rocks tend to fall outside the tunnel and not in it.

We hiked it up and over the mountains on the road that I rode to Taipei on. Way back when Nat was a kid they used to drive this in order to get to Taipei, since there was no coastal route nor a tunnel that went through the mountain. It was a cool drive, but if I had to do that sort of thing every day I'd go crazy. Thankfully, on the other side of the first mountain the traffic was fine and we were able to jump back on and not go the whole distance on the slow road.

Unfortunately, I took a wrong turn off the highway for no good reason and we decided to go to Taipei and the electronics district to try and find me a digital camera that might last a little better in my jersey pocket. After 453 turns, we finally found the store that Calvin recommended but unfortunately it was closed for the holiday. Suck.

But again, I took more pics of 101, with a tiny crescent moon in this one:

Luckily, there is a whole district and where 1 store is close, 50 more are open:

Before shopping we grabbed a scallion pancake then headed down into the basement. The egg in it was runny and it was damn good. I like this style:

We dropped into this basement-like area with all sorts of electronics and we couldn't find any digital cameras, so we stopped at some random stand and much to our surprise the guy sitting down and working there was white. Nat asked him if he spoke English and he said he did, but with a British accent so I didn't catch what he said exactly. I think this was a first here, seeing a white guy working at a store. I'm sure they are plentiful but I've just never seen one. He told us to go upstairs and just pick randomly.

We did, and the guy there pretty much told us to go back to the states to buy it because it's too expensive here. Fair enough, though I wanted a camera for my rides the rest of the trip. I guess that more or less means people will have to settle for a single iPhone pic of my biking every day. Oh well, what can you do? We grabbed some food at a stand on the way out, which was fried crab and a hunk of blood cake that was also fried. It was tasty stuff. Julia scored some mozzarella sticks too, and she was stoked.

Trying to leave was pure insanity, and we just couldn't find a way onto route 1. You have to realize that all the highways are raised here, and you can be on the ground and have 2 sets of raised highways above you, neither of which are remotely accessible. This is what happened to us yesterday and at some point, Julia says, "Wht are we going around in circles?" Sure enough, we were in front of the original electronics store that was closed to begin with, probably a half hour after we left.

We finally got back to Linkou at 8:15, 8 and one-quarter hours after we left the apartment. It took 3 trips for me to get all our junk from the basement up to the 5th floor. We really need to consolidate, or set fire to, some of this stuff.

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 36 - Yangmingshan & Back to Luodong

2011-02-04T05:22:00.000-08:00

Woke up to the alarm, I'm tired. I'd rather sleep but the 10 day weather forecast for NJ now includes days that we will have to experience. So if I don't get up and do something, I'm not going to be able to bottle up these days and take them back with me. So I forced myself out of bed, had a coffee and the rest of the bread we got at the bakery the other day, and headed out the door by 6:30.

Before I left, I did manage to squeeze my fat self into a medium jersey, but only technically. It's entirely possible that I'm violating some sort of visual code of ethics doing this to people. Still, I can hang my hat onto the fact that I an still actually wear a medium. Going to need to trim the food intake when we get back a bit.

I headed down the hill to see if I could put together the best way to get to the red bridge and across the river for a future assault on Yangmingshan. This is the mountain that overlooks Taipei, and on a clear day offers awesome views like this:

The bike route tool I use said it would take 3:48 one way to get up there, which seemed steep but it's usually pretty accurate. So I decided to get close and do the math so I can maybe plan on it one day next week. I was able to get across the bridge in less that 30 minutes, which was super fast, and before long I was at the base of the hill and climbing up the back side, which seems to be the preferred route for bikers as the other side is the drive side up from Taipei.

So I started to go up, and I figure, "Ok, let's see what happens." I got there really fast, and I know my target is 3500 feet. By about 1:15 I'm at 1000 and since I know my climb rate, I'm looking at that saying I can get there at maybe 2:20. Then going down is faster and I have enough time to make it. Maybe.

Of course, this is where the climbing is, and the reader at this point expects me to run out of time. So we have bikers, slick roads, a handful of cars, some views down to the valley in the north, and of course a few monkeys yelling at me as I go by. These were fat ones and I suspect that cars stop to feed them, since there's plenty of traffic being that this is a national park so close to Taipei. On the way down some guy was banging a stick in the area, probably to scare them away as they likely tend to be a menace.

As I got closer my eta was getting lower and lower, and at about 2500 feet I plunged into the heavy fog and saw that I'd easily make it, assuming the road topped off and didn't roll at the end. The last 700 feet were in an absolute dense fog with visibility not even 50 yards, and it was pretty damn steep at the end. But I made it and was rewarded with this fantastic view:

Since there wasn't much to gawk at, I turned around and coasted down the hill and froze my bits off, as usual. The tops of these hills are often 1000% humidity, if not outright rain, and cold. So my being dressed for 65 degrees didn't work that well with the temps up there. Before I came out of the fog I was shivering from the cold.

On the way down I was passed by a guy on a Cannondale, clipless pedals, hammering his way down. I was stoked, and jumped on his wheel and started to hammer with him. This is by far the fastest I've gone on any downhill and since we were out of the clouds, the roads were dry and much safer here. We had gone off the 101 extension and it was wider all the way down to the river. It was a good roll and fun to ride with someone for a bit.

At the river he went straight and I left, and shortly after I saw my first whitey on a bike. As I was coming up on him I noticed the shaved legs and full-bore kit. I passed and said "hey" and I think he tried to jump on but I left him for dead instantly. I was feeling great on the ride and the warm temps at the bottom energized me. I was flying at this point and shortly after he was long gone behind.

I got back from the round trip in 3:40, in all 8 minutes less than the one way total was supposed to be. Calvin & Grace had gone to see her grandfather, who is 99 and has been gravely ill for a week. He would pass away later in the day, having made his last goal of seeing in the Chinese new year. Being 99 affords one this sort of lax attitude on the world, I suppose.

We geared up and hit the road around noon, hitting some traffic but in all sailing smoothly down to Luodong where we first grabbed some lunch of intestine noodle soup and then a pork soup of some sort. Both were good, and they are what I would call staples of the diet here. This may be the last time we get them. I wish we could get stuff like that in the states but for some reason the stuff there pretty much sucks.

After lunch we went upstairs to start the "hong bao" process with Nat's relatives. The words "hong bao" translate exactly as red envelope, and wikipedia as usual does a better job describing it that I would. There's a game involved though, as people will try and give stuff to the younger generation, in this case Julia. But as many have said, there is no such thing as a free lunch. And any acceptance of anything will later mean that you are indebted to that person in some future way. So there's often a struggle to refuse the envelope in some cases. Of course, Julia gets upset if we try to give her's back, so we lose these games every time.

Here is Nat's cousin and wife, who came over for the holiday. They currently live in China:

The day was awesome, about 70 and partly sunny most of the day. The "partly sunny" means "partly cloudy" and even though there is no rain, visibility is pretty poor overall. Some of the half-rain days are actually more clear in spots. But of course no rain and some sun with 70 degrees is nice. I can't wait for spring proper, which seems far away when I look at the NJ weather right now.

We try to go up towards the Meihua lake/temple area to get some soft guava and hit the Mt. Liu peanut candy shop, but the traffic is so bad we turn off and head towards Nat's other aunt to deliver another of the new year's gifts. We have 6 total relatives we need to see in the holiday, which is just about a week long. We stop off at Nat's aunt as the 2nd stop. This time there is no hong bao game. You really never know when it's going to strike.

Over to Nat's uncle's house for stop #3, and we play our cards wrong and show up too close to dinner. As we walk in we see that they've already started making food, and to refuse would be a serious insult. We were pretty excited to go to the night market, but the spread before us is a ton of fresh seafood, as he lives on the port. So how can you refuse this spread? It's just really good:

The sashimi is crazy fresh, and the stewed pork/egg thing is excellent as well. Steamed fish is good, and the roe cake is one of my favorites. There's also a mixes dish of upside down car fish (yeah I don't know if that's the scientific name or not) that Nat really digs.

After dinner we have some tea, then Nat's uncle breaks out some old pics of them as kids. Nat on the left, Calvin on the right:

Meanwhile Julia breaks out the game face on some apples:

Back to the apartment the traffic is still nuts, so instead of driving right to the the 4th relative stop we park the car, go to the apartment, and walk over. Nat sees her cousin there which she hasn't seen in 30 years. We also don't have the hong bao game, which we did at her uncle's house. So it was 2 out of 4 where we had to play, and lose, the game. Tomorrow we'll hit up the 5th one and I guess, maybe the last of the required relatives.

We walk back to the apartment a different way and go through the night market so I can grab my favorite dessert, the taro ice cream burrito with peanut candy shavings and cilantro. The number of people here is staggering, and they've erected extra tents in the park to handle all the extra vendors that have come in for the week. It's nothing short of a full on frenzy almost all day. Too bad we're not going to be able to experience much of it as we would shortly run into further apartment problems.

On top of the washing machine being a POS, the dryer sort of working, and the dehumidifier trying to set the house on fire, the hot water heater stopped working at some point over the last few days. So now aside from not really being able to wash and dry clothes, we can't wash ourselves. We can, however, dry ourselves as the towels still function perfectly well.

Aside from this, I do like being down here more, as we're in the field more and get to see & do more diverse things. Calvin's area is primarily residential, and thus a lot of people split town for the week and many of the shops are closed for the new year. Here, everything is open and they actually bring in extra shops. Unfortunately, this apartment is trying to be rid of us so our stay here is going to be a 1 night only affair, and we'll be on our way back to Taipei Saturday afternoon.

Pic of the day, shaking things up a bit:

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 35 - Chinese New Year's Day

2011-02-02T21:47:00.000-08:00

Tis the year of the rabbit, or the Rabbi, depending on your culture.

After 4 days of riding my legs off, I decided to skip today and sleep in. Usually I wake up at 5:30 or so, but today I scraped myself out of bed at 8:30 and found some bread in the fridge for breakfast. The morning was nothing at all - bread, coffee, steam bun, then sit around and do nothing.

Late morning Nat and Calvin started making some homemade dumplings, while Grace had been cooking for the last hour making some food for the day. This culture is massively based on eating out. But new year's day is the 1 day a year people actually stay in and eat. I guess people need to prove that they can still cook. That, and everything is closed so they have no choice.

They sent me out to the corner store for oil and eggs, and as soon as I walked out the door I was floored with how warm it was. I had seen the sun peek it's head out maybe an hour earlier, but the sky was a solid light gray when I went out. Not clear, but certainly on the lighter side of gray. My initial thought was to wish I had gone for a ride, but with sun forecast the next 4 days, I need to save myself. I had a headache all morning, which may be from the huge amount of biking, the wine last night, or the lack of coffee this morning. Probably all of the above.

After I went to the store I walked around a bit to enjoy the warm air. This neighborhood is atypical for Taiwan. The buildings are sealed off, almost like hotels. You enter either from the parking garage below, or the front door which has a desk and 1-3 people working it at all times. The typical neighborhood is more of a free-for-all, houses built together, people going in and out all the time. I guess this is a sort of next step in the evolution of community here. As a visitor, I don't like it. For someone who lives here, I understand that perspective.

First for Terren at the corner store:

When I got back the food orgy had started. First was some boiled dumplings, which I ate with some (mostly soy) dipping sauce. Then came the stewed bamboo which I love, that was part of an eggs & pork dish that would later be for dinner. Following that we had fried dumplings, then fried taro balls with egg yolk in the middle, and finally some fried "year cake" which is a sweet sticky rice cake you eat for dessert. I ate far, far too much.

Calvin the fry master:

The results, solid unhealthy food:

The TV was showing some of the temples that open their doors at certain times of the day, with people lined up trying to get in first. It's supposed to be more lucky for you the sooner you do it. So naturally, first is best. And it only follows that there is an absolutely mad rush to be the very first one. So it's a sort of "running of the bulls" situation you see there. At one temple, one dude hid under a table and when they "opened the doors" he jumped out and beat everyone in line. Gotta say this was damn good entertainment.

We planned on going back to Luodong today, but apparently the traffic is really bad on new year's day so we're here another day. We took a foray out to the mall/department store/etc and getting out of town was, in fact, pretty crazy. My observation was that there really weren't any more people on the road than normal. But everyone was in their car as opposed to the scooter they normally ride. So there was more traffic on the road.

We hit up the department store near where Calvin used to live and it turns out that I was literally right there the other day when I was first getting lost looking for 106, and again yesterday when I was going right instead of left. Behind the back shot for Terren here. Honing my skills.

We picked up a new wok to replace the one we bought here 10 years ago. Of course it's made in Switzerland, just like the first one. Go figure. These trips end up being big time endeavors. We started talking about going at 3:00 and didn't actually get to the store until about 5:00. The process of talking about going, getting ready to go, and getting out the door can be a significant undertaking some days. For some reason it's impossible to just stand up and walk out the door at the drop of a hat.

Back at the apartment, dinner is more home cooking from Grace. Greens, squash, and the pork/egg/bamboo thing from this morning. Love the pork & bamboo thing, big props to that. Then I drank some beer.

Pretty much a do-nothing day again today. Tomorrow the elusive string of sunny days is supposed to begin. Bike in the morning and return to Luodong at some point after that. Then I guess see some relatives and so on. Nat's parents already started asking when we're going back to see them.

I found out what Dennis Rodman is doing these days. Apparently working at a mall in Sanchong:

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 34 - Chinese New Year's Eve

2011-02-02T00:54:00.000-08:00

So let's kick off the day with the traditional Chinese new year celebration which is...a bike ride!

Ok, maybe not. Actually, let's kick it off with the video of the market from yesterday.

It was cooler in real life

Terren says he likes the videos. Props yo, I'll keep them coming. In a few days it may be nothing more than me drinking bottles of wine. But I'm fairly sure that will be entertaining in some fashion.

My sun lasted 1 day, and the rain was back again today. I headed out the door around 7:30 or so, thinking maybe 4 hours today. I took a different route down to the river, which was faster and dumped me onto the bikeway in about 30 minutes. Nothing amazing, I just rode my bike. Eat me:

Up the river, cross the bridge, down the river, and take a right. Yeah, save for the fact I was supposed to take a left. Sometimes the path gives you 3-4 options all at once. I took what I thought was the right one, and with no sun your sense of direction doesn't really have any effect. It's solid gray in all directions.

No big deal, but then Nat texts me saying that we actually have plans in mind. Ok, no problem, I'll be home in 1-1.5. Shortly after I see a sign for Xindian and think, "Um...fuck."

You see, Xindian is almost at the top of the river trails, at the base of the hills which climb up and over back to Luodong. Crap, I turn around, and start to press myself to get back. The bikeway sucks for this, and my pace is incredibly bad. What's more, I really don't know the best way to get back up the hill and back to the apartment.

Eventually I say screw it and get off the bikeway, which is like this hidden fantasy world which has nothing at all to do with reality. I wasn't getting any closer to home, so I hopped off and just did the "go that way" method using the GPS compass to make sure I went west. Despite some really old streets which drew some looks like, "WTF are you doing here?" I eventually made it back to the base of the hill I came down and back to the apartment in time to get out. 3 hours and 48 minutes later, I rolled back in.

Quick shower and we're out the door to meet Calvin & family in Yingge, the pottery village. We get close then wing it, which of course gets us lost since we don't know where we're actually trying to go. We eventually work it out and make it to the shop where they know the owners and who give them good deals on the stuff. We head out for lunch first, pork noodle soup for me:

Back to the shop and we end up buying glass dragons, tea cups and a teapot, a thermos that we've seen a few times, and some incense. We had gone with the idea to buy some stuff for people, but we end up buying just stuff for ourselves. However, we did not buy this:

After 300 hours of Grace and the woman talking while Nat, Calvin, and I ate snacks and tapped our feet, we left. Grabbed a quick coffee and hit the road back to Calvin's. We were there maybe an hour and change then had to get dressed up like a Texas monkey and head to dinner at the American Club, which is what Calvin does on Chinese NYE.

Dinner was a buffet and Julia ate 4 small tubs of spreadable butter, strawberries, and dessert. I ate enough then started taking some pics for Terren. She is Jewish:

I expected more white people but it was mostly Asians. The white people there all look at the other white people like you're an offense to their security. Losers. On the way out, we took pictures of each other and had some dude take a pic of all of us:

After we left we went to look for something and I took another pic for Terren. She is not Jewish:

I'm on my 3rd glass of wine in the last 30 minutes so sue me. There's 1 more, not great quality, in the picture set, which as usual you can find in the link below.

Tomorrow I think I have to take a day off the bike, so I hope it pisses rain all day. I'm so exhausted I may sleep until noon. But it's how I keep my sanity and what gives me the rope to eat like a moose on speed. Ok, off to get my 4th glass.

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 33 - A Much Needed Day

2011-02-01T04:30:00.000-08:00

The day started with a work phone call at 6:00 am. Not the way you usually want to start your day but it was for my yearly review. Everything went well which is a good thing, but there's some expectation that I will, in fact, be back in 2 weeks. So I passed on Nat's suggestion to ask if they minded if I stay a few more weeks. That means the trip is really only going to be 44 days. No worries mom, we'll be back soon.

I headed out the door at about 8:00 am and was shocked to feel that the temps had risen about 10 degrees from the day before. And not long into the ride, I actually saw that elusive thing which is so, so nice, but oh, so rare. It was the clear blue sky:

This was great, a much needed change up from the crap I've been riding in and it made me long for the spring. It's incredible to me how much your mood correlates to the weather, especially when you take into account what my hobby of choice is. I headed down the hill on the same way I came up the day before, but I took a left instead of going down into the busy town. The road was quiet, and I kept heading towards the peak that was in front of me. Eventually I found a park area, and tried to ride up the path that goes to the peak. Unfortunately it appeared to be a hiking trail only.

I dumped back down the other side, and had views of the ocean most of the way down. A bit hazy but better than rain - you get the idea:

The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful but enjoyable. I went to the river, then crossed the bridge to the other side, and back up north to a town called Danshui, which is a touristy town that we've been to many years ago. I tooled around there for a bit and found the beach, which was appropriate for the ride today. This was before I crossed the river. That mountain on the other side is on my hit list but I need a full day for that:

And for those of you who want to meditate on this, it was almost warm enough to jump in today:

The look and sound of the beach

The way back was more or less the same, though I did the road a bit more than the bikeway because the path was chock full of boardwalks and fishermen. There are some downsides to the road sometimes though:

Scooter madness!

I went home the way I came because I wanted to climb up that big hill and come up a nice peaceful way instead of the 2 other ways which are truck routes. There were several bikers going up when I was coming down, so I knew it must be the preferred route for the area bikers. It was a nice ride among a lot of old grave sites that littered the hillside.

When I got back to the apartment there was some breakfast leftovers waiting for me. Calvin must be trying to butter me up, or fatten me up. There was some soymilk, a leek & rice noodle pocket, some dumplings, and some egg/dough bites that I like. Good stuff, great way to end a great ride:

In the house for a little bit, getting cleaned up and hanging out and so on. Before long it was lunch time and the place we went to was closed, so we went to another place down the street which was a newer age organic Taiwanese style place. I have to say, it was really good, and just like the ride today, it hit the spot in a place I really needed. I love the food here, but after a while it's kinda like a different hat on the same thing you've had before. This was a really new, hip hat which was good. I really enjoyed it. I'd say most people would be able to take this stuff. I got the beef:

After lunch we tooled around town a bit, first to get some flowers and such for the new year, then a fish store, a playground, and finally back home. Julia was like, "WTF is this thing then?"

Back at the apartment I had some work to do for the team, which took a bunch of time. In the meantime, Grace made dinner which was some pork with ginger, green veggies, squash with 1000 year egg, and some soup, plus some pork sausage which was made elsewhere. It was a solid meal and good to get something homemade after eating just about every single meal out for the past 33 days.

Calvin and I had gone to an old-style market earlier and I took a video, which was pretty cool. Not like anything you see in the US that's for sure. Well at least not in NJ. Unfortunately the video did not load overnight so I'll post it up tomorrow if it ever finishes.

Today was a good day. Need more of these. Weather.com is saying we may have 4 days in a row of sun, starting Friday. I don't know what to say. The kids could care less about the weather as long as they have their video games:

As usual, all the pics of the food and such can be seen at following link:

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 32 - Along the River

2011-01-31T01:39:00.000-08:00

This morning is frigid cold in the apartment. I wake up at 6:00 to 61 degrees, 80% humidity. This is in the house, not outside. Outside is 50 or 55 or something. But in the house it's freezing, and no matter what I do I can't get warm. Nat had warned me that this humidity makes the chill seem to cut through you, and I'm now understanding what she means. This is starting to take a mental toll. Tropical island my ass. When Calvin woke up he told me I should turn the heater on in the office. I love heat right now.

I hem and haw around the house, thinking that if it's this cold inside, then riding a bike outside is going to be brutal. But as soon as I get dressed in my bike clothes, I warm up. On the road I feel fine, not cold at all. I just go, no real plan on the ride other than to check out the river bike paths again. I reverse what I did coming up, and before long I'm on the path looking out across the river at this:

The first 45 minutes of the ride is a repeat of what I did the other day, then I go to explore more paths south of where I crossed over. The bike path seems to be everywhere at times, going both right, left and straight. And sometimes looping back on itself and suddenly reversing itself to do a 180 from the direction you were just going.

I make my way south, and the path ranges from boardwalks to cobblestones to wide smooth paths. But the route I take is a rapid fire stream of road and parking lot crossings, with these metal tongs placed close together to keep the scooters out. So you get up to speed, slow down, speed up, and on and on. Eventually the path narrows a bit and it seems less populated, and I start to approach the mountains south of the city, heading towards YingGe, a place we'll likely visit in a few days to buy some ceramics of some sort.

Look! Another bridge!

I like that they add flair to the city in random spots like that. The bikeway is well done, but I have to be honest, it's kinda mind-numbing at the same time. Turn, turn, split in 3, boardwalk, random split, road crossing, stairs, and on and on and on. I stuck it out for 2 hours when it was time to turn around and head home. On the way down I saw this, which I certainly don't see everyday:

RC Aiplanes

On the way back one of the guys had something like an air force jet, which sounded real as anything. It screamed through the air and sure seemed to be jet powered, not propeller. It landed just as I was coming through, and it sat on the "runway" and sounded exactly like a jet, just a fraction of the size. I also saw some RC cars and took video, but frankly it's boring.

On the way back I hopped off the path to try and pick up 106 to take a different way home and never saw a sign for 106. So I just on the road and was more than happy to wing it among the cars, trucks, and scooters. The bikeway gets to be too much if you're going more than 12 mph. I imagine I'll use it again, but I need to find the better parts and avoid the stairs and crap like that.

Eventually I had to admit that I was possibly getting myself into trouble, as I was somehow at the verge of an on-ramp which I think led to a highway. So I looked at the GPS and jumped back on the bikeway to get my bearings. Shortly after I found 108, which went up the hill more directly than the big loop around the north.

The start was jam packed with traffic, but after that it went up the hill a bit less steeply than the other road. Traffic was still a little raw on top (lousy road, little to no shoulders, a lot of trucks) but it did get me where I needed to go.

It didn't rain all day, though the whole ride was done under gray skies. I feel like this was a dreadfully boring adventure.

After I got home I ate a bunch then did some work and made some coffee. Nobody was here so it was relatively quiet, though all I felt like doing was laying down and taking a nap. I had been out almost 3.5 hours and I was tired. Maybe around 4:30 they came back, and the calming reassurance of noise returned.

Dinner was at a place that Calvin and I stopped in to get some chicken for dinner the other night, a solid Taiwanese sit-down restaurant. Before dinner, Julia was happy enough. This is blurry but she has such a nice smile, so I kept it:

But it didn't last, as she didn't like the food and was complaining about...well, just about everything. Once she started playing games on Nat's phone she forgot all about it though. Dinner was noodles, chicken, cabbage, tofu with 1000 year egg, a sweetbread thing, eggplant and intestine, and finally soup. You can check the pic pink at the bottom for a description of all the foods. But the tofu thing was my favorite:

This was on display. I didn't eat it though. It looks, well a bit raw:

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 31 - Another Quarry Fail

2011-01-29T21:32:00.001-08:00

This morning, a cold wet day awaits me. Again. But with 2 days off previous to this one, I'm going out on the bike, hell or proverbial high water. I suited up and took the McCruiser to the quarry again - the original quarry, up to 4000 feet vertical was the plan. I had 3 hours this time, which I assumed was enough to get me there & back in time.

I got to the bottom of the hill and the quarry wasn't running, the lot was empty of cars, and the area was quiet. Perfect, since it was raining. I got to the bottom of the climb and the gate was down. No matter, I went around and hoped nobody would care. A guy was in the small booth at the bottom, but either didn't care or didn't see me, and I was on my way. Things are just different here. No way that flies in the US.

The road goes up fast, faster than I remembered. This was my 3rd ride of the trip, way back on day #4, and it seemed steeper today. I guess my legs are getting tired of these hills. Some of them were downright brutal today, and they kept going up and up and up. The start of the climb was the toughest.

There was really no novelty to this ride, as I had done it before. And unlike the other quarry, there aren't any remnants of any sort to keep the cool factor high. Still, it was a climb, and I climbed. The one cool thing was that the rock conveyor was running, which I still find wildly interesting for some reason:

At 1300 feet up, I heard a dreaded motorcycle coming up the road, and figured my day was over. But before I actually saw the guy he yelled, "jia you," and then when he saw me he said, "Very good!" Another guy followed him, making no eye contact and saying nothing. I never saw them again, and saw nobody else on the way up.

This ride was a drag, for a few reasons. First of all it was pissing rain half the time and as I went up the temps dropped more and more. By the end it was probably 35-40 degrees and raining - sometimes vertically, sometimes horizontally. Being soaking wet and wearing spring gloves, this wasn't great for my hands. In the open areas the wind was hammering me. But more than anything, at around 2200 feet up, the rock conveyor took a left, I took a right, the cloud cover seemed to triple, and I entered an eerie world.

I was in the middle of No Man's Land, no noise, no visual, no heat. It was kinda tough mentally to like it up there, and one thought kept running through my head. A few weeks ago someone on Facebook posted this status, "I'm pretty sure that hell is cold." As I was riding up at 3000 feet today, I felt like the river Styx was going to come into view at any moment.

Then in an absolutely unpredictable turn, the road started going down. WTF?

This wasn't what I wanted. And to make a somewhat long ride story shorter, I ran out of time, yet again. As I was rolling along I looked at the GPS and it said 11 miles and 2700 feet vertical. I had lost 300 feet, and still had 3 miles to go. I was 1:44 in and said I'd only be out for 3 hours. I wasn't going to make it, yet again. I was both ok with it, and somewhat annoyed that the road didn't just go up and get to 4000 and be done with it.

So I turned around, and started going down and making my hands colder than they already were, I stopped to take a video, here's the raw footage from today. This one is only 1:18, shorter than yesterday:

The view from the gates of hell

When I got back to the apartment, the freaking shower gave me a short warm shower then turned cold. The washing machine stopped on its own 3 times. I have a water demon possessing me today.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon was spent getting ready to go up to Taipei again. Not exactly sure why we did this quick hit & run, though we were running on bare bones the first trip, meaning minimal clothes, and more importantly limited bike clothes and none of the computers. Sometimes I can travel light, but with the bike and work/play involved, it can get a little heavy.

Drove back up to Taipei and decided to hit up Taipei 101 on the way to Calvin's, since we had some time to kill. At this point, between the driving in this city and the bike explorations, I'm pretty sure I'm comfortable doing almost anything here. I imagine a lot of people would look at this trip and think I'm a little crazy, but it's really just a state of mind. That mindset is more or less: whatever, it all works out.

As usual, I can't get enough:

We tooled around at the mall there, and saw more white people there than in the rest of the trip combined. We didn't buy anything because it's probably one of the most expensive malls on Earth. But we did get some food, which of course meant KFC for Julia. Our dinner was some rice, veggies, and chicken.

Dessert was something different. Red beans, green beans, and rice noodles in a sweet concoction, with ice. I've had it before, but never taken a pic. Some might have a problem eating beans as a dessert. Once you get over that mental hurdle this stuff is really good:

We went shopping at this place called Jason's, which is apparently some sort of White People's Hangout, as I then saw even more white people than before. I guess they all shop here, which is too bad because it's f-tarded expensive. I found some Rogue Dead Guy Ale but at $4 a bottle, I'll pass. I also saw a quite attractive blonde girl shopping there, which is pretty rare here. The white guys here are generally good/average-looking guys. But my experience is that most of the white women who come here are the sort who audition for the part of Large Marge in Pee Wee's Big Adventure. So it was a bit of an oddity. Sorry T, I tried but the pic was way too blurry.

On the way out, another pic:

Driving was a bit annoying coming back but I think even Nat would attest at this point that my skills in this city are progressing quite well. I have to say, they give a license to any blind moron.

Back up to Calvin's around 7:00, hung out and so on. Opened up a bottle of red wine and it went straight to my head. I suppose I was a bit low on food today, which is good since I'm sure I could stand to have a few negative calorie days before this trip is over. I'm going to guess that the last 2 weeks will be plenty of eating, since it's new year's and all. It's good to be fully operational again. So when I wake up, if it's raining sideways I'll be able to go out and be reasonably prepared for it.

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 30 - Not Much

2011-01-29T03:05:00.000-08:00

The trip is probably more or less winding down at this point. Even though we have 2 weeks left, we're at the stage where entire days go by and absolutely nothing happens. We didn't have breakfast until 11:00 today, and we did nothing of note that I can really even pass off as interesting to the reader, other than something which we saw down in Luodong which I'll mention in a little bit.

I woke up at 5:30 with intentions of going out for a 3 hour bike ride. I made coffee, ate some leftover pizza for breakfast, edited my entry from yesterday, posted the blog, then looked outside and saw it was raining sideways and it was 50 degrees. Then I went back to bed.

Eventually I woke up again at 8:30, fully dressed - just as I fell asleep. I got up, made another coffee, and sat on the couch thinking that I'd get out eventually and that I could use more sleep. As you could probably guess, I neither went back to sleep nor went for a bike ride. The big issue was that I left all my cold weather gear down in Luodong. So the thought of going in these gale-force winds with summer head cover, summer gloves, summer jersey, and summer shoes seemed like a really bad idea.

As I said earlier, breakfast was at 11:00, and it was nothing you could describe as "special":

Rest of the morning was sitting around talking family politics, which is what a lot of these Calvin trips turn into. With the new year coming up, it ramps up because of the various cash & gift requirements associated with the holiday. At this point, I should be cringing at all of this, but it's sort of like the last few days before your wedding when the knee-jerk reaction about what you're spending has been beaten out of your system. As long as I can get my bike explorations in, I'm happy.

Breakfast was so late we skipped lunch and hopped in the car and headed back south to Luodong. Getting there was a breeze, and now that I've got a reason to learn the area around Taipei I should have it down in the next 2 weeks. With my bike explorations bound to be mostly northern-based, I'm going to need to learn the area quickly.

When we got back the fire department was hanging up some banners for the new year celebration:

After a quick stop at the apartment we went out to run some errands, and came across this. Here's my first video of the trip, completely raw because I don't have the time to edit anything. Once I get home I'll have more videos from the trip but for now you get the raw footage:

Video of the day

However, it gets even more absurd at times, with strippers at funerals?

This is how funerals go in Taiwan. Nuts. After that we ran into Crash, then went to the bakery, the 7-11 for some Sam Adams, to the night market for strawberries, grabbed some pancake batter from the market down the street, then back the other way for fruit, and finally the corner store for milk. All of this was within a good half mile square, at most.

Julia dug the strawberries:

For dinner, I ate Julia's leftover pancakes and drank beer, which is a solid complement to the McDonald's and nothing I had for my first 2 meals. No pic of the day, it's in the video.

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 29 - Just Chillin'

2011-01-28T04:10:00.000-08:00

I slept really poorly last night. It may have been the tea at night but more likely it was the bike ride. When I go for really long rides like that, I often times have trouble sleeping. I woke up in the middle of the night ravished, and hit up the fridge for some leftover pizza. After that I felt a bit better and finally seemed to sleep solidly after 4:00 or so. At 7:00, I woke up, not fully rested but enough I guess.

The morning was nothing. We went out for some breakfast and bought 14 pounds of food for $200 NT, or about $6 US. I ate enough food for 2 breakfasts and we fed 3 other people as well, plus an extra soymilk for Lydia. I'm getting spolied by the cheap food here. And it's not fast food by any stretch. The stuff is made right in front of you.

The rest of the morning was spent doing nothing around the house. The kids played and I had a few cups of coffee and generally felt lousy from riding myself into the ground yesterday. I probably should have just slept until 9:00 but my internal clock rings like the start of a Fishbone song by 7:00 and I can't sleep any longer than that.

Around noon the kids started to breakdown so we decided to head out, which meant I was able to drive again. It was nice to be behind the wheel after so long without it, and this car (Volvo something or other) drives well. So it was nice to get out of the house and get out on the road. Traffic wasn't bad and it took us no time to get to the mall.

First stop was lunch which was the standard mall selection, so we each got our own thing with Nat and I getting some vegetarian buffet-like thing where you picked your meal and weighed it. The vegetarian here is nothing like in the US, and you barely even remember you're not eating meat half the time.

After lunch we got a Dunkin Donuts coffee which helped me wake up out of my daze that I had been in since I got up. We then went to the kids pseudo-arcade which was pretty much like Chucky Cheese where you spent a shit ton of money and played games and got tickets. They cashed in the tickets for about $3 of crap which will be gone in a few days. Then we got ice cream and headed out:

On the way out we passed a few betel nut stands that hold with the old tradition of having the girls dress really enticingly, and who are easy to look at. I tried to get a pic real quick but wasn't able to get it in focus. It was a quick shot while trying to drive and follow Calvin, so unfortunately it didn't come out. I may have to get Calvin to drive us out and take some pics before we go.

Another thing I always dig about this country is the constant construction going on. The speed at which projects are proposed, approved, and executed is admirable. This is the MRT (Taipei above ground subway system) line that's being built out to the airport. I'd say that's long overdue:

Next stop was a tea shop across the street from Grace's parents. Calvin and Grace went to see her parents and we went to try out some tea. Calvin had brought us some the last time he came to the states and I really liked it. So we went to buy some and try a few different kinds while we were there. The shop was run by a female monk, which isn't rare but it's also not that common either.

As an aside, I forgot to mention an odd thing from yesterday as I was climbing out of Pinglin. While I was going up the hill, I heard this music which was coming from the valley below. I can only describe it as Buddhist-based, and it was entirely surreal at that moment. It's the kind of thing you'd see in a movie, where the character was wandering lost in the wilderness and came across a temple and heard the music in the distance before he saw it. Not so odd here when you consider the prevalene of temples, but it was coming very loudly from the valley, not a temple I was passing right by.

After the tea shop we had a little time to kill before Calvin and Grace were done so we went across the street to this massive temple that was being built the last time we were there, 9 years ago. It is colossal. None of the pictures came out well because of the lights, but this one is good as it shows you how big the place is, plus the Hollywood Squares effect of the layout. Check the pic link below for more:

We drove back to Calvin's during rush hour and at some point a few cars started to get between us so I hopped in a faster lane and tried to get behind him again. The douche bag wouldn't let me in so I went ahead of Calvin and pulled in front of him. Eventually I lost him, and we had to figure it out and get back ourselves. Nat called Calvin and he told us which exit to take and where to turn, and we had no issue getting back. While it was a little tight driving in spots, it's really nothing crazy. More importantly, I was able to remember which parking garage was his and where I needed to go.

Dinner was noodles and chicken, plus a side veggie from down the road. Nothing unique, though it was good. By the time we wrapped up dinner it was 8:00 and the night was more or less over. In all a pretty low-key day, more kid-based than anything. But I did get to the tea shop which is 1 of the things I wanted to do before we leave.

Random pic of the day is the betel nut girls, but seriously lacking focus:

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 28 - On to Taipei

2011-01-27T03:34:00.000-08:00

The morning started out like any other morning (except yesterday) - wake up early, get coffee, eat half a bun, look around for more food, wish I had gotten myself 2 coffees, eat some more, and so on. The rain wasn't actually going when I went out this morning, it was just wet. As far as these things go, it was about as good as you can expect.

After getting things ready and packing for a few days up at the BIL's, I set sail at 10:00 with the idea that I'd be up there by 3:30. Figure close to 5 hours plus whatever stops. It sounded like a reasonable time. I set out with no issues, and took a short detour on route 191 to avoid the poor drivers of Ilan based on a suggestion from one of the guys on an English-speaking Taiwan forum.

The start of the ride was uneventful. Flat & fast, I hit the base of the first climb with an 18.3 average, which certainly wasn't going to last. I hit the hill and kept pressing, for no real good reason other than I wanted to. While it was a good climb, it was a middle ring climb, so it really wasn't the leg-burner that a lot of these climbs have been. It's also a well-traveled road, so the mystery that you see on some of the rides (like yesterday's quarry ride) just isn't there. Lush, green, and wet. Every time I go into the hills its raining up there, and today was no exception.

The trucks weren't so much of an issue going up either big climbs. You go slow, the trucks go slow, there's really no conflict. On the down side of the first climb though, I had a rare opportunity to actually get some speed. I still rode my brakes more than if I were at home. But it was certainly the fastest I've gone downhill since coming here. Of course the trucks want to pass you, and on this downhill I quickly learned that they will force you off the road. It's not like in the states where you can take over the road until it's safe. They will take it back, sometimes coming just feet from you if you're in a bad spot in a turn.

Aside from a few annoying drivers, there really wasn't much issue with the trucks though. The downhill lasted quite a while and as much as I like the free miles, I was getting cold and looking forward to going up again. Eventually I hit Pinglin, and recognized the downtown area, even though I had only been there once, 10 years ago. I shot Nat a text and said I was 34 miles in.

Up was more or less the same, though I pressed maybe a little less with this one. The first climb hurt a bit, and the water from the camelbak was tasting pretty bad, so I was having a tough time putting too much of that down. But it was up, since the hills go up, so I went up. Top came sooner than I expected, right around the planned (foreshadowing) midpoint of the ride at 40 miles. From there it was almost all down or flat.

Going down was more of the same, but the trucks sucked a bit more than the first hill, especially when I got buzzed by 5 in a row. The problem when you get 1 slow driver (ie, safe driver) is that the trucks stack up behind them and the betel nut-chewing stormtroopers get psychotic. So they tailgate, and pass when the road is clearly not fit for a pass. By the end of it, I was yelling expletives at any truck that came too close, or more frequently the ones that blasted up the road in the wrong lane.

I dumped out into Xindian, which was a huge town, maybe a city, much bigger than I expected. I found the bike paths and soon was out of the traffic, no cars, no trucks, no scooters, just a few walkers and a handful of other bikers. From insanity comes peace.

The bike paths were solid, much better than I would have expected. At one point, I was on a road looking to see where the path went and realized that the road I was on was the bike path:

Shortly after, I looked to the right and saw a white guy sitting under some concrete retaining wall with an overhang playing a trumpet. Seriously, of all the odd things I've seen in this country that one may very well take the cake. When I got on the path, it looked like I had about 27 miles to go, and I texted Nat saying I was done with the tough part. She texted me back saying I might beat her there.

Of course I pressed on, thinking that it would be neat if I could get there before her. The paths down here were really solid and relatively free of traffic. There were a few baseball games and some people hanging out doing whatever. But more or less it was pretty quiet and fast, save for the occasional bit of construction in the parks.

Before long, I realized I had missed my bridge and I had to "eat the duck", which means I had to go around the penninsula which is described as a duck head, and take a slightly alternate route to get there. This was all well & good, since the paths are on both sides of every river. But I probably ended up adding almost 7 miles to the total. On the bright side, I got a good look at this:

Imagine my surprise shortly after when I saw a pump track:

And a white horse:

And even a boat:

Eventually I found the bridge and crossed over, and then the people started, and the headwind picked up, and more people found their way to the bike path, and then there were cobblestones, and boardwalks which jackhammered my back, and so on. By the end of the bike path, when I jumped out to hit the road up to Linkou, I was thrilled to be back out with the trucks and scooters again. The people on the bikes were starting to pose a serious threat to my safety, especially the tandems with the girls on the back trying their best to lay completely vertically and fall asleep.

The end of the ride was a small but brutal 800 foot climb. Normally it really wouldn't register here but after 84 miles this one hurt. I had pretty much used everything up keeping the 16 average to the base of the hill, and when I hit it, I just slogged up at turtle speed. My average went from 16 to 15.4 in the last 2 miles or so.

I rolled up to the apartment and shortly after Nat let me in. I showered up, washed my clothes, ate, drank, ate again, drank again, then had dinner, which was Dominos. Normally I'd never agree to eat pizza, but after this ride I was in the mood for damn near anything, up to and including animal genitalia. So pizza was just fine.

The rest of the day was spent in the apartment, eating and drinking some more. Have to say, it's pretty swank here, and makes me realize the place in Luodong is a bit of a dump. Oh, and the bedroom has heat, which is like super awesome. I may never leave if this bed is comfortable.

Terren's people pic of the day is yours truly, since I saw no people out today really. Here I'm reading to Melissa, who is apparently trying to fly away:

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 27 - More Quarry Exploring

2011-01-26T04:41:00.001-08:00

So it turns out that there are some people still reading, which is nice to know. Someone did mention that enthusiasm is quite low on the east coast these days, with the weather being what it is. I can understand that, though this morning's rain was still annoying to me. Yeah, it will be "interesting" to see how I handle the real cold. But I think I'll be fine. You just more or less adapt to what you have, and when the temps fall, you want them to go back up. When it rains or snows, you want it not to. I'm sure the people in Yuma, Arizona complain when it's not sunny too.

Someone asked me if the word Starbucks was actually translated or not. Now if I just said "Starbucks" do you think my wife would have been shocked I knew how to say it? Everything has a transliteration, but they would have understood if I said Starbucks. Starbucks is "xin ba ke" where "xin" is actually the word for star, and the ba-ke is a transliteration of the rest of the word.

I slept until 7:00 today, which is a record for me while we've been here. I knew something was odd when I woke up and it was light out. I'm often up at 5:00 with no alarm, so to sleep in until 7:00 is pretty late. I did the usual morning thing then headed out for more exploring on the McCruiser in the rain. Having taken 2 days off after riding something like 43 hours in the first 3 weeks, my body was thinking that a 3rd day wouldn't be so bad. And this rain...but I had to cut off all thoughts and head out the door. This is a unique riding opportunity. It would be a shame if I just sat in the apartment and got fat, as opposed to riding my bike a bit, then sitting in the apartment getting fat.

The first stop was the original quarry from ride #3. I started up and said that if the trucks were coming down I'd bail and do something else. Trucks and dry, ok. No trucks and wet, ok. Wet and trucks, I need to minimize risk and do something else. That something else would be the other quarry down the road. This was the one that turned to gravel shortly into the ride. I made my way there and started up. The road really wasn't very steep to start, it just rolled gradually up along the river. At one point the road went under an old metal bridge, which I thought was kinda interesting:

At the left side of the bridge was an old police station, and a fairly large temple. There had been a small shack temple on the way up, literally a 5x5 foot place. I checked it on the way down and the candles had been lit. So of course, there were burning here as well. I thought it was pretty cool. I turned around and started heading back up the hill. Shortly after, I heard the un-rare event of monkeys screaming at me and saw a few in the trees. I couldn't get a good pic but at this point I've given up. I feel like someone who goes to NJ and marvels at the deer. They're just everywhere it seems.

I also saw a few more bridges, 2 of which were really bare-bones steel cable bridges. The second one had 2 motorcycles parked at the end, the occupants having gone to the other side for something or other. I was intrigued but not enough to go search out what they were doing. Very possibly hiking up to the rock conveyor towers to check on them. The conveyors were running today, as it turns out.

Eventually I rounded a corner and saw a sort of "station" on top of the hill, where the rock conveyor was making a pit stop. It didn't really stop there, but it turned out that people were manning the station. This isn't a good pic but it was sorta crazy looking on top of the hill there:

I kept going and it turns out that there's a shack where the scooters park and make their way up to the start of a bridge:

Then they have to walk across this bridge to get to the base of the hill:

Then they have to climb up the hill on foot to get to the station. That truck in the pic had 2 guys, who both yelled out hello as they drove by. This was the only moving vehicle I saw on the day. I kept on after this point, and the road started to get steeper. And the road itself had started to go through the river flowing down the mountain, and there were high-wire bridges for the people on foot, scooter, or bike:

This was a little nerve-wracking. On the way over, it was slightly downhill so I could coast. On the way back, I had to pedal and was afraid I was going to slip out, where the "risk" in the risk/reward equation was kinda tough. I made it either way, and the road here started to get insanely steep, and I had to grunt my way up. For sure this isn't a heavily traveled road, and there's no way trucks could come up & down this all day.

Finally, I got to a point where it flattened out, and I felt like I was on the moon:

There was still some climbing to do, but I called it a day here because I had run out of time. So I turned around and headed back down the mountain, and was enjoying the fact I had a mountain bike until I bombed a water crossing and bottomed out the rear tire and said to myself, "crap crap crap, you didn't just do that." But of course I did, and shortly after I was tearing apart the tire and putting in the spare. Thankfully, I had everything I needed and was able to get myself out of there with no issue. The tube I had bought was kinda light, but I pumped it up a bunch and rode gingerly the rest of the way out.

So I did get to explore something else today, but now I have a second quarry road hanging over my head. I'll need to come back when I have a little more rope to explore. It looks like I wasn't very far from the top. So it shouldn't be too long of a round trip.

Lunch was more stuff we've had before so I won't go into detail there, though we did sort of "eat in" which means Nat made rice and veggies and bought some meat out. We had some plans to go to this carving lady's exhibit place this afternoon so I worked for a very small amount of time then we were off around 1:30 with Nat's cousin's daughter Vivian and her aunt, who has seen better days behind the wheel of a car to be sure. A lot of people comment that the roads I ride are not safe, but the least safe place I've felt the whole trip was in that car ride.

The place was cool but I wasn't allowed to take pictures. Those of you who have been in our house have seen the glass dragon which she made. At this point she's way too cool for school and has moved into a big place that's got people working there selling things, making coffee, and producing pineapple cakes. We used to go to her little house in the countryside and see the stuff there and have tea with her husband. He once gave me 2 bags of really good tea, I think it was on our first trip. Since then, her world has exploded.

Here's the posse listening to the sales lady pitch her stuff:

We got some coffee then headed upstairs and the sky peeked out a bit. This is the roof of the building. They grow lotus in there most of the time.

Freshly made pineapple cake, and the woman in the background making more:

On the way home Nat's aunt dropped us off at the Giant shop and I picked up another tire. I'm not going to put it on, but bring it with me on the long trips, of which tomorrow is supposed to be one. I'm planning on riding up to Calvin's apartment, west of Taipei. So I'm going to bring the tire in the event that anything happens. The tire is one of the big things that is hard to fix when you're 40 miles from either end. The ride tomorrow is going to be in the 80 mile range, so I need to be prepared.

On the way home I peeked through a hole in the cement wall and saw carnage:

Back at the house and dinner is oyster pancake, squid balls, veggies, and a few small bites of meat, all from the night market. I forgot to take a pic but these are all repeats so I should have them somewhere.

I only had 1 of my random people pics come out today, though some would argue that the focus was on the wrong person here. The Terren people pic of the day. The only place to get scantily-clad women, or people of any sort, is going to be at a betel nut stand. And even then, it's becoming more and more rare these days. Random pic:

Putting it back on the bottom:

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Taiwan Day 26 - Ilan & the Mall

2011-01-25T02:55:00.000-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Today we were greeted with some sort of smell in the apartment that had us concerned for our safety. It wasn't a burning smell, exactly. But it was a strong odor which smelled sort of like paint thinner, but we couldn't tell where it was coming from. The best guess was the air conditioning unit, since that's the general area where it seemed the strongest. The a/c units here are embedded in the wall, a permanent fixture in every room. It's took expensive to run the a/c all the time, so you just turn it on when you go into a room, as needed. We weren't running the a/c at the time though.

We moved Julia into the other bedroom, and I found a fan and blew the air out into the back foyer which is vented to the outside, and we shut the door. After maybe a half hour, the smell got a bit better, and more or less went away after about an hour. We had been waiting for Nat's aunt/uncle to wake up to ask them what the deal was, but it went away on its own, for better or worse. I'm never a big fan of letting things go, so even after the smell faded we got Nat's aunt and as soon as she walked into the apartment she smelled it, and said it smelled electrical, and she guessed it was the dehumidifier. It turns out that upon further inspection, the back side of it was indeed emitting the smell. Apparently it was about to catch fire. I had turned it off at the time, but didn't notice it stink at all, even after I moved it into a different room to try and isolate the smell.

The combination of this and the rain kept me inside this morning. Still feeling tired from the past week, so it wasn't an unwelcomed easy morning.

I also forgot to post this pic Nat got from yesterday of some guy on a scooter towing a cart along side him. And you wonder why the driving here is so chaotic?

Once we got things taken care of on the "poison gas" front, we settled in and did some more nothing for the rest of the morning. Since I didn't ride I was able to front-load a bunch of work which gave me time during the day to burn, which we decided to do by hopping on a train and going up to Ilan to pick up some stuff at the store which we can't get here, like cream cheese and Nutella, 2 of the 5 or 6 items on the Julia Food Pyramid. They also have a different beer selection up there so it was something to give a shot at.

Terren also posted a reply at some point in there saying that he's still reading. So aside from my mother and my wife, who admits she doesn't even read all of my posts, I have at least 1 reader for the duration, which at this point is only another 17 days after this day is over. He requested nudity, which I really can't help with. But I started taking more random pictures of strangers, since so many of them like to stare at us. Funny, but I felt like a rock star in Ilan today. I guess not a lot of white people go there, as it seemed like many more people had the staring thing going on than usual.

On the train to Ilan:

The train took 8 minutes and cost about $1.50 for all 3 of us to ride. We then walked to the mall from the train station in about 10 minutes, with a quick detour at a bike shop that we happened to pass along the way. We went in looking for a Taipei bike map, but he didn't have on. Nat had also been warned by her aunt that the route I was planning to take was very dangerous and that I shouldn't go. So Nat asked the guy, and even I could understand him when he said it was "extremely safe." He said it would take around 3 hours to get to to the other side of the mountains. From there it's a flat ride to Calvin's, though I still don't know where he lives.

On the way to the mall we saw a big tower made of old plastic bottles. They were gearing up the park for next week's Chinese new year's eve celebration.

At the mall, Julia showed off her skills that she's learned from daddy:

The mall was Toys R Us, then some lunch in the basement, over to do some food shopping (cheese, cheese, Nutella, and beer), then up to get some Mister Donut donuts for everyone, which includes the 3 of us plus the 7 people upstairs. Lunch was veggies, noodles, and wantons, surprisingly good for a mall:

As we were heading out, we needed to find a bathroom for Julia, so we stopped to ask some woman where it was. Nat asked, and she told us the floor above us. I wanted to know where we had come in, so I asked, using all Chinese, "Where's the Starbucks?" The woman pointed behind her and said it was that way.

Nat looked at me and said, "How the hell do you know how to say Starbucks? I don't even know how to say that." Yet more proof that this Chinese course is totally random. I can say Starbucks, McDonalds, and Google, but not bleeding, hospital, or help. Actually I used to know "help" because of the Chinese Dora we had. But I've long since forgotten. In any event, if you need to order a double chocolate macchiato with skim milk from Starbucks in Taiwan, I'm your man.

On the way out we considered taking the bus but it was taking too long, so we walked away to the train station and the bus came and we missed it. No big deal, we just hit the train with no issue and took the slow train back, which was $1 for us both and took 12 minutes instead of 8. At the station I finally found the school uniforms that match our team colors:

These 2 couldn't stop looking at us and smiling. They seemed friendly enough and they actually saw me take the picture so then they just kept looking and smiling. They got out where we did and got their money's worth enjoying us being their show for the day. We walked back to the apartment, the whole trip taking about 4 hours, which might seem long but it was a leisure trip more or less meant to get us out of the house, and pick up a few things.

In all it was another generally lazy day, but with a near inferno and a trip to the mall. I was talking to Nat today saying how I'm sure I'm getting desensitized to everything now. I'm sure I do 25 things every day that are strange to people (like watch Taiwanese people play pool on TV) but I'm used to it so I don't take pics nor do I write about it.

That night dinner is the same "pick your own pig snout" place that we went to the other day with the trays of various things that a lot of people reading would never eat. I'm really liking this meal, and it might be the 1 "eatery" that I'd bring back with us if we could. It's also solid spicy, which I really like. Good times, good times:

And since there are only 1-3 people (Hi Maureen too!) who read this far every day, I'm going to start catering to 1 of them for the rest of the trip. You have to give me a bit of a pass on this one, since I just decided to do it. Hopefully tomorrow I can do better. With that, I give you Terren's pic of the day:

Taiwan Day 25 - A Down Day

2011-01-24T04:48:00.000-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Man, I just saw a pic of myself from during the summer. There's just no doubt that I'm getting fatter now. I mean, before this trip I was and now I'm sure I am. I don't know if I really care though, which is what it is. I mean, I do, but at the same time, man I don't care anymore. Anyway, the pic is from a trip to the zoo we took in the summer. It's hard for me to believe I was this thin:

Funny, I remember that day and seeing that pic when we got him thinking, "Jeez, I really look like that? I feel like I'm much fatter." I guess I've come into winter form and I'm "filling out" so to speak.

Anyway, going out and getting breakfasts like this may very well be why:

This morning was another small verification that I can go out and exist on my own. I have to admit though, the conversation was strained. They asked me a few things and I just couldn't get the meaning at all. I finally did, but I have to say their hand gestures were really out there. Like for the word "bag" they made a motion like they were pulling a snake out lengthwise. Just not sure where that one was going. Anyway, I got the job done, and came home with rice milk, the same dough/egg thing we got on the way to the bus yesterday, and some turnip cake. Good stuff, as always.

Aside from that, today was a total down day. Once in a while you need those, and today was one of them. No ride, as I'm exhausted. And we didn't go on any real adventures, since we were all pretty tired and in need of a day off. Yesterday was apparently more tiring than we thought. It was sorta good to do nothing for the day.

I'll keep this one short and sweet, since we didn't really do much of anything other than go grab a coffee at Barista Coffee, which was absurdly expensive. Before we went, lunch was some lamb fried rice, veggie, and pig heart. Anyway, after that we went and dropped $10 on coffee and hot chocolate, but it was nice to get out and lay around somewhere else. Plus is was dark yet bright at the same time, making for some colorful pics:

Julia even got in on the action and took this one:

The afternoon was goofing off in between getting some work done. Nat's cousin's kids are in from China (they grew up here) and Vivian made everyone a big pot of Japanese curry, like what we make at home sometimes:

But the real score of the day was Nat managed to land at the 7-11. It's probably a good thing she only got 1:

Aside from that, not a lot went on today. I got some info about riding my bike to Taipei, and once I get up and over the hill it looks like Taipei is extremely bike friendly. We don't know what our plans are yet, since Calvin hasn't gotten back to us. We may go up for a few days, or not. Ideally Nat and Julia can go up early, then I can get a day and change of work done, then I can ride up and take a few days off, and we can go from there, maybe driving the car back or them taking the bus again and me riding my bike. I've sort of given up on actually having a car while we're here. If we get it, sweet. If not, so it goes.

On that note, part of me is getting ready to go home. I'm starting to feel enclosed in a box here and not easily being able to go anywhere limits us a bit. I sort of set myself up for this when I expected to have a car for 3+ weeks. I shouldn't have expected it and planned accordingly. Rookie mistake on my part. To that end, as far as vacation goes, I'm likely working 3 more days then taking Friday and the last 2 weeks off. After that, who knows, maybe we'll take a boat out to Turtle Island and set up a tepee for 2 weeks, eating fish that we spear ourselves.

I'm running out of steam on these. I can't imagine many of you are still reading. I'll try harder.

Taiwan Day 24 - To the Zoo

2011-01-23T14:39:00.000-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Today was our planned day trip to Taipei, so of course this morning is totally clear, and I can see stars in the sky when I go to get coffee. Before I go, however, I eat the bun we got yesterday which is chocolate filled with chocolate chips on the outside. It's good, but not really what we came here for. And let's be real, it's not exactly the most healthy breakfast in the world. We actually thought it was plain inside when we got it. I assumed the chips were actually red beans, which are often used in buns here. They have the same color when baked. I probably need to eat more fruit.

My bike time was limited so I just went up to Hero Hill again and signed the book. Nothing of note happened, but I did see a guy coming down as I was going up, and another signing the book as I got to the top. I rode to the very very top of the hill, and when I turned around he was gone. It was clear out, but really hazy. Visibility was pretty poor all in all. This is the view from the top of the climb, 1800 feet up:

When I came home it was sort of agreed that we were only going to Taipei for the day to meet Nat's 2 cousins, YuFang and LiJin (not sure about the second one's spelling) and not go to Calvin's for an overnight. Calvin wanted us to bring our luggage plus computers up on the bus then check them into the storage of the bus station then go to his apartment after our day. While it may be perfectly safe, if I lose my work computer my trip takes a major punch in the gut. Plus of course there's the mass of fans (all 4 of you who have made it this far) who need to know about the trip. Plus, who wants to lug that stuff back and forth?

On the way to the bus station we grabbed a second breakfast of this doughy thing with egg, which was stupid good. I haven't had that in a while and forgot how much I like it.

We hopped on a bus around 10:30 and had a generally uneventful trip to the station in Taipei. We did pass right by Taipei 101 which I always feel the need to gawk at and take pictures of. Nothing good on the way in, so nothing to post here. We got to the bus station and met YuFang right away. We grabbed a Mister Donut offering for Julia, then found a seat and we were joined shortly after by LiJin. YuFang had brought some goodies for Julia:

Lunch was some Shanghai style food, which is usually dumplings of some sort, very often something called "soup buns" which are buns that have a meat and liquid in them, which is the "soup" part. It was good:

After lunch we grabbed a coffee at Starbucks just a few blocks from the 101 and the massive haze only got worse:

There were 3 whiteys sitting in this sort of open area where we were, and as we walked past none of them said anything, or gave any indication of acknowledgment. There were plenty of white people in Taipei, and this is the general greeting you always get from them. While there are more up here, we still stick out. I find it odd that in general the white people here actually go out of their way to ignore you. One guy at the zoo gave me a good solid nod. But everyone else pretends you're invisible.

This sort of goes along with my theory of the white people here, specifically that most of them have run away from their own country because they simply can't hack it being just another person in a big country. In a place like this, they stand out, feel special, and are always some form of entertainment. So when they see someone who looks like them, they go out of their way to not be friendly. I just find it odd.

We weren't sure what to do because the weather was iffy. We had talked about the zoo, but the rain was kinda rolling in. So we figured we would go, then not, then would. Finally I said that if we kept bouncing around back and forth we'd never do anything. So we decided to just go and the weather ended up being fine.

When I got into the taxi I said in the front seat and the driver made a motion to put on my seat belt. I said, "an chuan dai?" which of course is Mandarin for seat belt. This is just another example of how f'ing useless these Chinese lessons have been. I still don't know how to say my eyes are bleeding and I need a doctor.

At the zoo there were lots of animals, including an Panda Bear that was absolutely filthy:

And there were other things, like this indoor turtle exhibit which made for a neat pic:

And we stopped for an exquisite treat right after the penguin exhibit:

And a rhino, which you could get pretty close to:

And lions, which were on the other side of the glass, just 2-3 feet away:

Have to say, they get you right on top of the animals here. I guess this is why you hear of people getting eaten randomly in various Asian countries.

The hippos were cool:

And then we found some props to take a pic of Julia on and there was a spectator section watching. Not a day goes by without someone saying how cute they think Julia is. This yellow army just stood and watched us:

And a bright fish:

Then we went back to the city center and got ice cream for Julia and saw the 101 all lit up:

The pic sucks but it was hard to get anything worthwhile. We then hopped a bus and headed home, which saw all 3 of us going stir-crazy from the long day. This is basically why you're getting a recap as I just don't have it in me to write the day up. It was a good day, and Nat's cousins are very nice and easy to hang with, and they can speak English which is always a bonus for me.

Dinner was noodles, wantons, and veggies. Then I finished my bottle of red wine from last night.

Taiwan Day 23 - Traditional Arts Center

2011-01-22T14:20:00.000-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

I have to admit, the sun seems such a long, long time away at this point. Yeah, I see little glimpses of it here and there but we're back to the grime-infested bike ride days. And Monday looks to be back in the 50s (ok, 59 but it counts) and I'm sort of yearning for a nice clear, sunny day. I know, my audience is basically sitting in a foot of accumulated snow with highs anywhere from 5-20. I guess I can't complain. On that note, I was bummed that there were no topless models to give me a hot cup of coffee when I woke up today.

On the bike front, I feel like I've just about ridden the whole county and there's not much left to explore here. I set out today with the idea to ride for 3 hours, with no purpose whatsoever. I was back on the road bike, which just fits me better. The McCruiser is a nice break, and I may actually use it tomorrow. But in all, the bike that I was fit for just feels so much better. The new rear tire is nice, and the new brake pads felt great. I left the house with literally no idea what to do, and there was no clear sky to chase, so I sort of fumbled around before going on a route I've been before, but only once. I soon turned in a direction that I know all too well, and decided to hit the "geothermal" which is basically a hot spring that is used to make energy. It's a tourist attraction that I haven't been to yet. So what they heck, having a target is always good.

I was going to do some fluff miles then hit it, but instead of going out the long way I decided to go directly there because it was wet and I wasn't motivated. As I was climbing up the hill to get to route 7 the long way, some guy on a road bike passes me, smiles, and says good morning. His English was awful, so I assumed he really could only speak a few token things which is why he didn't say anything other than that. I smiled, and of course went into hunt mode.

I was impressed. Dude was wearing real bike clothes, was riding a Giant, looked the part except for the fact he had flat pedals. But he was solid strong and seemed to know what he was doing out there. As soon as he passed me I picked him up and stayed about 20 feet behind. Ok, I'm going to go into race recap mode now, since this was a play-by-play sorta moment. Shortly after passing me, he slowed down a bit and was then soon out of the saddle. I've ridden up this hill several times and I assume he knows it well, so we both knew the terrain. He was going hard, I could tell, and his standing made me think he was throwing it down to knock out the fat whitey on the hill.

As we were going up, we passed some old timer on a scooter towing a food stand up the hill. This is common here, as people set up stands in random spots. So they tow the stands home at night, and back in the morning. As the road flattened out, the old timer passed us back, but the road soon started to get steep again and the scooter just couldn't keep it going. I pulled up to the other roadie and we stayed together for a little bit. He smiled as I rode next to him, and as the road started to pitch up I kept pace to let him know this was for real. I mean seriously, he threw down by passing me on the hill, right?

So we started pitching up, and I was ahead of him, giving it a reasonable amount of gas but not letting it fly. We rounded a turn, and the old timer was quickly coming back. The top of the hill was just about 200 yards away at this point and I started to push the edges a little. Of course, I never look back, not because I'm a big Don Henley fan but because there's only 1 way to see things. I took back the scooter with about 100 yards left to go and then just dropped the hammer to the top of the hill. The other guy was never in my line of sight the whole climb.

I crested the climb and coasted down the hill on the other side. I hit the bottom and just kept a pace for a little bit, then eventually turned around to look for him. Completely gone. Not sure where he went, but he was out of sight. I kept on, shortly after taking the turn to go to the geothermal.

The road out was paved, but a little chunky in spots. It didn't take long to get up to the touristy area. And shortly after I got there, the old timer was right behind me. I guess he hangs out and sells food to both the tourists and the people working he area.

He then went on to tell me that the other guy went straight where we went towards the geothermal. At least that's what I got out of it. When we get the car I may go back with Nat & Julia and have her talk to him and ask what exactly he said. But it probably doesn't really matter. The area was neat, and this was something that was just blowing from the riverbed:

Off in the distance you could see a few others, just blowing away:

There was a "public" one with a stone foundation and a temperature gauge (it was 80C) near the parking lot. But the major one was on the other side of the lot, and was so loud you couldn't help but both see it and hear it:

The area was neat, and I'd like to go back, assuming we ever actually get a car. Taking a taxi would cost us an arm and a leg so I doubt we end up doing that. Not sure any buses go up in that area. Once I start to take my days off we definitely need the car to make the most of it. But that's another day. For the rest of the ride, I ended up heading out to route 7, going north a bit, then heading home on the straight shot that I always do.

On the way home I decided I wanted a rice ball. I could have gone home and asked Nat to go. But I was feeling the need to redeem myself after that piss poor display when I was left on my own. So I decided to go and get one myself. I turned down the night market street on the way home, and was surprised at how many people were on the street at that time. So I went around the long way and hit it from the main road. I had never been thee before but I knew where it generally was. When I got there, I saw the stand that looked like the right one, and sure enough it was.

I have to say, there really aren't a lot of firsts that you as a human being can do. But I'm reasonably sure that I'm the only white guy to ever roll up to that stand on a road bike fully clad in spandex and order a rice ball. What's more, I was actually able to understand the conversation. First, she asked me if I only wanted 1. Then she asked if I wanted egg. Finally, they asked if I wanted hot sauce. Yes, yes, and yes. Or good, good, and good to be precise.

When I got back to the house Nat asked me if I wanted to go to Taipei for the day, and I said to let me think about it. I had no better ideas so I said as much. We sort of bummed around the rest of the morning then did lunch, which was veggies from Nat's uncle's farm, starch sausage, and some duck from Nat's aunt, plus rice. The starch sausage was banging this time. Better than the first time we had it.

At some point we decided to go to the Traditional Arts Center which is in town, not far away. We had gone there last time we were here and it gave us something to do. Here's a picture of the "main street"

As you can imagine, both sides of the street are lined with shops of all kinds. I'm not going to try and describe everything that was there, as I simply don't have the energy and you don't really care that much. There were traditional arts shops mixed with food stores as well as junk stores full of trinkets to buy, the latter being where Julia wanted 1 of everything. There were several shops in particular, but the 2 that were probably most notable were the pottery store where you could pay like $4 to make your own piece of pottery, which Julia partook:

And the glass shop, where we saw the guy making a glass dragon in the back of the store, which was super cool. This guy was the shit:

We also fed ducks, saw an absolutely lousy performance of some sort, and saw a guy making incense which was pretty cool. The performance art, combined with the show we saw down in GaoXiong, makes me wonder how lousy a show has to be for people not to sit down and watch it here. There had to be at least 200 people watching, if not more.

On the walk home from the train station (where the taxi dropped us) Nat looked into the possibility of me renting a scooter for a day. The people at first said no, then yes, and finally no. Apparently if I get a ticket they get held responsible so they don't want to take that risk. We walked away with the impression that if we looked around enough, we could find someone to rent me a scooter. I have to try this before I go.

For dinner, we headed out and randomly looked for something on the other side of town and stumbled on a place we had gone to last time. You basically take a basket, pick what you want, and they cook it for you. Here's an array of the things you can pick:

This meal was damn good. It was a bit more pricey than usual ($6 for the 2 of us) but it was fantastic. On the way back to the apartment, I stopped at the wine store and grabbed a bottle of French Merlot for $12. Since this wasn't made in Taiwan, I figured it was much safer than the beer. I ended up being right about that, thankfully. I'll give the beer a shot once we hit the basement of Taipei 101. But for now, I think red wine is the safest best.

Oh and Julia took this doughnut to the woodshed in a matter of minutes tonight:

Looks like a day trip to Taipei tomorrow to hang out with Nat's cousins.

Taiwan Day 22 - Halfway There

2011-01-21T15:01:00.000-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

This morning is a hot breakfast. I slept in and didn't wake up until 6:30, and went to get coffee then woke Nat up since she told me to the night before. She hemmed and hawed a bit, but soon went out and got a few dumplings, and a cruller wrapped in dough. It was solid:

Maybe around 8:00 or so I decided to head out on the McCruiser, which is the loaner mountain bike that was my only good ride this morning. The road bike is on the IR and needs some serious attention. So I took all the accoutrements off the handlebars, removed the reflectors, pulled off the blinkey, raised the saddle, and hit the road. The first thing I noticed was that the bike was extremely upright. I felt like this is as close as you can get to standing on a bike without actually riding with no hands. I felt like I had less control, and it probably explains a bit more why so many of these kids bob & weave on the road, since they're all setup like Sunday drivers.

I headed up towards the Aborigine footbridge with the idea to cross that washed out road and take the unpaved road up towards the backside of TaiPing Shan. I had no plans of going the distance there, but I did want to see what I was up against. On the way there, I heard more sounds in the trees, and at the same time saw orange trees that had been more or less bum-rushed by some animals, so I slowed down and looked around, and sure enough the trees were full of monkeys. I pulled out the camera and of course, it didn't work. I'm pretty sure that one is cooked.

A little further up the road and I was chased by 2 wild dogs for a while. I know by now that they're all bark and no bite though, so when they would get close I would yell at them and they would jump away. Eventually they stopped chasing and I continued on to my gravel road. When I got there however, there was yet another one of the river dump trucks there, with a bulldozer digging out upstream from the road. A guy in a truck yelled when I went past him, shook his head no, and yelled, "Road broken!"

I'm sure if I would have kept going he wouldn't have followed me. But I have to assume that the road is either washed out or a landslide has closed the road at some point along the way. I may go back someday to see if the guys are still there. But I'm going to guess that it won't serve as a back door to TaiPing Shan on this trip. Who knows though. They do work pretty fast here so maybe it will be all clear in a week. One thing I'm impressed with here is turnaround time. I've seen entire storefronts go from empty shell to working store in 5 days. The bureaucracy doesn't seem to be as absurd here.

I turned around and did a little light exploring on some new roads, but like I've said before, all the roads go straight so it's pretty hard to get lost. I did end up on a dead end along a river which turned into a bunch of small farm plots. But I turned around and then just headed home. I did get some clear skies after some early light rain.

Back at the apartment I do some work, but I need to wait until a bit later for the test systems I'm working with to be down, so I do all that I can then head out and we run some errands. First we stop to feed some fish, then we head off to her cousin's jewelry store where Nat gets her necklace clasp adjusted. Next door she then gets her glasses adjusted. On the way to look for some lunch, we find a temple and bring Julia for her first visit.

These places are very ornate and interesting to go in and look at. Nobody cares what you do, if you take pictures, nor asks you for money nor food. They supply the incense that you can take and do the customary rite with, if you so desire. I'm not well enough versed to say what any of it is, or what it means. I just take pictures of the stuff. I do know that the food on the tables is something called "bai bai" which is an offering of sorts to the ancestors, or in this case perhaps the gods.

On the way back we stop for some apples then at a small stand by the apartment for some lunch. We get nothing new, noodles and wantons, soup, veggies. All standard lunch fare, really.

Back to the apartment again and I finish up my testing in the window that I can, they do a few other things that popped up while I was testing. A bit later we head out again, this time to the big Giant bike shop down the road. They have a solid road tire that I buy, as well as some brake pads which I need for the rear. Nice score on that front, but not sure it would have been an easy trip solo. Then we went upstairs to look at some of the eye candy:

It's hard to believe they even sell nice bikes in this country, the way the road decimates anything you ride on it. We talked to the girl at the shop for a while (well Nat did) and I asked how they keep their bikes clean here. She laughed, and said that one of the guys who works at the shop actually cleans his bike top to bottom every day. I totally feel that, as it seems like that would be the only way to keep a nice bike looking good. She also told us about tours that Giant does around the island, a 9 day venture that costs like $800 or so, food, lodging, and support included. Maybe if we come back next summer I'll do something like that.

After the bike shop we hit a 7-11, a bakery, KFC for Julia, found some fresh strawberries, then swung by the night market for a late afternoon snack. The strawberries ended up being a bit pricey, but fantastically good. Julia also wanted to take a quick pit stop to play the fishing game. Here, she contemplates the deep mysteries of the universe before diving in:

We headed home so I could start to work on the road bike. I got the tire on with no issue and it feel nice and beefy, which I like. It's actually a bit wider than what I had on, which is nice as it gives me a bigger patch of rubber on the road. I'll take every bit I can get and may go back to get one for the front. I had to battle a bit to get the old brake pads off, but I finally won and put the new pads on. A quick lube of the chain and it's ready to go again, which is good since the McCruiser was certainly not a perfect fit.

Dinner is a big box of food that we actually split. Rice, a huge hunk of meat, 2 veggies, tofu, and another small bit of meat. Pretty good, but not really enough food for the 2 of us. After the garbage truck came, Nat went out to get dessert for us. She got her usual sweet soup with sticky rice balls, and I got my favorite, which is the taro ice cream dessert burrito with shaved peanut candy and cilantro. It was too light on the cilantro though, so it wasn't as good as it could have been.

Discussed some weekend plans today, but not having a car limits us a little bit. Looking like we may go to Taipei with Nat's uncle on Sunday and hang out with her 2 English-speaking cousins. Then we'll crash at Calvin's and then head back down here on Monday at some point. I was hoping to watch the Jets game Monday morning but it turns out that they're not on TV. I just don't even know how to comprehend that. I may have to call Darin.

Taiwan Day 21 - Soiled Wig

2011-01-19T23:21:00.001-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Much rain this morning. As I go to the 7-11 it looks like a pretty wet morning. When the sun rises, that doesn't change. Since nobody is around I end up doing work instead, since I frankly don't want to go ride in the rain. I may have had too much bad beer last night, so I decide that riding later is a better idea. If the rain keeps pissing down, I might skip the day. No big deal really. I had 2 good rides the last 2 days and I have some work I needed to get done so I play the boring card and pick up where I left off last night, minus the beer, which is eating, drinking, working, and watching TV in between. Unfortunately the National Geographic channel has been stuck on lame animal shows since yesterday afternoon.

Breakfast is strange, with some form of goo inside:

By mid morning the rain had let up and the sky was a lighter shade of gray, so I headed out with the idea to get 2-ish hours of flat riding done today. I planned to go up to Ilan on route 9 to the base of the climb up and over to Taipei. But at the base I'd hook a hard right and come back down on route 2 along the coast. If I had the time I'd head all the way down to Suao, then back up 9 to home.

It took me no time to get up to Ilan, where there was apparently a Retarded Drivers convention taking place. Now I understand that every one of these towns is always a game of Russian Roulette in terms of riding your bike there. But jeez, this was just stupid. I've talked about how oblivious people can be on the side of the road, but this was absurd. People turning their cars sideways in heavy traffic, totally ignoring traffic lights, not looking before they pull on the road, and on and on. Really nothing abnormal, just a whole lot of it. I couldn't get out of there fast enough, and was thrilled when I started to clear the traffic and pop out the other side of town.

On the way north from there, I was going back and forth with these 2 girls on a scooter. They passed me, and the one on the back waved. Eventually I passed them at a stop light, and they passed me again, and waved, and we went back and forth like this a few more times. I'm pretty sure that a bike is faster when you get a certain density of traffic lights here, mainly because having any number of cars on the road starts to cause idiotic behavior and I roll through the traffic lights once it's clear. Eventually they buzzed past for the last time, and shortly after I hit the coast and started heading south.

Route 2 was crap. It ran along the coast in name only. The ocean was blocked from view by a mound of dirt, my guess could be due to it being fortified by various concrete reinforcements and dirt to prevent the island from washing away. I saw a small view of the ocean as I started going, but that was it until the very end when I turned off route 2 to head back home. I decided that I was too tired from yesterday and was cutting the ride short. Aside from the glimpse of the ocean and a bunch of trucks, I did see a pond with maybe 50 white herons in it. But it was pissing rain the whole ride so I didn't bother taking a pic of it.

On that note, Terren suggested I put the camera in a bag of rice, but last night I had put it on the dehumidifier and that seemed to have done the trick. But by the end of the ride, it was acting goofy again, surely because of the rain. I fear that it may be on it's death bed either way, and the ride pics may come to an abrupt end sooner than later, and you'll be left with crappy iPhone pics until that dies too.

Terren also asked about the hydration pack, It's just like wearing white after Labor Day. You just don't do it and expect people to hang out with you.

So why is this blog post named "Soiled Wig"? Here it is:

With about 4 miles to go, I started to hear a thump-thump-thump and wondered that the hell was going on. It sure didn't sound like a good thing, so at the next traffic light I got off the bike and looked down to see that, but with 100 PSI in the tire and the tube bulging out like a frog in full croak. I've been down this road before, and the tube never lasts. But you can get a little bit out of it by lowering the pressure and riding slowly. I dropped it down to a fair balance between not sticking out of the tire too much and not bottoming out on the wheel. Against all odds, I was able to ride it out back to home.

After I got cleaned up and so on, I went out looking for lunch. I walked around with no luck, then walked to the "go to" corner for the usual. Unfortunately, the scallion pancake shop was closed and I didn't feel like getting a coffee, so I turned around and went home and ate cold rice (no microwave here) and random crap. I'm starting to feel isolated and grumpy. I can't say shit, can't read shit, and can't understand shit. And I'm sick of breakfast buns, scallion pancakes, and coffee. Actually, I'm not sick of scallion pancakes yet.

Nat texted me and said she was going to be back after dinner, which didn't help my mood because that meant dinner was probably going to be scallion pancakes and beer again. I also have no properly working bike and my translator isn't here. Finally, my bike clothes were in the washing machine, which was apparently made by the people who drive in Ilan because it constantly turns itself off in mid cycle, completely full of water.

I decided to venture out and try to get some new tires from the bike shop. The first shop I went to had some, but I didn't like the look of them (too light, one was a race tire) and they had a huge tool stand with every Park tool imaginable, except for a pedal wrench. The next Giant shop was closed. So I walked to the bakery and grabbed something that would pass for dinner, as well as a red bean paste bun for breakfast.

I then ventured to the night market and got myself a scallion pancake (shocker) for a late afternoon snack, or maybe call it dinner course #1. The guy asked me a question to which I just shrugged my shoulders. He pointed to an egg, and I said yes. He asked a few more questions to which I shrugged my shoulders again, and he said, "ting bu dong" which means, "hear no understand" or basically, I have no idea what you're saying. I said yes, ting bu dong.

I walked away with a scallion pancake. It was actually really good, better than the place next to the 7-11, but $5 more. That's like 16 cents I think.

So I got food but I'm in a bit of a bind with the bike situation. I think my fallback plan is to use the mountain bike with flat pedals and sacrifice my jogging sneakers if I have to. Not ideal, but apparently nobody takes off, or puts on, pedals in this country. Or perhaps the mafia controls all the pedal wrenches. Between bike pedals and scooter tires, you could probably completely throttle transportation in this town.

Second part of dinner is the bun, and it's ok at best:

The afternoon was generally work, TV, or waling around town looking for food, so it's a pretty boring day in all. Nat and Julia rolled in around 7:30 with some real food, at which point I realized I was hungry. I hadn't eaten a solid meal in over a full day, and I was hurting for some actual food, as opposed to what my limited vocabulary can get me.

Language is important. It now strikes me that these 5 levels of learning Chinese that I've done are worthless. I can sort of understand crap about totally useless things, like an interview or the new hat you got or the haircut you don't like, but I can't order a freaking meal. You'd think that any language lesson worth its salt would spend a significant time talking about food, water, the bathroom, and every possible scenario pertaining to them. I can say "I want to go see the historic sites and temples in your town," but I can't say, "Oh shit my eyes are bleeding, I need a hospital." Really, shouldn't you work on the essentials first?

Taiwan Day 20 - Big Ride Blue Sky

2011-01-19T04:24:00.000-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

On the way to 7-11 this morning, I actually saw a star. Crazy! I never thought I would see one here. Fitting, since the day before I saw snow in Taiwan while sitting at sea level, which is something else I never thought I'd see. I took a picture of the sky in the hopes that it would come out, but it didn't of course. It was all black. If I had Photoshop on this laptop I'd make a reenactment of the star. When I got to the 7-11 I didn't want to disrupt the routine and ask for only 1 cup of coffee, so I let the guy make the normal 2. I've been itching for a second cup after my first most days, so I just went back and drank them both. The downside to asking for only 1 coffee could have lasting repercussions for the next 3 weeks. No thanks.

I did some token email work and nothing really needed any attention, so I got myself ready to go, which included trying out some of the new toys that Nat's cousin's kid Crash had brought me. Today was the hydration pack and small bag that attaches to the top tube of the bike. I put the 2 bottles on the bike and 2 in the pack, and I stowed my iPhone and camera in the bag for ease of use when on the road. Many of the people reading here know that a hydration pack on the road is a major bike fashion faux pas, but for those who don't know, let me tell you that it is. Having said that, there's just nowhere to get water on some of these rides, when there's a 1 lane road and some monkeys out there, you're not going to find a 7-11 ready and waiting for you to stroll in. So on the bigger rides, I'm happy to have the backpack full of water. The aim today was 5 hours.

The goal was the same as yesterday, follow the blue sky:

Once again, beyond my wildest expectations, the weather was nothing short of awesome. I couldn't believe my luck in getting a blue sky ride for the 2nd day in a row. I took the road out more or less north, then headed up towards the botanical garden climb that I had done 2 weeks ago. I really didn't have much of a plan, but the sky was blue here and down south. North-ish looked gray, so I decided not to explore any of that stuff today. I was going to put together a lot of what I've done already.

The climb up was uneventful, other than seeing the sky and sun and my shadow again. These are such cool days right now, I have to enjoy them to the fullest, which is what today was. As I got almost to the top I could see (I think) Ilan down in the valley:

After this the road opened up to the fields like I described on the first trip. I don't think I posted this picture last time but I got a better shot of it today. This was at the top of the climb, close to the end of route 9 and start of the 1 lane road that winds through the fields and on to the botanical gardens:

It's an abandoned house, which is odd in the sense that nothing really gets left to die here (see next pic). But what's more, and this struck me later, is that this house seems to be of a western design, which is exceedingly rare here. This leads me to guess that this was built by some influence from the west, maybe a whitey who lived up here or something, who knows. And looking at it, it does not appear to be the cement structure that everything here is made of. I didn't go inside, but my guess is that it is infiltrated with insects and mold, which is why it's been abandoned. I'd love to know the story of this house. History like this really intrigues me.

As support, witness this as a testament to how nothing is left to rot here:

This is nothing more than a rock shack, which has probably been up here for eons. Off to the left was a small garden, and you can see the old woman in front of the door of the house. I continued on for a little bit, to where the river and road come together. There I took a small break then rode back down the mountain to route 7, where I passed an older guy going up the hill on his bike and yelled "jia you" to him. He smiled. Then I was off to the south where the sun and sky were going. When I got to the bottom I could see that the mountains in the distance still had a little snow on them. I took a pic (link here) but it's kinda vague to really see much. That may be TaiPing Shan, I don't know. Still cool to see.

The ride up route 7 was long and more or less uneventful, save for the army of cement and rock trucks that were going by in both directions. On this more northern section there was much more truck traffic, and I realized that the entrance to the "river quarry" was here, so trucks were going in & out quite a bit. After I passed that things got more quiet, but this side of the river is still a bit tight on some of the turns. I don't think I'll do that long haul again. The ride on that road alone must have been well over 20 miles, which is a lot of trucks.

I also realized why huge sections of road are often wet. I saw a huge water tanker on the road, spraying it down as I passed the entrance of one of the quarries. I'm guessing that they have to do this for the sake of keeping their mess off the road, which makes sense. The roads are pretty messy as is, but they would be really bad if the trucks weren't sprayed down (I saw this as well) and the road wasn't cleaned. I think they should be forced to run street cleaners for several miles in both directions.

Somewhere along route 7 the ball of my right foot started to hurt like hell, and I had to shift down a lot on the climbs to help the pain a bit. I brought my old road shoes and pedals and the fit probably isn't quite right overall. On these big climbs that probably adds up as I'm putting a lot of pressure on my feet when I do climb. I was able to deal, but it was a nuisance for the last 2 hours of the ride. I eventually got to the crossover point of the river, at the base of TaiPing Shan. Looking upriver you can see where they've completed the mining and groomed the riverbed for some unknown reason:

The last 1.5 hours was quite and uneventful aside from some rain that dropped on me in the last 30 minutes. For 4 hours it was sunny and beautiful out. Then the sky grew overcast as I returned home, and finally it let out and dumped on me. All in all, I'll take it. Incidentally, the small bag that I put the camera in doesn't seem to be very water-resistant, as I took the camera out and it was wet. When I put it on the table it started to turn itself on and off randomly, then cycling through the pictures on its own. Eventually I got the pictures off the camera but that may be it.

When I got back to the house Nat had texted me and asked if I wanted to go to Taipei. But since I was still most of the day in the hole, I needed to get some work done. Plus, I needed to shower, get lunch, do laundry, and clean up the kitchen still. The in-laws fly out tonight, so I didn't want to be the one to make the FIL late. He said something about leaving by 2:00 from Suao (the town south of here where his brother lives) and I knew he would be very skittish about missing the plane. But really, I'd never get any work done up there so I decided to stay at the apartment for the day.

So lunch was the rest of the liver from yesterday's lunch, the tofu from 2 days ago, and various snacks around the house like dried scallion pancake, pineapple cake, the rest of the chocolate cake in the fridge, and so on. Since I had ridden just over 5 hours, I ate whatever I wanted. I was able to put my medium jersey on today (I had been wearing the spring jacket until today) and it wasn't overly tight or anything. So the ride & eat balance is working out just fine.

Mid afternoon I went out for a coffee and scallion pancake. This is the extent of the food I can go out and order here. I can go to the bread store and pick stuff off the shlves. But in terms of walking up to someone and asking for something, this is pretty much it. I think I can get the rice ball for breakfast too, but dinner is a pretty weak spot. So my getting coffee and a scallion pancake for mid-afternoon snack sort of means I've used up the 1 food that I can order, and I've run out of leftovers. I still have a lot of duck in the fridge but I don't want to eat that since Nat hasn't had any yet.

While waiting for the pancake to cook, I took this pic of someone burning "ghost" money across the street:

This is done several times a month and is done for good luck. The more time I spend here the more I realize this is a much more religious society than where we live in the west. I never really thought about it before because Buddhism is so passive, while Christianity is so aggressive, but it's really everywhere in the culture. There are temples everywhere in town, as well as randomly strewn across the hillside when you're out on the road. This ranges from the huge ones I've taken pictures of to tiny ones which are barely more than a 5 foot square footprint and an incense bowl on a table. Some farmers have small temples on the side of the fields. They're everywhere, and add a lot of nice color to the landscape. Call it cultural flair if you like.

Back to the apartment I eat, drink coffee, work, make tea, and so on. With the family up north that means my day is bike, work, and eat. Aside from the bike tour, the day is pretty boring. Nat sent me this pic, which Grandma will enjoy:

(picture removed, because I think there are some sick fucks out there)

Eventually I have to face the music and find myself dinner. First I go to the bakery and get some breakfast. This morning was a lousy 7-11 bun that draws to mind the quote from Big Lebowski, which is: this aggression will not stand. Well, at least the "will not stand" part. Last time we went there some woman was buying a bun with 4-6 pounds of dried/shredded pork on top. There were 2 left when I got there, and I snared 1 of them. I also got a small backup bun to eat when I get hungry later tonight. I need to stop persisting on snack foods.

Next I went to the fried rice place and asked for lamb fried rice. Nat had given my the words to use, which I knew but wasn't totally sure of. I think I may have asked for lamb fried dogshit by mistake. But I went and asked for the right thing, and of course the woman asked me a question, to which I replied, in Chinese, "I don't understand." She then repeated it, and I told her, "My Chinese is bad, I don't understand what you're saying." I have to say, all this goddamn time spent studying Chinese and I still can't understand jack shit.

Eventually we got it together that I wanted lamb fried rice, and the veggie that was sitting there, to go. I did understand the to go part, I think it's "wai dai" which I believe translates to "out carry." Then I went to the grocery store and bought 2 big beers because it's going to be that kind of party.

And I watched TV and worked some more. This project is coming along well, if I do say so myself. Of course, I'm with drink so take that with a grain of salt.

I also look back on today and think I missed the perfect opportunity to do TaiPing Shan. The ride is probably a 5-6 hour ride, and the whole area was under blue skies today. You really never know with this weather. Maybe tomorrow, or the next day. Hopefully I'll get there before the end of the trip.

Taiwan Day 19 - Snow-Capped Mountains and Flying Solo

2011-01-18T03:58:00.001-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

As requested, I'll give a shout out to my cousin Bec. Today is her birthday. Happy birthday! I'll buy you dinner tonight as a special gift. You just gotta get here. Moving on to my own self-absorbed world...

For breakfast I ate food. Rubba dub dub, gimme some grub.

Nothing like this strange phenomenon called the "sun" and "sky" to help the motivation issue. I set out on the bike closer to 8:00 today because I was content to sit in the apartment and talk to Nat. Eventually I got out, with the plan to do about 2.5 hours. I saw some blue sky in the distance and decided my plan was to follow that blue thing that is so elusive here these days. I headed straight west but the blue was actually south, so I made a left and saw this in front of me for the better part of the first hour:

It's hard to see well, but those are snow-covered mountains looming in the distance. And that blue thing is called "sky". They are both really cool concepts and after riding a lot in the rain over the past week, this was a welcomed addition to the usual gray ceiling my days have. As I rode on, the mountains went in & out of the sunshine and alternately went from cool to awesome. There was 1 peak in particular that kept coming in & out of view, and it was sharp, steep wall of white. When the sun reflected on it a certain way it looked pretty unreal. The whole scene was pretty unreal, and certainly helped keep me pedaling today.

I took the closest bridge over ride to route 7 and stopped to take a pic there as well. The snow seemed to be fading a bit, and the temps were rising for sure. So I knew it wasn't going to last:

My plan was to shoot up route 7, then take the route 7 bridge back across the river then up the backside of that hill to the overlook where I took that awesome pic last week or 2 weeks ago. I was hoping the snow would last until then but I wasn't holding my breath. As I was climbing the hill to the overlook, suddenly these things were on the ground that sort of looked like the outline of telephone poles, trees, and bushes, as well as myself on the bike. They were dark and flat against the ground. After some searching I found that they are called "shadows" and are caused by this phenomenon known as the "sun". I was able to grab a pic of this thing in the sky today:

I got to the overlook, but as expected the snow was almost entirely gone. This must have been amazing in the morning when the sun rose. You can still see a little bit there but not much. I'm sure by late morning it was all gone:

I turned around and pounded out the rest of the ride to get home between 10:00-10:30, which is when I said I'd be back. I stopped to take 1 more picture. In the foreground are orange trees, and in the distance is what I refer to as Monkey Mountain, or at least something a bit north of where I was that day. The whole area was bathed in sunlight, and the climb up would have been awesome today. This is just what you get here, some days good, and some days bad. When you get a good one you need to take it in because you never know when you'll get another one.

Back to the house and I inhaled some food, showered up, and made my usual post-ride pot of tea. Nat went out to run some errands and grab some lunch, and I did some work and hung out with Julia. I like this new pure flex hour work routine. I know that most people like a standard routine where things are more or less laid out. But I actually prefer to just throw it all together however it works. When I get back to NJ I may try to keep the random work hour approach. Seems to work better for me and I think I'm more productive.

While mom was out Julia and I drew some pictures, which resulted in her getting some seriously messy hands. Showing off her hands and hiding:

I did some email work while Julia played on Nat's other phone, and enjoyed some of the view from my "office". This is what I was able to enjoy from my seat today:

Nat got back with some food for lunch plus some veggies. She put on rice before she left and brought home some veggies to cook. Crazy that this is a partly homemade lunch, since we eat out almost every meal. Now that we have the place to ourselves we can dial back the all-out, all-the-time eating and conserve some eating karma for the really good days.

After lunch, they both went out to get a backpack for Julia, and I put on the headphones and pounded out some more coding. When they got back, Nat brought me my afternoon coffee and I enjoyed it while we talked a bit. Calvin called shortly after, trying to get her to come up to Taipei tonight instead of tomorrow, which was her original plan. I was hoping to do some work early tomorrow, hang out and have a good (ie, "bad") breakfast, send them off on the bus, then take off for a long ride in the middle of the day, then return and finish off my work day.

Nat decided to go this afternoon instead, which is fine as it gives me tonight to do some work instead. I can always put in hours whenever I get to it, then ride when I want. Unfortunately, either way you slice it the weather report is at 70% rain, which is in that dreaded 70-90% realm. So I'm probably going to be wet tomorrow. Not sure where I'm going to go but I would like to get in 5 hours. I may set sail early anyway, just to get some hours in. Then if they stay 1 more night I'll work tomorrow night and maybe ride big again Thursday morning. Otherwise, the routine will be the same as usual.

I walked them to the bus station and found a bike shop right next to the stop. We asked about a pedal wrench and the guy only had a multi-tool that cost like $40, which is nuts. I have something like that, but unfortunately it's in NJ. My multi-tool here doesn't have the pedal wrench. I did buy a tube for a whopping $6, which is nuts since the stuff is made in this country. He told us that a mom & pop shop would have a cheapie version.

Back to the apartment and more coding. Nat texted me and told me when they got on the bus Julia asked how they would get off if the bus falls over. I'm glad the little munchkin is paying attention. Luckily, it didn't fall over and they made it to Taipei in 1 piece. Nat also said the driver was less aggressive so apparently we did have someone with a Death Wish yesterday.

The rest of the day was more or less uneventful. I worked most of the rest of the day, aside from a run out to get a scallion pancake next to the 7-11. I had seen the stand on the way back from the bus station and went back around 6:00. When I got home I put together a dinner of leftovers plus some duck that Nat's aunt had brought over. In all, a reasonably solid dinner. Here's the scallion pancake stand:

And the full spread shortly after:

Rest of the night was more coding, some National Geographic TV, and the last beer in the house. We'll need to go get some more soon, as in tomorrow. I can hold the fort for a few days by either skipping or going to 7-11 for some more McBeer. But eventually I'd like to make my way to Taipei 101 and hit the basement there, which has probably the best selection in all of Taiwan, or so I'm led to understand. We shall see.

Tomorrow I get to ride as long as I want. Naturally, it will be a monsoon.

Taiwan Day 18 - Taipei Day Trip

2011-01-17T04:44:00.001-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Cold and wet rain greets me as I step out of the apartment to go get coffee this morning. I was hoping to get a short ride in before we hop on a bus for Taipei, but this may be Buddha's (when in Rome) way of telling me to take the day off the bike. Yesterday I was flat and disinterested, so perhaps I need a day off to revitalize myself. I decided to figure it out later and walk to 7-11 as fast as I could, since standing in the rain thinking just made me cold. The front cover of the Taipei Times was talking about the cold snap, and verified that snow has started to fall in several places on the island that rarely see snow. There was a picture of a guy holding a thermometer that was sub-zero (Celsius, let's not get crazy here). The subtitle said something like, "Subtropical my foot."

Here's the Taipei Times link.

The rain never let up so I stayed in today, since The Dude abides, even when Buddha speaks. Instead I called the folks to see how they were doing and mulled around the apartment eating small bites of anything I could see. I'm pretty sure we have enough snack foods to last until we leave, which is good since we won't have to buy anything, but also lame because we'll be eating the same stuff for the next nearly 4 weeks. It's hard to believe we're on day 18, but then we really still have 26 days to go, which is plenty of time for me to get fatter. I'm still not sure if I'm gaining weight or not. I'll wait until I get back to figure it out. My clothes still fit so that's good.

off to Taipei for the day, which means a bus trip. Of course, as we left it was beautiful out:

We trekked a few blocks to the train station then over to the other side and 2 more blocks to the bus station, which is really nothing more than a bus parked in front of a small office that sells tickets. We didn't know any better so we just got on the bus, which we later found out was wrong. We were supposed to wait for the bus to pull up to the "office" which would explain why nobody was on it when we sat down. No harm, no foul though, and the bus driver didn't seem to much care.

This is because he clearly had a death wish. I don't know if every bus driver is like this but I'm fairly certain this guy fancies himself either a race car driver or a kamikaze pilot. Every time we went around a turn on the highway I was worried that if we flipped over, we would plunge over the guardrail and 50 or more feet to our certain demise. It didn't help that the TV on the bus was literally playing videos of what to do in the event that the bus rolls over. It got to the point that when we were off the raised highways, I felt better knowing that if we flipped over, we would at least drop directly to the ground and not over the bridge to an uncertain end below.

I was thrilled to be off that blue death on wheels.

Nat's parents came to pick us up, and maybe 10 minutes later we were parking the car, which is just an over-elaborate fiasco with my FIL for some reason. He will literally, and I swear I'm not making this up at all, try to squeeze his car into a spot with a foot on either side just to park 4 spots closer, which is exactly what he did today. I'm not sure why he does this, as the effort involved by everyone makes the 4 spots saved seem more than meaningless. First, we all have to get out of the car before he tries to back in. Next, we have to wait for him to pull up and back at least 4 times. Finally, my MIL has to get into the space to guide him into the spot without hitting anything. He could have easily pulled into one of the empty spots in the 3/4 empty lot. But he insisted on the spot that was closest to the direction we needed to go.

On the walk over he went back to move the car to a closer spot in another lot.

Nat's uncle is a bigwig at Dentsu, which Wikipedia says is "one of the largest advertising brands in the world." All I know is that we show up, hang out and have coffee, then go to lunch. Lunch was a Hakka place around the corner which was decent. It had a few really good dishes like the eggplant, stewed pork, and soup. The pork probably looks the best of them all:

After lunch we went back to the office for another coffee, and Julia got to sit in the big boss chair and draw with the colorful markers. She also found a magnifying glass which we had some fun with:

You can see Taipei 101 from his office too. It's not a great pic but it shows you the cool view. I do miss being in Taipei, it's just another world than from where we are. We "cut our teeth in Taipei, so to speak, and it's just a massively different place than Luodong. I miss the apartment there and having such a cool place to stay. The view:

Taipei is just different. It's a metro center and a white guy is run of the mill there. I think I saw 2 in 10 minutes just at the bus station alone, where in Ludong I've seen 1 in 18 days. People are more upscale, of course. Things are nicer, cleaner. The air is dirtier though. The sense of wonder here is more like if you visit another city in the US than if you go to the countryside where we are. Of course, there's more to do, more to see, and a mass of traffic. Though it does seem like people obey the traffic rules much more up here. I think the risk of pulling out of a side street without looking is much greater with the speeding traffic here.

After lunch we headed back to the car and the sky mocked me yet again. This is the bluest sky we've seen so far. As you'd expect, as soon as we got out of the long tunnel and into Ilan county, it was cloudy and raining. I guess it's just the way things are going to be this trip:

Before we left Taipei, we took a quick pit stop at this snack shop that has small pineapple cakes that Nat's parents often bring back to the states. I was surprised to find they had other kinds of the same cake, though again, I guess I shouldn't be. Their MO is pretty much to identify the single thing they like the most from a place and it exclusively. They did break this rule at the Hakka place in Luodong here, since we went there so often. But for the most part, this is how they roll.

On the drive home, or really before we even got going, Julia was losing her patience. I guess I can understand since there really was nothing kid-specific in her whole day from 9:30 to about 3:00. We finally got home and we all decompressed a bit while Nat's parents put the final touches on their exodus. On one hand, they will be missed as a sort of "normalizing" presence here. On the other hand, nearly 3 weeks with them was plenty. Having 3+ weeks of freedom will be a good thing. And there won't be a full court press to go see the relatives every day.

Plus, we get the king size bed!

After they took off, we did our afternoon tour of town, with a quick stop first to feed the fish in the park, where we saw a dead mouse floating in the pond. Julia looked at it and said, "That's a dead mouse." Then she proceeded to grab a handful of fish food and throw it in the water. I guess she's not really a big fan of mice.

We did the bakery, though something Nat said makes me think that we should break this habit as well. I'm sort of brainwashed into going here because it's something to do every afternoon. I like getting out of the house, but our breakfast is a bit pigeon-holed at this point. It may be time to branch out and go for some of that good greasy food that I love so much. As we were walking to the train station it did strike me that I really haven't gotten enough of my breakfast on during this trip. Breakfast is so fatteningly good here, I really do need to partake more.

After the bakery we hit the Junk Store for some markers and a sticker book, then I looked for a bike shop a block over from the night market but Google Maps failed me. I did find a low-rent liquor store that had some beer, basically more of the same that you can get everywhere. I think everything they sell here is more or less Budweiser, just packaged in a different bottle. Here's Julia playing with her new sticker book while I drink beer out of my monkey mug:

Dinner is noodles, sticky rice, soup, and a veggie, plus an apple we had in the fridge. Total cost was $125 NT. I've been lax in saying how much this gluttony cost. Of course, nothing is free. NT is New Taiwanese dollar, which is the unit of currency here. The exchange rate is currently about 30, which means that the 4 course dinner cost us about $4 and change in USD.

Rest of the night was the sticker book and moving into the new king size bed, which is much softer than the other rock-hard bed.

Taiwan Day 17 - Wonder Lost & Hopefully Gained

2011-01-16T03:48:00.000-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

I'll go ahead and say that today marks a sort of "loss of wonder" point as far as my riding goes. I don't know if I'm getting used to everything, or I've done all the local exploring I can, or the cold rain has started to wear on me. But something has been lost since the first time I went out on a bike just 16 days ago. I do think the cold rain is starting to wear on me, and this morning's 45-ish degree wake-up call didn't help. Nat's mom would later say that the last 2 years are the 2 coldest in the 10 years she's been coming here for the winter. It looks to be warming up in a few days but this morning, I just had no motivation to do much.

I did set out for a new twist on a known area, XinLioa waterfall. But it turned out that you had to hike to the actual waterfall and when I got there, I wasn't about to go on the dirt paths with the road bike. I ended up going up and over the MeiHua hill again from the backside, then deciding to skip the Toughest Climb (Nat's dad calls it Hero Hill) and loop around some new roads at the bottom then explore a few other roads back to town. In general, the roads are all a grid here, and it's pretty easy to just point and shoot. The GPS tells me I started east, I just turn right and go. I always manage to figure out where I need to go.

I did find a duck farm though:

I realized that I was becoming jaded today when I saw some red paper lanterns in the park that would have been a cool picture, and I just more or less said "meh" and rode on. I was going to ride for 3 hours but I cut it short at just under 2 because I didn't feel like being out that long, and Nat had mentioned her parents were going out and she wanted to go. Since I had no actual goal in mind, I went back to the house. I suppose not having a goal is a problem. I need to look for some new roads, maybe towards the ocean. And I need to land a mountain bike so I can do those road bike unfriendly roads.

We ended up at the Mr. Liu Cafe, which is the place we went before to get snacks and coffee. Not sure why, but nobody could answer me when I asked where we were going, and Nat's dad said something about "knuckles" which I still can't figure out. I was happy to see we were heading up that way, since that's where the MIL had gotten the soft guava that I liked so much last week. I had been trying to find it since that day with no luck. First we stopped in for a coffee and some stuff for the in-laws, then I took Julia down to pick out some guavas. I can tell I'm still a novelty in this area, as some people looked at me with shocked astonishment. It must have been doubly so with Julia and not being accompanied by a "native" so to speak.

I admit that I really get a kick out of the fascination some people have with Julia and I. Just tonight I was taking out the garbage and this family was getting out at the store next door to the building, and the daughter couldn't stop looking at me. In general I smile, sometimes say hi, nod, piss on their feet, and so on. Sometimes they smile back, but other times, like tonight, they just seem too dumbfounded to react in any way. I'd love to hear the conversation when they get back in the car. The vast majority of people ignore us when we go out. But you notice the people who are overly friendly or overly astonished. I get a kick out of the the 2 extremes.

So back to this morning, Julia and I were walking to the fruit stand and some people were just looking at me like I had snakes coming out my ears. Other people would smile and say a few words in English. The fruit seller rolled with it, and offered me some samples. I grabbed 7 guavas and paid for them. And then we walked around a bit more before my MIL came to see what we were doing. On the way back to the cafe Nat's mom suggested a snack, which I was actually eying up on the way to buy fruit:

This is what this island is all about, IMO.

After a quick stop at the apartment, we were off to meet some totally tangential and random friends of Nat's parents. Apparently they are godparents, which is a concept I don't totally understand here as I don't really know the religion well at all. What I do know is that we were at the same place we had lunch yesterday, which is the 4th time we've been to this same place, maybe 3 times in 5 days? I like it and all, but it's a bit too much. Given that they go to the same place in the states every time we go out, I shouldn't be surprised by this. But somehow, I am.

Either way, Julia is not amused by this turn of events:

After a lunch that simply would not end, we went back to the apartment and Nat's parents got all their stuff ready to haul up to Taipei. They fly out on Wednesday and their exodus begins in part today, and they're expecting to stay up there for the next 3 nights to spend time with Calvin & company, as they won't be back here until November. They're coming back down tomorrow for a bit, and then again Wednesday morning. But by and large, they're done with the apartment and will mostly be in Taipei for the rest of their stay.

Nat went out to see her cousin and in the process attempt to get me a mountain bike. Her cousin, who they used to refer to as Fat Brother, has one which he apparently doesn't use. I have no doubt he'll let me have it for as long as I want, but we haven't asked yet. Looking at him, I'm reasonably sure he hasn't ridden a bike in a long, long time. In the meantime, Julia and I were left to entertain ourselves while Nat was out.

To start we bummed around the house for a little bit but then we were off to town to run some errands. First was the bakery, as usual. The shelves were bare and the floor was jam packed. So getting something and not losing the child in the madness was a bit of a chore but we managed to make it. I was only able to score one sample today so my bakery snack was less than normal. We went to the 7-11 for an afternoon coffee and I was actually able to understand everything the 2 clerks said, even when the girl asked me if I wanted a bag. Of course, I answered incorrectly at first (mei you, or "don't have" which does the job but makes me sound like a retard I'm sure) but then realized my mistake and corrected myself. Getting better, and I haven't screwed up anything yet.

Over to the grocery store where I saw the first white man of the trip who wasn't performing in an amusement park, and he was friendly in saying hello. I'm pretty sure he was one of them-there "men of god" here in Buddha Country. But I'm not sure. He appeared to be doing your garden variety shopping while I was busy representing the white man in proper fashion:

Next we went to the Junk Store (not the actual name) and I bought Julia a "fish set" as she called it. This was sort of the parallel to the animal set I bought her the other day but for the ocean. There was a stingray, and what appeared to be several sharks and indeterminate animals, presumably of the sea. Some must have been deep sea dwellers as they had no eyes.

Back to the apartment and we did some playing, watching videos, laundry, and the like. This was your standard "average day" which we sort of signed up for. Actually most of it was in that mold, from start to finish, including the bike ride even.

Then I got word, Nat landed me a bike. Well, to be fair it was probably the combination of Crash and Nat. While it may not be the best bike in the world, it will certainly do the job for my road/un-road touring adventures that I've been looking to do:

Yes, there are reflectors, a handlebar mirror, kick stand, and apparently some sort of glowing tire valve extensions. And no, there are no disc brakes. But for my purposes, if I can get the saddle height close enough to right it will certainly do the trick. I do wish it had disc brakes but these should be fine. And the added traction of the tires will allow me to explore those 3 main targets I've been itching to do. I just need to give it a once over (the brakes were way too slack) and make sure it will stand up to going these hills before I risk my well-being to gravity. Oh and I need some spare tubes.

It turned out that Fat Brother didn't even recognize his bike when Crash had used it earlier in the day.

Since we lost our babysitters we now either have to send 1 of us out for dinner or we all go as a unit. Tonight, it was the unit option. First we went to get a scallion pancake that I was denied last night. Then we grabbed some noodles that were nothing to write home about. But what can you expect for $1 a bowl?

After a quick stop at one of those night market parlor games which features a big vat of fish that you can scoop out, we landed some dessert and veggies and went home for the night. As I mentioned above, I took the garbage out for the first time tonight. This is slightly more than it sounds like, as the garbage truck rolls through town playing music and people run from their apartments and throw their own garbage and recyclables in the trucks. So I'm now more than just the white guy around town who rides (and occasionally cleans) his bike. I now wait outside and take the garbage out. I'm sure some people are starting to think that I'm here for the long haul. As soon as they really start to accept me I'll pull the end-around and disappear for 1.5-2.5 years.

That Michelob Dark sucked, by the way. Oh and just 34 miles (on the road) from here, it snowed on TaiPingShan. That's probably no more than 20 miles directly from here, if that. This is one of the roads I want to climb before I go, but if there's snow up there, not sure that's going to happen.

Taiwan Day 16 - Monkey Mountain

2011-01-15T14:33:00.001-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Back to the rainy north, and back on the bike this morning. After 2 days of sitting and eating, I'm exhausted. I need to get back on 2 wheels and burn some of this stuff off and make room for more food. As I mentioned yesterday, we have a lunch date today. I pushed it out to 12:30, saying that I needed to go long on a ride. I forgot to mention the guy's name who is taking us out. His name is Better. For real, yo. Nat's dad talks about him all the time. I have to be honest, I can't not judge the book by it's cover on this one. I'll leave it at that.

But first, Monkey Mountain. Now it's not really called Monkey Mountain it's just where I saw the monkeys that day, so I wanted to get back up there and climb to the top. Last time I made it most of the way, but not all the way. Today it was all the way or bust. I set sail a bit after 7:00 and much to my surprise, I was wrong in saying I wouldn't see the blue sky again until we got back to NJ:

So a word about the rain, or more specifically, the rain forecast. Before we got here I saw 1 forecast where it was 10% chance of rain. Since then, it's anywhere from 40-90%. I've learned that there are 2 kinds of rainy days here in the winter. The first is the 40-60% kind, and the other is the 70-90% kind. 40-60 means there's a reasonable chance that it will be dry most of the day, and it will rain some little bit somewhere along the line. 70-90 means it will be wet most of the day, and it may or may not rain when you're out. We had a few days of 70-90, but we're back in the 40-60 which is what we had when we got here. Now if only these lows of 47 would get a little bit back to normal, everything would be ok.

So of course, in that pic above it's only a sliver of blue and most of it was gray. I was heading to the hills which are almost constantly shrouded in clouds. So I knew it was going to be wet & cold up there, and today I dressed more appropriately. Shoe covers, longer pants, thicker gloves, thicker head cover, and a rain jacket. As I started out, I was warm.

That wouldn't last. As soon as I got to the base of the hill the mist started. And it steadily grew to drizzle as I climbed higher and higher. I have to admit that my sense of wonder is no longer as strong as it was the first week, at least on a ride like this. The novelty of my riding here has been replaced with a total comfort zone. I'm still awed by some of the construction and scenery I get, but I'm not taking as many pictures on the rides, especially on days like this where I really want to get my ride on so I can get my eat on later. I need to uncover more new things and spark that sense of wonder again.

The road was more of the same, since...well, it was the same. Lots of these signs along the way:

Unfortunately, no monkeys. The goal of the day was to get to the top, 4000 feet up. The ride wasn't anything amazing, and I really don't have anything new to talk about. I got a few "jia yo!" comments, and a thumbs up by a passer-by. But it was mostly me and the rain, which I had some conversations with along the way. The general conversation went like this:

Me: Dude, can you give me a break with this rain?

Rain: Dude yourself. I'm rain, man. I'm what makes the island what it is. You know, water is plentiful, I help grow all this awesome fruit and tea that you like. Scenery? Hello, you ever see a dry mountain? Kinda boring, and good luck getting a road up on that bitch because the trees and plants and stuff help keep the damn mountain together. No rain means no trees means landslide central. Now STFU and pedal.

Fine. So I made peace with the rain and made my way to the top. Unfortunately, the hill topped out at about 3950 feet and that was it. I ended up climbing 3250 feet in 7.7 miles which took 1:11, which is solid and leads me to believe that the TaiPingShan climb will take me about 2 hours or so, assuming I ever get there. This rain makes it pretty sketchy on the "down" part of the trip. I may need to buy some new brake pads for that trip.

I did get to see some monkeys after all, about 50 feet from the top they were in the trees and screaming at me again. Once again, no pics and not even any video. I tried to go with the video but they were gone by the time I broke it out. These monkeys are so lame in that regard. I guess they're camera shy.

I turned around, put the rain coat on (going up I was fine), and rolled back down for 33 minutes. Even though I was dressed more warmly it was freezing. I can't imagine how cold I would have been without the extra layers. I stopped a few times to take random pics of signs and later I was able to figure out that most of the area belongs to the department of the forestry, and much of it is only opened on a limited basis to the public, just like the other spot with the gate and the application process.

I took a slightly different route to get home which made the ride more interesting. The straight out & backs are boring, and the alternate route makes life much more enjoyable in the whole life & spice balance. I still have to take that 8-10 mile straight shot back from Scallion Land to Luodong every ride. But there's not a whole lot I can do about that.

So lunch. Better. His fiance is actually someone we've met before, as she used to live in Jersey City. It's been quite a long time but at least we know her, as opposed to being paraded in front of scores of people I either don't know or don't remember. We got there first and sat down to wait. Shortly after they showed up and we did the normal meet & greet & eat. This was the same place where I had the possible Best Meal of Trip the other day.

It turns out that Better is simply a poor choice for an English name, and it ends there. He was actually quite a nice guy and the lunch ended up being a decent time. He knew a little bit of English, so he tried to engage me in conversation, which was somewhat broken but he generally got the gist of what I was saying, which is more than I can say most of the time. Anna can speak English too, though for the most part, she didn't. That's the way these meals usually go. This is the price you pay for free food, I suppose.

After lunch Nat's dad immediately tried to get us to go to his sister's house, but thankfully Nat's mom told him to go fly a kite so we want back to the apartment to relax (not for long) and grab a coffee. I wasn't even halfway done when he burst into the living room and announced, "Ok, Norm, they're waiting for us at my sister's house. We better go." He said it as if we had made these plans and they were waiting for us. The man is persistent, I'll say that.

Nat gave me the option to bail but I went, since it was something to do. Nat's mom, however, took the out and hung out with her sister upstairs. It gets us out of the house and I get to drink tea on someone else's couch. Julia had some toys to play with and we got snacks. The only thing is that they constantly try to bombard you with food there, and it's a series of "no thanks" over and over. They also tried to talk us into dinner which we managed to pass on. We stayed maybe an hour.

Not sure if I've posted this, but here's a picture of the grave sites that randomly litter the hillsides here, which we saw on the drive:

Nat thinks they're gaudy and I suppose they kinda are. They're interesting enough from a tourist standpoint but they probably are a bit much to be dropping all over the countryside. But it's a pretty integral part of the culture, the ancestor thing. So you'd never really be able to change this. Nat's dad is totally bonkers over all the pomp & circumstance related to his mother. He carries around the small plaque with her picture almost everywhere now to show people. So the grave sites are just part of that religion.

Back to the house and some more relatives were there, this time Crash and YaoChun, both readers of the blog on Facebook. Crash had some goodies for me, including a waterproof camelback that his company makes, a waterproof iPhone case, a small bag to strap on the top tube of the bike to put stuff in, and an extra bladder for backup water. Very nice score, and this will certainly come in handy when it's time to hit TaiPingShan or LiShan.

YaoChun was just there to look happy, which she always does.

After they left we went to get some dinner and hit the bakery and food store. We dipped in for a quick stop at the night market to get something to eat while waiting for dinner, a sort of appetizer if you will. I think it was a lard stick wrapped in lard and deep fried, and salted. It was good for sure. Off to the bakery madness, the noodle shop, the grocery store for milk, then to get some veggies and back home to find that 2 of Nat's cousins were there. I groaned, as you can't actually eat dinner when other people are there without offering them food, which would mean going back out and buying more stuff. But as soon as we walked in, they got up to leave. I'm sure they knew we were about to get our food on and I must have looked hungry. Given how often people try to give me food, I must always appear hungry.

We had some noodles and veggies, which is a pretty standard meal here. Julia, meanwhile, was hammering some potato chips and looking guilty:

Taiwan Day 15 - Heading Back North

2011-01-15T04:53:00.001-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Day 15 started where day 14 ended, which was in a hotel in the south of Taiwan, GaoXiong to be exact, or as far as I know. We made no effort to get up early, since we assumed everyone would sleep in a bit. Around 8:30 the natives started getting restless and we woke up Julia and went to breakfast which, as always, was about 8 minutes of peace then 30 minutes of me walking her around and distracting her and trying to prevent her from throwing up by looking at everyone's food. These group meals suck in that regard. It's difficult to enjoy myself half the time when we go out to eat. Here she is eying up my breakfast, which is congee (rice porridge basically):

After breakfast we went upstairs and packed our stuff up, and the kids played well for a while and I took the opportunity to not do anything at all. These trips are tiring, as little as we actually do anything. And just sitting in the chair watching the world go by is enjoyable when I get the chance. Soon enough, that party ended and it was time to head out. On the way out of the hotel, we could see the Ferris wheel wasn't running yet. You could also see blue sky:

Hopped on a shuttle bus which took us to the amusement park entrance, and also brought us around the grounds of this veritable compound. There must be at least 8 huge hotels, a half-mile long mall, and a university, as well as all sorts of construction going on. In the end, we could have walked in about half the time it took us to get there but it was neat to see everything around the area. I noted to Nat that there seem to be a lot of Asians that go to the school there. It's almost like we're in Boston.

After a circuitous combination of road crossings, escalators, mall entrances, and bridge crossings we made it to the amusement park entrance, and shortly after that to the monorail, which was going to bring us to the other end of the park. Another half mile away or less. In all we ended up traveling maybe a mile which probably took all of about an hour. For sure, this wasn't the HSR.

The idea was to start at the end and walk back to the start. The end was indoors, which was nice because it was insanely bright outside. The weather was nice, probably low 70s when we got there. But the morning haze makes everything brighter and it actually hurt my eyes because it was so bright. All the kids stuff was indoors and at the far end anyway, so aside from a little walking outside, we ended up being inside most of the time.

Many of you know that our daughter is a big wimp so finding anything for her to ride was a difficult task. Some of this started rubbing off on Lydia as well, and between them they really didn't go on many rides. One thing they both liked was driving these little cars on a track. An adult could sit on the back and help a bit, which of course means they could drive it for them. We had some fun, and Julia really enjoyed when I got on and we started ramming into Nat & Lydia:

After this the whole day went to hell when Julia and Lydia got on this kiddie log flume. They seemed ok when they got in, but when they started going around the loop, I saw that on the back side there was a small up & down, which I knew was going to be trouble. I ran around to the other side to watch, and as they went up I heard one of them scream. When they came up to the top Lydia was crying, and Julia looked like the terror. When they got to the bottom, Julia started crying. Lydia stopped, started again, then by the end they were both screaming and crying.

Good times!

That was pretty much the end of it for Julia. She was more or less broken up for the next hour, and Lydia showed signs of being skittish as well. They both went on a ride or 2 more, but it was a lot of looking and not much doing after that. We stopped to get lunch at a sort of McFood place inside the park, and it was a bit better than you'd expect but more or less as expected. Outside, we could see something brewing, and it turned out to be a bunch of white guys making morons of themselves:

The only justification to this would be that this was a huge joke and they were getting the last laugh by getting paid for this. This was bad, and when I say bad I mean utterly atrocious. Just awful. Eventually some reasonably attractive woman in white started kinda dancing around, but I think it was more of a slow-motion ice skating routine without ice. I'm not sure what was more surprising, the act or the fact that people actually stayed to watch it all. Incidentally, it was supposed to be some sort of reenactment of the Trojan Horse thing, though I'm assuming it's the sort of Clif Notes version of the Clif Notes.

We walked back the 1/3 of a mile or so to the other side of the monorail, and did none of the rides because there really weren't many, and the ones that were there were not 4 & 5 year old friendly. Nat, Calvin, and their dad tried to go on something, but Lydia flipped out and that was the end of that. I had taken Julia inside because we knew she was going to scream if she saw Nat try to get on. But in the end, no rides were done by the adults, which is fine by me since I'm a big baby and hate amusement park rides.

After a quick ice cream stop, we left the park at about 2:30 and started the long, long journey home. First we briefly waited for the shuttle but decided to walk the half mile to the hotel, which I'm sure was faster. Then we grabbed our luggage and the cars and drove back to the HSR station. Nat's dad got some tickets for an earlier train (I told you, he likes to be on time, so on time that we ended up leaving 45 minutes early), and after getting some coffee, drinks, and snacks we were on the train back towards Taipei.

I forgot to mention that it was well into the 80s and the sky was blue again. Take a good look, this is likely the last blue sky we'll see until we get back to NJ:

On the train, we bought an extra ticket for the kids so they could sit in a chair instead of our laps, and of course they took 2 seats which meant the White Shadow got to find his own seat. For most of the trip I was able to poach one behind everyone, but between the last 2 stops I ended up standing behind the kids. Nat gave me the green light to listen to music which was nice because that's what I wanted to do anyway. We got back to the station at 6:14, right on time.

It was Friday night and Taipei traffic is awful, so we grabbed dinner in the station at a place called Mos Burger, which is the first meal I ever had in Taiwan when I originally came here 10 years ago. So it holds a sentimental attachment for me. I have to say, it wasn't as good as I remembered it. There may be something about the first meal after your first full 24 hour flight that simply cannot be beat. I may have been ripe to love anything I ate for that meal. I also remember taking a shower after that first flight, and how great it felt. Finally, I remember falling asleep in the apartment that day 10 years ago waiting for Calvin to come get us and take us to dinner.

Anyway, dinner was a "burger" of sliced pork inside a rice bun. Good not great:

We hit the road and we were all tired, to be sure. As we got closer to home the phone rang and Nat's dad's friend was on the phone. It was then I heard the 2 sounds (1 word) that I'm starting to dislike more than anything in the Taiwanese language. That is something that's pronounced "me-yacht tsai" and which means "tomorrow". Basically, I totally have a Pavlovian reaction when I hear that word. I start to cringe now and my defense system starts to say, "no no no no no no no no no!"

The reason I dislike this word so much is that it's basically the start of Nat's dad starting to plan the day for us. Apparently someone wants to take us out to lunch, and at this point in my day I want nothing more than to go home and pound some beers. So I let my eyes roll back in my head and focus on the beer.

When we got home, 6.5 hours after we started the journey, I pound the first one in about 10 minutes, then slowly work on the second one to enjoy it a bit more. They're both good. I deliberate a 3rd one but the buzz from the first 2 is plenty, so I get ready for bed instead. Bed is a welcomed end to these long 2 days.

Taiwan Day 14 - Heading South

2011-01-13T05:22:00.001-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Yeah boy today was a bit of a long one. At least Julia is cooked at this point. Somehow we managed to stay up until almost 9:30 now, which is probably a questionable decision but hey, here we are. Tomorrow may be a late-start kinda day. It's ok, we just have more eating to do, which of course is how we started the day. Nothing crazy, just a dumpling and a few mini buns of a sort. No pics. We hit the road slightly after 8:30 and the FIL drove a bit aggressively because we were 10 minutes late. But we were leaving so early we really had little chance of missing the train.

No traffic to speak of so we got there with plenty of time to spare, at least 45 minutes if not more. The FIL is a bit of a spaz in regards to being on time, and leaves nothing to chance. I like to be early but my man takes the cake on this front. So, you can imagine his nearly nuclear reaction when Calvin played a joke on him and told him they had just left the house with only 30 minutes until the train arrived. He started pacing back and forth and ragging on Calvin for not leaving with time to spare. They arrived shortly after, still 20 minutes before the train was supposed to show.

While waiting for them I had a late second breakfast of a bun with taro paste and dried & shredded pork. This one is really good so I'll give you the pic:

As we got going on the train, I got a coffee from the rolling cart and had it sitting on the tray on my lap, which is attached to the seat in front of me. And Calvin was sitting there, or at least was about to. Apparently he's one of those guys who goes from a full stand to seated in one fell swoop, by relaxing his muscles all at once and dropping into his seat like a big bag of cement. In other words, the coffee ended up in my lap, on the floor, the seat, on the camera, on my phone, the window, the train conductor, on the side of a passing airplane, and so on. So I spent the next 10 minutes or so cleaning myself up, and then getting back to my coffee.

I guess I forgot to mention we were on the high-speed rail (HSR) on our way from basically Taipei to GaoXiong, the south of the country. The trip was expected to take a hair over 1:30, which is exceptionally fast as it takes about 5-6 hours to drive it, apparently. As we were driving to the HSR, I realized I should have taken my GPS with me to track the trip. So Nat and I both downloaded motionX on out iPhones, and while the reception was spotty, we were able to get this as a max speed:

It can apparently top out at 300 km/hour, which is like 187.5 mph. Not sure what we got but it was fast, and the ride was pretty cool. A neat experience, I will say. Also, we're clearly on the wrong side of the island right now:

Having said that, most of the West Coast was covered in smog and there are no hills to speak of. So while the weather sucks, the riding is better where we are. Not sure about the SE part of the island. I suspect that's the prime spot to be. I understand the mountain biking is actually active in that area.

We got to GaoXiong right on time (12:36) and without a doubt this trip proved what I already knew, that the train system in the US is an absolute embarrassment. We should be ashamed at how poor our mass transit system is. It took us 1.5 hours to go 200 miles. I've had the train to NYC take over 2 hours, and I think that trip is something like 36 miles.

Off the train, then rented a car, and finally hit the road and found a place to get lunch just before 2:00. So in all, as fast as the train was, we spent almost 5 hours on the trip that would have apparently taken about 5.5 by car if we had just left and driven straight there. We ended up grabbing lunch at a food court in a mall, where we parked in the basement and found the most useless door in the world:

It's used in the event of a fire. There are fire doors that drop and seal off sections of the parking garage. Lunch ended up being a Korean pork and noodle concoction, which was a little less good than it looked (it looks good here) but decent overall:

Post lunch we went to this touristy Hakka place where you can mix up your own Hakka tea, which is this mix of various seeds/nuts, green tea powder, and actual brewed tea. But first, we saw some coconuts:

We eventually made it to the Hakka village, and I did a good amount of the grinding of the concoction:

It was kinda neat, and the tea itself was actually quite tasty. The finished product:

After that we walked around the village a bit but there wasn't much of anything worth buying there. The area is known for these paper umbrellas that were made a hundred(s?) years ago. You could buy one, along with a myriad of other junk if you wished. Aside from the tea, nobody bought anything. The kids were reasonably entertained and at the end we found a few things to keep us all busy, like 4" stilts, a hula hoop, and a few Hakka games like Pong and Mario Brothers.

We also continued to see bits of the sun:

The weather down here almost depresses me because I know we have to go back to the cold rain tomorrow. Apparently it never rains down here (Nat's dad says 50 days a year at most) and is always warmer. That's good for winter but summer must be a bear. The problem from a riding standpoint is that there are scores more people in this area, and there are no hills. I'm sure the food is good, even if we really didn't find anything. But as much as the weather is nice I like where we are because of the terrain. As we drove to the hotel the slightest bit of rain spit on the windshield and I announce, "There! It does rain down here!"

The hotel was this grand affair that's generally a bit more than we would have aimied for on our own. Surprisingly the rates were higher than we usually pay, though admittedly it's pretty high class. I still have a bit of a problem wrapping my head around the fact that you can eat dinner for $4 between the 2 of us then go drop $150 on train tickets and $200 on a hotel. In my mind everything should be cheap like the food.

Of course, they had a Ferris wheel, which isn't normal:

Julia keeps insisting that she wants to go on this and I refuse to let her go. Earlier in the day she was flaking out about being on the 2nd floor balcony and if she goes on that, she's going to possibly have a nervous breakdown and throw up at least 18 times. Nat really wants to go so we need to convince Julia to let that happen tomorrow. I think she'll back off once she stands next to it. But she may object to Nat going.

Dinner was included in the hotel and was a buffet of decent food. Nothing to write home about so no pics on this one, though the lamb was quite good. Nothing unique really. Some sushi, assorted prepared food, and soups, fruit, and desserts. As usual, Julia struggled to find anything and had a little bread and noodles, then 5-6 different mini-desserts.

We were up in the room around 8:00 for the night. In all, probably not a real lot of meat to this day given how much effort it took to get here. It makes Nat's parents happy, or at least her dad, and it gives us a chance to see a small slice of the south. Tomorrow is 3-5 square meals and the amusement park which is part of the hotel, and included in the price. I hope it's more than just rides since Julia isn't going to be down with Freefall and Superman and the like. After that we reverse course and head back to the rain.

We've now been here 2 weeks, and the trip is about 1/3 done. Doesn't feel like it, and I'm not ready to go home yet. So I'm glad we have another 4+ weeks to go until we return to the snowy hell that is NJ, which will make the cold rain here seem like paradise.

Taiwan Day 13 - Wild Dogs and More Food

2011-01-12T03:19:00.000-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Let's kick off the day with a little breakfast:

This is from the bakery, more of a sweet twisty-like thing with a little coconut and cranberries. It's good, definitely a solid and fairly unhealthy breakfast. Add a cup of coffee and I'm good to go for the day's ride. Of course, it was wet when I went out for coffee this morning and it was actually raining at the time. By the time I got on the bike nothing had changed, and I was stuck with a rain ride again today. As much as it rains, I think I've only had to ride in it 3 times so far, today included.

Today was a tougher one, as the temps are as cold as they get, probably near 50, and a light, but steady, rain. Went around the far side of town and took a road I haven't taken before into SanXing, which is the scallion center of the county, apparently. Then I shot back towards home and took a detour to climb the Toughest Climb again, this time from the temple side up, then back down the normal route. This is as close as I get to a loop here, but the climb is an out and back (or maybe not) so I go up, then go down.

Before signing the book I kept going and found that there's actually more to the climb, albeit nothing of note like the big one. And the road surface gets iffy which made today's slick roads even more "interesting". Soon I found myself in farm land, with tea being the main crop up here:

This was the only pic I took, because I had my raincoat on and it was difficult to get anything out of my pockets. Also, I was freezing and my hands were numb from the cold and didn't function properly. The road kept going, but there was no clear climb ahead of me and I felt like I was in a bit of No Man's Land up there. The road likely wound around the tea fields and dropped into a hole where thousands of other unsuspecting white people have met their doom. So I turned around and went back to sign the book. Not many people have been up there lately, the rain probably keeps most of them away.

On the climb up I was met by a pack of wild dogs, which is always good times. There were 4 of them, and all but 1 was afraid of me. The last 1 was interested, and he showed signs of being about to take a bite out of my leg, but I yelled something at him ("splitters, go home!") and he got skittish and ran away. While the roads weren't really new on the ride, the pack of wild dogs was a bit of a new experience. The dogs around here are a menace, by the way. They're pretty much everywhere and as predictable as the scooters.

Aside from the dogs and the big climbs, I saw a lot of birds today. I should also note that potholes are almost non-existent in this country. I did see one on the way up the climb but they are very few and far between. Almost back to the house, I was playing Suicide Taiwan Biker like I usually do in town, and my left foot unclipped by mistake and I ended up with my left foot on the ground. Somehow I managed to save it, and I didn't fall over. This pedal has been giving me issues lately so I need to be careful of that. If it happened at the wrong time this trip could take a wrong turn in a hurry.

Got back and Nat's 4th and 5th aunts had brought food over for us. One brought some taro cake and the other some salted duck. We would end up eating both of these for dinner later in the day. I suspect that since more of the family is reading this, copious amounts of food gifts will start to arrive to make sure your narrator is happy and well fed. Now if only one of them could land me a mountain bike I'd be all set.

For lunch, Nat's uncle took us out to the same place we had gone with Darin on the first Sunday. We were running a bit late and the FIL drove like an absolute maniac in an effort to get there in 4 minutes instead of 5. At one point, he cut off a taxi in the right lane then laid on the horn as if the other guy was at fault. Anyway, we got there about 10 minutes late and Nat's aunt/uncle were already there. They have no children on Facebook that I know of, so this was not any sort of well-laid plan to get their names mentioned in good favor.

Lunch was awesome. For whatever reason, it was better today than that first Sunday and this may have been the best meal I've had since we got here, which is saying something as we've had some really good food. As usual, you can check the full picture set from the link at the top. I describe every picture as best I can, and try to take a pic of most things, but certainly anything new that we eat. I'll post a picture of dessert, which was this sort of rich cake in sweet pineapple sauce with cherries on top.

After lunch I got a coffee and got to work while everyone else went to see Nat's oldest uncle. It was another productive day at work and I'm thinking that it might be beneficial for me to always work when none of my coworkers is awake, as I have far fewer distractions and annoyances this way. It was a rare moment of having the apartment to myself so I plugged in the headphones and listened to some music for a bit and zoned out while I did some work. This was enjoyable, as I haven't listened to music since I was on the airplane coming here.

I planted the seed that Nat should put out some feelers and see if I could land a mountain bike for some further exploring. Aside from the quarry road, and the road that ended prematurely yesterday, the road near the Aborigine bridge appears to turn into dirt at some point but goes on for a long way into the mountains, and is actually a backside approach to the TaiPingShan climb. Likewise, another climb near yesterday's is a dirt road, as evidenced by the user-loaded pics on Google.

Nat's cousin's son, from here on known as Crash (my nickname for him) said he might be able to land an actual mountain bike and not the hybrid that most people ride here. He also said he wants me to try out some of the company's products while I'm here, which I'm more than happy to do. That's where I got the hydration pack from the other day, BTW.

Nat also told me that Calvin read some of the old blog posts, and made mention of the butter-in-law title. I actually laughed out loud at that, as did Nat when he texted her about it. We're off to the south of the island tomorrow with the BIL and family. I'm sure he'll make mention of it. He also told me the other day that he's not the mole, and in fact suggested I drive that day.

At the bakery during the afternoon errands run, Nat told me that everyone there probably knows me now as the white guy who comes in and eats all the samples, even though they're always the same and I never buy anything. I don't understand how I stand out from the crowd, save for the fact that I'm taller than everyone and I'm white and I moon walk everywhere I go. But really is that so out of place?

Did a bit of playing with Julia's animals before dinner. I like this pic:

Dinner was the duck and taro cake (from 2 of Nat's aunts) which were both good, plus some fresh cabbage as well as some leftover fish ball soup. This looks like raw meat but it's not. Quack quack. eat up! Eating when we get back home is going to be so lame.

After dinner, the painting of Nat's grandmother who passed away finally arrived and the FIL went down to get it. I have to say, even though it's a painting, it looks remarkably like an actual photo. The guy who did it apparently did the painting of Chiang Kai-Shek that hangs in the CKS Memorial in Taipei, so I cannot begin to fathom how absurdly expensive this thing is. The FIL was carefully trying to find somewhere to put it, and he plopped it against the wall between the 2 couches. After he walked out of the room I suggested to Nat that when we woke up, her mom would be there and the painting would be in bed with her dad (but not, you know, "like that").

Tomorrow we're off to the south of the island, taking the high speed rail to GaoXiong. Not sure what we're going to do there, other than sleep and eat. No bike for 2 days so the Fear Factor aspect of the trip will be half gone for 2 days. I may also not be able to post day 14 until I get back. We'll see.

Taiwan Day 12 - Ordinary Life

2011-01-11T13:51:00.001-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

In an absolutely shocking surprise, it was sunny and 80 degrees when I went out for coffee this morning. Oh wait, no it wasn't. It was raining. And dark. Ok I'm soft, so sue me.

I decided to go south, towards Suao which is where the FIL's oldest brother lives. I found a road on the map that goes up, and up in a hurry. I'm starting to wear out all my options that go SW using that route 7 corridor, since there's really only 1 way to get to the good stuff and it takes at least an hour to get there. I wanted to try a different direction to get my climb on. The cool thing about this excursion is that I was taking route 9 south, then taking a single turn off the main road. Google maps street view covers this, so I was able to look at the street view and get the mile marker (ok, actually it was a kilometer marker, 101 to be exact) of where to turn. I saw there were 2 big cement towers, and 2 guys sitting at the side of the road.

I easily found the road and started heading towards the hill. No surprise, especially since I saw the cement towers which indicate a cement factory, this was another one of these mining roads. I think all the roads that go up to the top of the hill are mining roads. There was also a rock conveyor but this one was actually running today, which was pretty exciting because it's just so crazy. I passed the factory and soon found myself on this road, which is where I'm pretty sure I'll meet my end if it's going to come on one of these rides:

Google considers this a road, which it is for bikes and scooters. Soon that ended and it met up with another real road, which was promising for a little bit but not very long:

Every day I go out here I understand more and more why most people ride mountain bikes. With the roadie, this road is virtually impossible. On a mountain bike I could have kept going, though you can see there really isn't a lot of road to work with on this one. I suspected (probably mre like surmised) that since the rock conveyor was working here, the trucks didn't need to go up & down the hill, so maybe it would have been safe. But if a truck had come, I'm not sure where I would have been able to get out of the way. Maybe it was for the best that this one wasn't a great success.

I tooled around a bit more, found a temple, went across the river and found another temple, then a military institution of some sort, and finally another temple. After about an hour I gave up and headed back, with the idea of maybe shooting out to the standard Toughest Climb (MeiHua Hu, where Hu means lake) area and doing one of those climbs. But before I left the park on the other side of the river, I found yet another new toilet development, the definition of public toilet, which was an open air deal:

I rode back towards the house then saw a road which kinda went the way I wanted so I just took it to see what would happen. I had 2 of the old routes on the GPS so I could see that, while I wasn't going exactly the right way, I wasn't going totally opposite either. Soon enough I found some brown signs, which are used for the tourist areas, and which have English subtitles. I followed them for a bit and found my way to the back side of the MeiHua climb, which I had done the other day. So I went up and over to where we had lunch, then down past the temple, and on home.

In all, I'd say this one was a bit of a failure on the exploration scale. But I was able to see the rock conveyor from the original ride, and I noted that it was also running today. So maybe on the days when it's raining in the morning they run the conveyor to spare the truck drivers? I find that level of safety standard unheard of here, so I'm not sure that's the reason. Maybe a truck falling off the side of the hill ends up being far too expensive to deal with, so they use the conveyor then?

I will admit the thought crossed my mind, and I considered going partially up the original quarry road as I was heading back. I decided against it, though I'm thinking more and more that I want to try that climb one more time before I leave, bike cleanliness be damned.

Back at the apartment and we had some salty breakfast stuff as a late breakfast after I showered. I generally don't make mention of breakfast since it's often just a bun of sorts that we get at the bakery the night before. This morning, we didn't have any so I had a tea egg from yesterday plus a piece of bread with some "Chinese cheese" which is actually fermented tofu. Mid-morning we often have a rice ball, or leek dumpling, and so on. Breakfast tends to be something that you can keep in a small bag and eat on the fly, or the scooter as is often the case.

Worked from 10-1 or so and helped the on-call guy get through some issues, plus did some other stuff on the side. Went out to seek lunch and we ended up with lamb fried rice and veggies plus beef noodle soup. The rice was better but this looks nicer:

The afternoon was the usual coffee run, Nat grabbed some dessert which I mostly skipped because I was full, then I worked a bit more. Nat's parents were in Taipei for most of the day so I took the opportunity to grind out some actual work and sort of have one of these "real life days" which means that very little happened. This was sort of the point of coming here, just to live somewhere else for a while. So far, we've been pretty busy so it's not entirely like we're just living here. Looking ahead, that's probably not actually going to change, as I have the bulk of my vacation to use up still. After this week I have 2 weeks of vacation to take, plus MLK day off, and a floating holiday. That adds up to only 8 more days to work after this week. As odd as it sounds, I was hoping to get some more coding in while here. Oh well, I'll just have to find more time to eat and bike more.

Also took some time to clean the bike. As much as I just want to let it go, it's looking really dirty these days, and by dirty I mean filthy. This is the grit that built just today. You can see why this place is murder on your parts. It's like liquid sandpaper:

This was the (formerly clean) rag I used to wipe down just the brake pads and rims:

When I was almost done these 2 guys came up to me and asked me if I spoke English. They weren't Chinese, maybe Philippino or something. They were looking for a Western Union, and it sure looked like I was a local since I was outside banging mats together like an old kitchen wench. I guess in this sense, we are living here as residents. I was out on the side of the road cleaning my bike and banging out mats, so I probably look like I belong. Of course, I had no idea where the Western Union was, and when they asked me where the address was they had written in Chinese, I told them I had no clue.

I have to be honest, they looked kinda shady and were sort of looking around a lot, as if they were waiting for nobody to be watching so they could mug me. I may have been a little skittish, but they came off as kinda shady and my instincts told me to be careful. I told them they should go to the bank around the corner and ask, but they ended up walking the other way down the street. I also told them they should ask 1 of the 25 million people here who could read Chinese where the address was, not the 1 guy they found all day that can't read the language.

Afternoon snack run was to the night market area where I got this pastry shell filled with sweet taro. It was ok. Then we headed over to the bakery but first found this store that Nat's aunt recommended to us, which had a boat load of stuff that Julia wanted. It also had this cheapy 3D map of Taiwan which I wanted. But for $6 I wondered how long it was going to stay 3D. We bought her a few things then went to the bakery, and then KFC to get dinner for Julia.

Back at the apartment, Nat's parents came back, and we just got an order of noodles and 2 veggies to split for dinner. Nat says I take good food pics so I'll keep them coming. Nothing crazy, just pork and such on top:

In all a pretty boring day, but that's what you get when you have to find something interesting to do for 44 straight days. No exciting bike finds, no squat toilets, no crazy foods. Really, a general "life" day just like we'd have at home. Eat, work, ride, clean bike, buy stuff, and meet errant fishermen from other countries looking for a Western Union. Ok maybe there was 1 abnormal thing that happened today. Oh and I guess I did see the public toilet arsenal. So there's that.

Taiwan Day 11 - Toilets & the Tea Farm

2011-01-10T03:37:00.001-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Some people asked for clarification on the Japanese meal the other day. So I'll bring that back up and describe it. The picture:

Left green stuff is garden-variety cabbage, nothing crazy. The big hunk of fried meat is chicken, with no bones. The round thing is a fried mushroom, sliced on top to make it look like that. The brown stuff is sliced pork in sauce. And the pink thing is pretty much a slice of bacon wrapped around asparagus. Like I said to Ilya, the Japanese cuisine (at least in the US and here) is pretty tame and non-offensive to people who don't like dog kidney and the like. The gaping hole in the picture is missing another vegetable, which is a root of some sort (ok, so it's a tuber technically) that's shredded, and on top of that was a piece of egg. Another carton had the rice for the meal.

No ride today. I was going to do something lighter this morning and maybe take some traffic video, but it was raining when I went to get coffee and decided that an hour and change in the rain wasn't what I wanted to do. I'm feeling pretty tired after 9 straight days of riding so this is probably a needed day off. Yesterday at dinner I felt like I couldn't eat enough. Then I couldn't go to bed fast enough. Guess a day off is not a bad thing. Maybe tomorrow I can take it the distance and aim for TaiPingShan. I suspect that will be in the realm of a 5 hour journey or so.

Nat also wanted me to let the readers know that most of the toilets are like what we're used to:

I tried to look for pictures of the birds I saw yesterday, but that's an effort in futility. Wikipedia has a list of about 6 million birds. The best I was able to get from the lady at the tea farm today (see coming sections) was that yes, they exist. So I have external validation that I did not, in fact, fabricate these in my own mind. That's good to know.

The idea was to leave the house at 9:00 and go to the tea farm this morning, because MIL/FIL were pressed to wrap up lunch and head up to Taipei for the afternoon. At 9:30, we were still sitting around wondering who was going, who was driving, and what the general deal was. After several iterations of discussion, Nat's aunt and her mom went in 1 car, and the rest of us went in another.

Before long we were driving out the way I generally ride my bike, and as we crossed the river it struck me that we would be going to the area on route 7 where I see the teapots on the side of the road. Sure enough, when we saw the pots we took a right and went up the side of the hill and drove to one of the shops. It's all coming together now, and I'm starting to know know this county better and better. By the end of this stay I'm going to know it at least as well as Nat's dad. He actually thinks I know it better already.

This was the same place we went almost 3 years ago, and I recall it well. As soon as we got there I had to go to the bathroom and I was able to verify again that they do have modern toilets:

They gave us peanuts and some kind of seed (sunflower, pumpkin, whatever) but we all did most of our business with the peanuts. The old man who (I guess) owns the place was there, but he has long since given way to the daughter-in-law, who does the full tea brewing process with the customers. He just sits around looking pretty, or in this case pretty much just looking old. Every time we come to the country we have to make the journey to one of the tea farms. The first 2 times was a farm near Nat's aunt's old pig farm. The last 2 times it's been here. I always enjoy it as it's a chance to sit down and have a solid cup of tea.

Between us and Nat's parents, we ended up getting 8 kilos of tea, which should hold us over for a while. We tried 3 different kinds and Nat's mom and I agreed that the 2nd one was best. So they busted out a huge mountain of tea leaves:

And turned it into this:

After the farm we headed up to the top of the hill to check out the bed & breakfast. It was a nice place but as I've said before, none of these places have heat. The place was freezing, and as awesome as the view was, I find it hard to drop $100 a night to freeze your nuts off for the night.

It was supposed to be a scouting mission for Nat & I, which quickly turned into her parents wanting the whole family to go, which immediately turned into the MIL claiming 1 of the 2 rooms with a view as her own. As far as I'm concerned, it's too damn cold to pay to stay there. We'd check in late afternoon, freeze until we went to bed, sleep, then wake up and be cold. I know these place don't often have heat, but wouldn't it make some sense for the place to offer maybe a nice warm cozy bed for these chilly winter months, especially when you're up in the hills like this? Call me crazy, but it doesn't appeal to me.

Somewhere in this mess I had to go to the bathroom, which means that Julia had to go to the bathroom, which means we had a second consecutive day of Squat Toilet Madness.

The visit dragged on and on, and I'm thinking to myself that yeah, my work hours are liberal and all but we've already toasted a good half-day on this trip and we still didn't eat lunch yet. Nat's dad was going to town talking to the lady who ran the place and the old man from the shop down below, who had been driven up by his grandson. I know my patience is longer than it used to be, but it ran out up on the hill and I was pretty much tapping my foot waiting to get out of there by the end of it.

On the way back we stopped at a local seafood place which had decent food but was as loud as a sailor hangout. I mean, not that I've ever been to such an establishment. I'm just kind of projecting what it would I think it would be like. Let's just say that it was loud and there was beer spilled on the floor in the first 10 minutes of us sitting down. And it was cold inside because, you know, no heat and all.

We got a bunch of things, and apparently you guys might not want to actually eat this stuff but you want to know what it is. We had some noodles, a soup of kidney and some mystery meat (read on), oysters and tofu, a fish stew, veggies, shrimp, and a fruit plate. The veggies look tame enough:

On to the mystery meat. There were these 2 things in the kidney and X soup which I really had no idea what they were. They looked edible enough, so I took one and ate it. Meh, it wasn't that great. Not awful, not great, just there. Nat asked her parents what it was, and she said, "Are you for real?" I asked her the same and she told me. I then looked down at it, took a close-up picture, then dug in. I admit, it was a little harder to eat the second one but it wasn't too-too bad. I don't think I'll be ordering a big bowl of these soon. But hey, when in Rome, sometimes you gotta wear a toga and do the orgy thing, in a manner of speaking. Anyway, I've kept this vague enough. If you really want to know what it is, the Flickr picture link is below, with description.

Be warned, it's not so much what we ate, but how it looks. It's really not pretty. I know at this point I've made you all curious enough to click the link, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Click here only if you can really handle it.

After lunch we went back to the apartment, got some coffees, Nat's parents hit the road to Taipei, and I did some solid coding. In the meantime, Nat's aunt and her aunt's granddaughter (Nat's cousin's kid) came over with different snacks for all of us. After they left, Nat told me that was YaoChun, one of the relatives on Facebook. So there's another relative that will likely be reading this blog by the end of the day. I wonder if they're going to welcome me with open arms next time I come.

As I was sitting in the office working, the building started to sway back and forth, which was my first earthquake for the trip. I experienced one before, on our second trip. It was something like a 1 on the Richter Scale, so nothing to get all worked up about. But it's kinda neat to say you experienced an earthquake. Well, a small earthquake. Big earthquakes are not really good times, as far as I can tell. I'm pretty sure this island averages much more than 1 earthquake a day across the whole island. It's not really a rare event.

Right before dinner (or actually, when Nat was walking in with dinner) her cousin's kid came over with his girlfriend, toting a bunch of gifts for all of us. Julia got a bubble-making gun, I got a hydration bladder that his company makes, and we all got some snacks he brought up from Hualien. He's also on Facebook. The last 2 days was the Facebook Wang brigade. Well, I think they're all named Wang. I'm surprised that her younger cousin isn't on Facebook. Facebook. Facebook. Facebook. I should get royalties for this.

Rain dance tonight, hopefully it stays away tomorrow. The forecast is...never mind.

Taiwan Day 10 - Monkeys & a Squat Toilet

2011-01-09T03:52:00.001-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Calvin tricked Nat into giving up my blog URL, so from now on he's going to be able to read everything I write. Take that into consideration when reading from now on. He says he won't tell the MIL what I say, but we'll see. If she mentions my driving I'll know who the mole is. Here's Calvin thinking about something. Or maybe not thinking at all, I'm not sure.

This morning I wanted to do a little more of a long ride, but I didn't have a full day to just let go because of the family lunch we're going to. I set sail around 7:00 with the idea to roll for about 3.5 hours. Plan was to head south on 7, which I've done before, then head into the hills on the 7 extension which goes up and over towards Taipei. If I do the ride to Taipei, this may be the direction I go. I mapped it out last night and other than a big climb up to about 4000 feet to start, it pretty much flattens out and stays at that elevation until you drop down the other side.

It was dry when I started, so I decided to carry it through and head for the hills, even though the hills were stuck in the clouds:

At the base of the climb, it started to mist. As I slowly went up, the mist turned to drizzle, and from there it became a constant rain. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised given what that pic suggested. But I hoping it would "hold off" and wasn't thrilled about it dumping down on me again. Truth is, the going up isn't so bad. I just chugged my way up, and up, and up, and wished that I could go up until I was done. The road was narrow but there wasn't a car in sight, so the world was my proverbial oyster. I ate it up and kept riding into the clouds.

Maybe halfway up, something on the side of the road was making a major disturbance in the bushes. My first thought was that something that large had to be a sign of the monkeys. I looked, but didn't see anything. I did, however, hear a barking of sorts on both sides of the road. I was pretty sure that's what I was hearing. But without seeing them, I couldn't say. Shortly after I heard the barking again, but again no sight. Then a 3rd time, sounds but no sights. In the meantime, I did catch a small flock of yellow birds and orange birds flying right over my head. The yellow one looked almost like a goldfinch, but with a brownish back and no black on it's wings. Then an orange one flew by, then a whole bunch joined them. I tried to get a pic but they were too small and moving way too fast. They were like little yellow and orange sprites flying through the rain.

I heard the barking again, but this time I looked up and saw a monkey sitting in the tree. I stopped to take a pic and a bunch of them high-tailed it out of there. There's a monkey somewhere in this picture, but not sure where. I believe it's in the general area of the middle, or middle-left. If you can see it I'll buy you a rice ball:

After this I saw them again off to the right, but didn't bother to try to get a pic. They run away as soon as you stop and by the time you get the camera out they're gone. Figure if I saw & heard them 5 times, I'm eventually going to catch them in the middle of the road playing hopscotch or something. Until then, you have to settle for pictures of trees and take my word for it. I really wish I had caught the birds on film, as they were cool as hell to look at.

I eventually ran out of rope at about 2:05 into the ride. I had reached 3300 vertical feet, most of the way up but still 700 feet to go. I'm sure it would have only been another 15 minutes but I was padding just a little bit and even though I have heavy-ass tires on the bike, I need to give myself some cushion in the event I get a flat. So I turned around, ate my second energy bar, drank the rest of my first bottle, took a leak on the side of the road, and started heading back down the mountain.

It was goddamn cold.

Nothing of note happened on the way back, but it wasn't raining down in the flats and I managed to dry off a bit and warm up. Got back to the apartment, showered up, got ready, and we were off to lunch on top of the hill I happened to climb yesterday. As odd as it sounds, this was actually the place I had seen up on the hill last week, which I assumed was a place to stay for the temple visitors. Strange how small the world is ending up in these 10 days. They had a pig on a leash:

They also had a small pond with fish and ducks, and you could buy food to feed them, which we did. Soon enough we were heading upstairs to sit down. We sat with Calvin & Company, plus Nat's 3 cousins. From left to right, girl, boy, girl. Girl on right was in our wedding in the US, way back when. Girl on the left was a high school kid when I first met her, almost 10 years ago. Since then she's learned English really well. Boy in the middle was the one who stopped over for lunch the other day. I think he's a fisherman:

Back down to feed the fish after lunch, and Julia informs me she has to go to the bathroom. However, there's a slight problem, as they have squat toilets here. This is the, "WTF is this?" look:

As you can imagine, this was an adventure.

We then sat down for coffee in another part of the building, which seemed to have the AC on because it was freaking cold. We also took more pics. From left to right, cousin, Nat, Julia, cousin, and cousin. The only new one here is the one on the left, who is the same one I posted a pic of with Nat the other day. She is Nat's oldest uncle's daughter. I hope you're taking notes on this stuff.

After 3 hours and 40 minutes of lunch, none of which was spent drinking beer with Darin as he wasn't there, we went home. Nat and I took a walk out to get some bread and fish food, and went back to the apartment. Shortly after I went to KFC to get dinner for Julia, then took a quick detour to get a scallion pancake because I had seen 4 kids eating them on the way over, and there wasn't a line.

Dinner was crabs that Nat's cousin (boy, from above) brought this morning, as well as rice, some leftovers, veggies, and fish ball soup.

Taiwan Day 9 - Calvin & Grace Show Up

2011-01-08T02:22:00.001-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

To Terren - So why does my MIL not want me to drive? Honestly, I don't know. If I can ride my bike in this madness I can surely drive. But she's decided that I shouldn't drive and that's that. I think there's some weird thing going on where she thinks that since I'm not Taiwanese I won't really know what to do behind a wheel. In a sense, I suppose there's some truth to that. It's not so much as being Taiwanese but being used to what to expect, which you tend to do when you're behind a wheel. In the US, there are some expectations. Here, there pretty much are none, aside from the fact that you have to expect nobody to stop at any traffic light or stop sign. Most people do, but with the number of people here a 99% success rate means that someone is going to blow a stop sign or red light about every minute that you're on the road in town.

Moving on to today, which starts with the bike ride as usual. I was looking to do something longer but my being a little tired and the rain changed my plans a bit. Since I can ride whenever, the rain is a sure excuse to turn that 4 hour ride into a 2 hour ride. Today that was the case. I'm itching to do something more meaty but I'm not so excited to go crazy with the weather not cooperating. Like I posted on Facebook, I understand that you guys back home are in the crap right now. But I'm still a little sick of the rain.

Today was a set of 3 climbs and 3 temples. The first was one we had been to years ago with Nat's mom and her aunt. I got to this in pretty short order:

I then went up and over the hill, down the other side, turned around and went back up, then down to the start of the first climb. I then headed to the "toughest climb" area and went up the hill to temple #2, which is entirely not picture worthy. Then up the hill more and turned off to temple #3, which was actually at the bottom of the hill. But before I got there, I found one of those dead construction projects that made me curious. So I turned around to go back and check it out and finally I had pressed my luck one too many times and the bike went out from under me and I slipped on the pavement. Luckily for me, I was going really slowly and was able to unclip and catch myself. The road was so slippery on the edge that I had to walk the bike. I couldn't actually get back on and pedal.

The 3rd temple:

The money shot is really from the base, but it was raining and so overcast that the picture came out like crap. I have it in the full set but it's nothing to write home about. Well, unless you're writing about how it's not...well, you know. I managed to get home without further incident, though the rain was picking up and by the time I was done, my hands were frozen and my feet were cold. Today made me start to see how relentless this rain can be, and I'm starting to understand some of the ex-pats here who complain about the rain in the winter. Still, I see what it's doing back home so I can't complain.

When I got back Nat had some breakfast goodies waiting, 2 leek dumplings smothered in hot sauce and a half a small bun of some sort. I cleaned up and then we took off to the small park to feed the fish, with a small detour at the tea shop for a taro-favored hot tea. I was still a little chilly from the ride and wanted something warm. As expected, Julia loved feeding the fish and we wondered why we waited so long to go here.

After walking around the night market area (in the day) Calvin called and said they were in the house, literally. He never actually said, "We're in the house," or, "We be in the hiz-ouse, yo!" That's not really his style. He and the family were just there. So we headed back and got in the elevator and opened the door, and were greeted by an absolutely blitzkrieg of noisy chaos. And the circus began. You can even see Calvin's smirk, he knows it:

I don't know what it is about this family, but when you put them all in a room together they seem to need to scream at anything and everything to get their point across. It's not family fighting at all. It's just, well, it's just a goddamn Chinese fire drill. I'm pretty sure I used the same description the last time we were here, and it's still appropriate. The 2 main players are Grace and the MIL. They just jabber on constantly. Then they draw in the FIL, which inevitably draws in both Nat and Calvin, who I think want nothing to do with the madness. But to be sure, they all end up in this loud round table discussion on absolutely nothing at all. Then the conversation gets so hectic they all end up yelling the same thing, quite literally, 7 times in a row sometimes. I shake my head.

Calvin and I escape to get lunch, which is Pizza Hut for the kids:

And Japanese lunchbox for us:

From left to right: Mermaid hair, goat ass, fried cow nose, yak spleen, and duck penis rolled in pig scrotum. It was good.

After lunch, and despite the rain, we went out for a short journey to the place where we get the bottled soymilk, which also sells assorted snack food. You can sit down and sample the different kinds of soymilk (normal, rice milk, almond, black bean, etc) then go buy some if you like. Or you can wlk around and taste some of the snacks they sell. They also have some old farm equipment on display as well as a machine that turns your raw rice into white rice. You buy the bag and then dump it into the machine a few times, put it in a bottle, and slap a sticker on it. This kept the kids entertained for a few minutes.

They also got monkey masks:

Then Calvin and family took off to check into their hotel (they love hotels for whatever reason) and we went back to the other side of town and soon I found we were heading towards the area of the temple climbs, the brightly-colored pedestrian bridge, and the toughest climb. We passed the circle intersection where all these roads start and headed towards the pedestrian bridge, up the hill.

We weren't going there, but I did find out the story of the bridge. Apparently there's an Aborigine village on the other side. Nat's mom said that she and her sisters sometimes come up there, have coffee, and walk across the bridge, just to do it. So there is some sort of explanation to it.

Next stop was a small coffee house that sells even more snacks, mostly nut-based, such as roasted soybeans, or a sort of peanut brittle, and so on. They also had little jars you could sample and just about every one of them was really good. I've had these snacks at Nat's parent's house before, as well as at the apartment here. Now I know where they come from:

A bit later, Nat, the FIL, and I went out to dinner and grabbed something local. I got some noodles with pork sauce on top:

Then Nat and her parents took off at about 8:30 to do some ceremony for her grandmother, who passed away almost a year ago. I don't know how this works, but I suspect this is one of those things where the "rules" are lightly enforced. This was something like the "3rd annual" gathering/memorial of her death, which is curious as she hasn't been dead a year yet. In any event, it was the last one and I think the process is finally done with, though I suspect there's some sort of yearly thing that Nat's dad will be doing from here on out. There's a reasonably big mysticism/religion/culture thing with death here. I don't know exactly what to call it, thus the vague reference.

Julia and I stayed at the house and had beer and ice cream. Well not Julia, she had chocolate. And scotch.

Tomorrow there's a big family gathering. I'm thinking Darin, and beer, will make an appearance. Stay tuned!

Taiwan Day 8 - Behind the Wheel

2011-01-07T05:13:00.000-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

I'm tired this morning, slept until 5:15 and probably could have slept more but I need to get up and do some form of work before I head out. I realize that on the way back from 7-11 there are no stars in the sky, and I've probably never actually seen stars here. Aside from the constant overcast sky, the light pollution is pretty heavy so your chances of seeing stars are about 1 in 100, is my guess. I'll keep looking but I won't hold my breath.

It's cold this morning. Not the temps, which are the usual 50-55 when I wake up. But it feels colder, and there's a wind. Starting out on my ride I feel a little chilly but soon enough I'm warm and don't think about it. Today's exploration is up the mountain on one of the routes that go up and over to Taipei, or so I thought when I looked at the map. As usual, Google maps starts to get a little suspicious when you head up in the hills, and today was no exception. There was supposed to be a road that went all the way over, and I was going to take it until I ran out of time, or I hit 3000 vertical feet, whichever came first.

I'm getting to know the roads well enough that I no longer load up the GPS for rides like today. I just look at the map and go. I'm sure this will get me in trouble sooner or later but today there was no issue, and before long I found the road going directly west and the mountains looming up ahead of me. The climb was of little note, just another winding road going up the hill, on my left steep up, and on my right a steep down. Now and then I could see the retaining wall up ahead, showing me where I'd be going eventually. But the climb wasn't too hard and the road was well paved and showed signs of much new work.

As such, there wasn't a lot of interesting things to see here. Most of the way up I saw a few workers and got a "jia yo!" which is the equivalent of "you go girl" or something like that. It literally translates to "add oil" and is what you say to cheer someone on. Shortly after everything opened up into a plain of sorts, and there were farms and a quite a few signs. It appeared to be a bit of a tourist area which would explain the well-paved road going up. At the top there was parking and what looked like maybe a tea house, which would make sense.

I saw some people working in the fields and a few off roads going to other farms and maybe some temples, but I kept following the signs to the botanical garden which was supposed to be 8 km away. That was my makeshift goal and once I got past the small farming area I dove back into the woods and the road climbed up a little more. I was pretty excited to see this along the way:

Not something you see everyday in NJ, or even Taiwan for that matter. While I hadn't really climbed up all that far, I had gone up enough to enter the land of monkeys and...well, frankly I don't know what that top animal is. Some sort of surprised sheep maybe?

Soon, however, my rope ended:

Normally I would have just ridden under the bar, and that's actually what I did. But some dude stuck his head out the window and yelled at me, and pointed in the other direction. Some older guy had just driven up and told me that the place opened at 9:00, and that I needed a passport or driver's license. At least that's what I got out of it. It worked out I guess, since I told Nat I was going out for 2.5 hours and this was 1.5 hours in. If I had kept going, I would have been lured by the monkey sign and surely stayed out longer than I had planned. So I guess it was all for the best.

When I got home my FIL was pretty psyched that I went up there, and told me that it's actually closed to the public and you need to apply for a permit to get in. This jives with a sign I had read on the way up, which said that the hiking trail was used for management only and to not trespass on it. You have to understand, that the expression "no trespassing" doesn't exist in this country. So it's odd to see a sign like that. In general, you can go anywhere you want. Except here.

Lunch is a sort of repeat from other meals, with intestine thrown in this time. I'll spare you the pics. I did break out a new bag of tea today though, which is a nice colorful picture that I can throw in here:

This is the MIL's pot, otherwise I would have likely tracked down a blazing blue & orange one to go with my kit. It's hard to get a grasp on how big the pot is, but it makes me a solid 3+ cups of tea. I put in enough leaves to make that much, then top it with hot water, let it go for 3 minutes or so, then drink it while I work. I don't do this at home but I think I should start. This is one of those habits I'll try to bring back with me when we go home. Every time I go on vacation or away anywhere for that matter) I go home and do something different. This may be one of them.

The afternoon excursion came around and we had to pile in the car. Much to my surprise my FIL suggested I drive. Score!

No matter how much I shrink the image down you can still see the bald spot on my head, so I'll just keep it the same size. The car is a Volvo, worth much more than my VW at home. As daring as this might seem to some, after riding my bike in this chaos, driving is simple. I'm already starting to know the roads well enough that I can go out on my own. Not entirely, but pretty much I can get where I need to go. We headed south to see Nat's aunt and then uncle shortly after that. We had tea at one and coffee at the other, and snacks at both. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Nat's uncle:

He's getting on in years, but is a good guy. Well maybe, I can't understand a damn word he says. He may be cursing the white man up and down. But I always walk out of there with good tea so I have to give him props for that. He tried to give me a whole tea set but we declined. This is part of the song & dance of the culture. If they really wanted to give it to us, we would have been hard pressed to refuse it. But we refused and said it was too much to carry on the plane, and they accepted it. That more or less means they didn't really want to give it up. He once tried to pull a huge framed picture off the wall and give it to me. Gotta love his style, have to say.

After not killing us on the roads of Taiwan I managed to not kill us in the middle of Luodong during rush hour. The place isn't really that big but turns into absolute madness around 5:00. I got us to the bakery to get tomorrow's breakfast (ok, so sometimes we drive there, sue me) then over to the parking lot to drop the car off. Nat's dad told the lot guy I would be bringing the car in & out soon enough. Looking forward to being able to come & go as we please. We had to sneak around a bit today because Nat's mom is dead-set against me driving. we didn't bother trying to convince her, we just did it while she was getting her hair done. Maybe I'll pay her to get her hair done every day.

For dinner, Nat and I went out to night market and got more squid balls. In the process of cooking:

Then we went to another place and got oyster pancake, liver soup, and a veggie. Back at the house to generally hang around and BS, then a dessert which is another unique one from anything we're used to. A sweet soupy mix with red beans and more tapioca balls that you find in the bubble tea. Then we hung out talking to Nat's dad for a while and stayed up too late.

Tomorrow Nat's brother comes into town. No idea what that will entail.

Taiwan Day 7 - An Ordinary Day

2011-01-06T04:35:00.000-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Confused Dude Man is back manning the 7-11. I'm tired this morning so coffee is important. He better not screw it up. I figured out the creamer numbers. I do know they have different hand gestures for numbers above 5, at least I know the one for 6, which is pretty much the same hand gesture for "Hang 10, dude." What this guy was doing was giving me 3 creamers and 2 sugars for each coffee, not total. So when Nat woke up today she had a stack of creamers awaiting her, and 4 sugars.

It was raining when I went out this morning, which is the first time I've actually ridden in the rain. Temps were 50-55, as usual, so it was a bit chilly but not bad after a few minutes. Today's ride was going to be shorter so I went later, avoiding the mad rush of middle school kids on their bikes which I was subject to yesterday. I went in the direction of the Toughest Climb with an idea to maybe climb up to another temple or explore a road on the map that sort of just went up and ended. I decided to go with the exploration as it seemed the better road to choose.

The road was not well traveled so I figured I was on another farm road, so I was surprised when I found this off to the side of the road:

I don't think many people live in, or visit, this area but it may be the off season. It didn't seem like much of a tourist attraction area no matter what, so I think that's sort of a relic of times past. It's a cool relic and once again, my sense of wonder at this island never stops. I'm pretty sure I could bike here forever and keep being entertained by this stuff. There are "things" everywhere, and it seems like other "things" are being built while previous ones are left to be reclaimed by the land. As I was riding up the hill, off to the left on top of the ridge were what looked like a series of buildings that could pass for hotels. If it were my first time here, I'd be thoroughly perplexed by this. But I've seen this sort of thing at the temples before, and they're sometimes used for housing the people who go to the temple for multi-night stays. Still, I find them fascinating.

Eventually the road got sketchy, which happens every day, and here we see where the road has started being reclaimed by the river. Road fall, or fail? Look behind the sign to see just how much of the road is now gone. It appears that the retaining wall didn't exactly hold up its end of the bargain.

Very shortly after this, the road turned into washed out mud, and I called it a ride. The rain had functioned to clean my bike a little, and I didn't want to ride through mud just to see if the house on the other side of the river held a shotgun-toting farmer or not. The road has been drilled by the flood zone, and likely gets washed out every year and re-blazed by trucks to get to the other side. Power lines still cross over to the building so I presume it's still used for something. It was in much better shape than a lot of houses I see being occupied so I have to assume it's still in use.

Got back to the apartment and I was a filthy wet mess, which is different than usual because I was wetter than I normally am. Actually the bike was cleaner than usual, but still dirty and also wet. So I had to clean up a little extra since I need to bring the bike inside after every ride. Leaving it outside, even locked, means it will disappear in no time. I keep it in the office here. After a quick cleanup and some more work, we head out to lunch without Julia so we can eat in relative peace. We get fried rice, mine is lamb and Nat's is pork. As usual, food was good.

The rest of the afternoon is relatively low-key, and this is where our trip may start to get a little mundane for the readers. The reality is that I've got to work, and we simply don't have enough exciting touristy things to do for 44 straight days. So we're going to have some down days, and today was pretty much one of them. Of course, we didn't just sit and watch TV all day so our daily life on an average day is still different than it would normally be, but there were no museums nor coffee gatherings this afternoon.

I did, however, decide I had to try to keep the bike clean. This island is relentless with the grime that accumulates everywhere. While it's no big deal on the frame, it will rapidly grind away my drivetrain and render my brakes inoperable before long. I'm starting to wonder if this thing is even going to make it 6 weeks. So, I took it outside and brushed it off with a toilet bowl brush, then decided I needed better tools for the job. It looks better, but still needs some work. Here it is after a token cleaning:

We set out late afternoon for another excursion, which basically means walking out the front door and going somewhere. Since everything is within walking distance, your daily life is just different here. You don't need to drive to the store and buy a week's worth of groceries. You go out and get what you need every day. I like this, as it means everything you eat is fresher and you get out and walk more often. Plus it gets you out of the house.

But first, we made a quick stop at the English library on the other side of the park. While nothing to write home about, it gave us something to do for a little bit:

Then it was out on another suicide shopping run: afternoon snack of a samosa-like thing but with veggies, oysters, eggs, and hot sauce inside. Then back through the park, to the corner pharmacy, a little odds & ends store (think daily life plus small hardware needs), the grocery store, the bakery, back to the park, and finally home. Here are my makeshift bike cleaning tools:

Degreaser, a few brushes, and some rags. Combined with the lube I brought this should get me to the 44th day. After that, I fully expect the bike to completely seize up and be inoperable when I get back. As long as it makes it, I'll be happy. I'll deal with the future when it gets here.

Dinner is rice with pork, veggies with pork, stinky tofu, and squid balls. The stinky tofu is one of those things that almost no white people eat, but I totally dig it. Every time it comes up that I like it, people here can't believe it. The squid balls aren't actual testicles, but some sort of night market concoction that is really tasty. Even though we had 4 things it was a completely reasonable dinner. We eat so often than by the end of the day I don't really have it in me to gorge further.

Topped it off with a Saranac, which really hit the spot, then Nat ran out and got 2 desserts which we split. The first was something called grass jelly, which is...honestly I don't even know how to describe it. Black jello-like sweet substance with those starch balls you find in the bubble tea. The other was a sort of tofu and soymilk concoction with more starch balls and some sesame seeds. Both were good and filling, and now I'm ready for bed, for sure.

Taiwan Day 6 - The Sun & a Museum

2011-01-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

I've pretty much figured out my work groove. It goes something like this. Wake up early, work for a few hours and help out with the end of the day back on EST. Then go for a ride, come home, then work maybe 2 more hours and help the 2nd shift guy with any issues he's having. Then we do lunch and go out, run errands, do stuff, etc. If we're home I may hop online, or if I see emails when I'm out I'll reply. At the end of the day I'll throw in a few more hours unless I get them in during the day. I'm trying to cross-train this guy in London but he doesn't get in until 5:00 pm Taiwan time. So far, this has worked well. My PC in NY stopped responding to remote attempts but we got that worked out, mostly.

Told Nat I was going on a bit of a longer ride this morning, for no other reason than I want to start sprinkling in more time in the saddle so I can go out and explore more stuff. Most of the ride I had done before, but there was a bit of an extension at the end which I wanted to loop because it leads me to the base of 3 different epic rides I'd like to try to do before we leave - Pear Mountain, TaiPing Mountain, and the north cross-island highway. So it was a sort of scouting mission for those.

I preloaded breakfast and set out with the roads still wet from the rain overnight. The sun was supposed to show its face today but I was doubtful until I saw some blue sky in the distance, straight ahead. For the first 10 miles to the base of the hills, I was looking at a view straight out of a post card. Unfortunately I didn't have the good camera (I use the "old" digital to throw in my pocket) so the quality isn't really that great. But this gives you an idea:

Shortly after I headed off the main drag and onto an "industrial road" which is what a lot of these lesser roads are called. This one was well-paved and wide, so it wasn't a quarry road or anything like that. It went up quickly but not for very long, and it wasn't the leg-burner that the previous 2 days had been. I wanted today to be a tamer ride, so I scouted out a route with less vertical. No holy grail on this ride, at least not in theory. Imagine my surprise when I got to the top and saw this:

Down below is a massive riverbed which is actually mined for rocks in the dry season, which it is right now. You can see how small the actual river is. This is a clue about how massive the mountains are here. When the heavy rains come down on the hills and the water washes away on the way to the ocean, this will be full of raging water. This is a hint of what the rivers can do here when the big storms come:

Goodbye Hotel!

But not today. This day was full of awesome views and, again, slick roads. On the way up one of the hills my rear wheel spun out and slid a good 6 inches to 1 side. So even the shoulders of the well-traveled roads end up being slick as snot. When I got to the top of the climb today, I could actually see the green moss growing on the edge of the road. In some spots, there is a sort of constant landslide-wash dumping onto the road, which also makes it slippery. I have given up all notion of having a clean bike in this country. This is what my rear brake caliper looks like:

I got to the end of the climb for the day, which again was almost 2500 feet all told. This seems to be my magic number this week. I reached the base of TaiPing Mountain, which I think will be the first epic as it's only 34 miles from the apartment to the top. Of course, it's als0 over 6000 feet in the air so those last 10 miles may be a really tough slog. The other direction is Pear Mountain, which is a solid 65 mile ride but with the same vertical. Finally the cross-island highway splits off a bit further and goes up and over, no idea what that really entails. Climbing, I bet.

Unfortunately there's not a 7-11 out there, so water restocking may be an issue. I'll have to consult with the local guy and ask what the deal is with that. I can probably stuff 2 bottles in my jersey but it will be a bit of a force. I'd rather bring 2-3 and be able to stop somewhere. Even with 4, I'd probably spend the last 1-2 hours with no water. Thankfully it's almost literally 34 miles up, and 34 miles back down to end. I'm thinking 4.5-5 hours in total.

After I got back I was met by everyone leaving, and told by the FIL that we had a lunch date. In theory, I should be working so I needed to see how things were going. After a quick shower I hopped online with a pot of tea and saw that everything was quiet so I was able to join them. We were being treated by the guy who gave us that handmade glass dragon that we have hanging on the wall at home. They took us to the hotel where we had coffee yesterday. It was a high-end buffet place that most of the readers would have liked, I think. But Julia still objected and threw up when she saw the whole fish sitting on the table. She had no problem hawking mom's rum raisin ice cream though:

After lunch we drove to an Ilan museum which has a unique design best described by a picture. But since my set doesn't have any until the end, you'll need to wade through the next few paragraphs while we're inside. The basis of the museum is the cultural & ecological formation of the county as is stands today, from plants/animals to people to the ocean. It was pretty cool and much of it was available in English. I totally dig these high-level views so it was actually pretty cool. The design of the place, both inside and out, was awesome also.

This is called Turtle Island and is in almost every picture you see of the landscape. Really, doesn't it look like a fish more than a turtle?

This is a model of the greased pole competition that the aborigines used to have. The poles would be like 50 feet high and loaded with grease. You had 5 guys to try and make it up. They would stand on top of each other's shoulders and the last guy would have to climb up the greased pole with only a rope to wrap around the pole to use as leverage. When he got to the top, he would then need to climb horizontally out away from the base and then up over that top level. Pretty cool model:

This is a model of an old-style family house complex. An entire family would live here, and my FIL actually grew up in something like this. The entire grounds was surrounded by bamboo to help when the typhoons would come. Rice paddys were outside the bamboo, and the middle courtyard was where grain was processed, or where the kids would play. Storage huts of a kind were on the outside:

This was probably my favorite thing. It was a block model of the county, and the different elevation points had different numbers of blocks stacked up. he colors/images in the blocks would change so it almost appeared to be a sort of living entity. I love maps and stuff like this:

After a quick stop in the gift shop we took some pictures outside. Here you can see the shape of the building as well as how much Julia likes to cooperate with my FIL when he wants her to pose:

After a bunch of pictures we walked across the street to have a scallion pancake and a sort of dessert unique to the island. It's a pastry wrap filled with shaved peanut candy, cilantro, and taro ice cream. I love these and wish we could get a reasonable version in the states. The scallion pancake was a bit of a different style but had an egg in it and was loaded with scallions, then topped with a little hot sauce. Very good, even if it was different. Really hit the spot at the moment.

After that we went home and just had some noodles and veggies for dinner and put together some of the things we got at the museum for Julia, including a paper guy decked out in traditional Chinese garb and a balsa wood ferris wheel. And I had a Chimay, which was good but I think a bit long in the tooth.

2 firsts for today: A street cleaner (really? I never would have guessed) and a "real" road biker.

Taiwan Day 5 - The Toughest Climb

2011-01-04T14:32:00.000-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Terren commented that he wishes I traveled more often so I would produce more stories like this. After careful consideration, I'm down with this idea. I just need to find someone to bankroll my excursions. I'm not sure how well this will play out after 44 days, so it might get old. I'll have to keep trying to do interesting things. Thankfully there are a) a million interesting places to ride and b) Nat has like 50+ cousins, many of them like Darin. Maybe I'll go have some beers with her dentist-supplier cousin. 98% chance the sake gets busted out if I do that.

Jim mentioned getting lost and if I can read any of these signs. No, I can't. Well, I can read the smallest bit of Chinese, but it would be mostly numbers and the word good or big. So if everything were named "big 3 road" or "good man road" I'd be fine. But they're not, so I rely on the county roads being marked (2, 7, 9, etc), and the GPS. The GPS set me right the first day, as I missed a turn near the apartment. On the hill climb days there's really nowhere to get lost. The roads that go up usually have only 2 options: up and down. Unless something suddenly propels you sideways, you generally only need to go out or back. I've gotten to know the town a little bit, but it's still confusing since every intersection looks the same.

So on to Tuesday...

Getting coffee this morning was harder, as the usual Dude Man was replaced with another wide-eyed sub-Dude Man who simply could not understand anything I said. I know my Chinese isn't great but it's pretty hard to screw up 1, 2, and 3. I knew I was in for a tough draw when I held up 3 fingers and he gave me 1 creamer. I don't think sub-Dude man was that dumb, he was just floored by a white man who was speaking his language. In the end, he just gave me 7 creamers and sugars, I guess to cover his bases. Not sure what 3 fingers means here. I held them sideways which maybe means, "I'm going to stab you if you don't give me an indeterminate number of creamers"?

My adventure on the bike for today was, of course, the "toughest climb in the county" or town, that I had heard about yesterday. After discussing with the FIL I decided to give it a go and loaded the GPS up last night. This wasn't one of the county roads, so winging it wasn't going to work. There seemed to be 2 climbs and I loaded them both on the GPS and decided to do them both just to cover my bases.

The first climb was a questionable road choice, and I knew as soon as I turned onto the road that it wasn't right. But in looking at the elevation profile, it seemed that this one was the higher of the 2 so I wanted to do this before trying the hard one. I immediately knew I was on a farming road and that car traffic here would be minimal to none. About halfway up I saw a car pulled off to the side and some guy was working on an embankment. Not sure what that's for as it's clear very, very few people come up here very often. I kept going even though I knew this road wasn't right. Eventually I was proved correct as the road simply became impassable:

Let me step back a bit and say how great these rides have been for me thus far. Every time we've come here in the past, I've always had this sense of wonder about what's "out there". I would often would look up at the hills and see temples or small shacks and think to myself how neat it would be to get up there and see them, just see what the hell is going on up there. Well finally, I can do that. I can get on my bike and pretty much just point and go. With the awesome Google maps feature of user-loaded pics, you can see just about any lookout in the world now. Combined with the satellite view you can check out an area and see if any roads are actually there, and if people have gone and uploaded pics for the area. Sprinkle in the GPS and you have both the adventure of an explorer and the security of the white-bred honky that I really am. It's totally a win-win!

Forgot to mention yesterday that my ears popped as I was climbing. It happened again today, twice. This is a cool phenomenon.

The way back down was really sketchy. It turns out that the roads which aren't traveled very often don't actually need to have wet cement dust sprinkled on the road. A thin layer of algae (or moss?) covers the road and as I was climbing up, my tires would actually spin out on the pedal stroke. Coming down this made things interesting, and for the second day in a row my hands hurt from braking so much. It's not that you can't stop on these roads. The more scary part is that this was "almost" a one-lane road (call it 5/6 of a lane) and if a car were coming up, no way you'd be able to stop in time.

The official climb started with the rooster:

This time I knew I was on the right path, as some of the clues he had given me started to become evident. There was a road to the left to avoid, which went to a small temple. Then another road to the right which went to the bigger temple. There was a sign for it which I can't read but which was brightly colored and seemed to strike a bell as a temple sign. Plus, this road was much more traveled and there were really no turns to speak of. Google maps is great, but out here things can be a little inaccurate. The road went way past where Google maps said it was going to go and ended up being much more elevation that the first climb.

I have to give this guy credit, the climb was solid. He said the end got very steep and as I got close to the top the road turned and I saw the road pitch up pretty steeply. I never needed to stand, so it wasn't as bad as the worst NJ climbs, but it was a solid climb. Apparently, there was supposed to be a journal to sign when I got to the top but I wasn't sure if I'd find it or not. Well, it turns out that being blind might not be enough of an excuse to not find it:

I signed the book, took a few pics (see the link at the top), then turned around and went back down. As I got to the bottom I saw I had been out for 1:46, and had told Nat I would be 1.5 hours. I knew she wouldn't be too-too concerned. But I high-tailed it back to town because I was out much longer than I expected. I got home and hammered a late breakfast, then a bar of Dove chocolate, then hopped online to do some work. One of Nat's cousins came over and we had lunch. This one was beans, gizzard, and roast duck:

Chris asked about the organs and if animals have muscles here. There are no cows, so throw that one out. The primary "big" animal would be a pig, and the whole damn thing gets eaten. The meat sauce that was on top of the rice is made of pork, and pork bits are often used to flavor other kinds of rice or vegetables. In general, the people here don't take a pig, cut out the juiciest parts, and throw away the rest. The prime part is taken and spread as thin as possible to make the most of the animal. When you have 10 acres of land, you grow 9.5 acres of vegetables, and maybe use a half acre to grow grain for the pig. You also feed it slop leftovers. In the US, we would take the 10 acres of land, put 500 pigs on it, then plant 10,000 acres of grain in Kansas to feed it.

After lunch, I tried to teach Julia how to act gangster:

We'll need to work on that. We took a ride to the mall in Ilan (20 minutes north) to buy some stuff for Julia and burn some time away from the house. We went with Nat's dad while her mom stayed back at the house to relax a bit. We got her a puzzle and some toys then went to get some coffee up in the hotel on the roof of the mall. Later we went food shopping in the basement and found some cheese, cream cheese, and finally beer:

While Saranac isn't my favorite, it works. I think this cost me $10 for a 6 pack, which isn't terrible considering where we are.

Taiwan Day 4 - Climbing the Quarry

2011-01-03T14:35:00.001-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Note the link above - I put it at the top of each day to see all the pics. Nat said she didn't notice it yesterday.

For breakfast this morning I needed to eat some fruit, so I had a kiwi and a banana, plus the usual cup of coffee. When the sun came up I geared up for a ride and hit the road, still not sure where I was going. The big mountain still lured me on, but the warnings from yesterday were still sort of in the back of my mind. Of course, I went straight in the direction of the mountain, and figured I'd "wing it". It took me only 20 minutes to get there, but the road wasn't marked so I wasn't sure what to do. Well, it was marked but it didn't have the English name so I missed it.

Eventually I turned around in the other direction it was marked, so I started going up. Immediately I was met with 3 trucks full of stone, which is apparently what they mine for up on top of the hill. I continued on past the lower quarry entrance and kept going. Shortly after the entrance the road turned to gravel, and I thought my day was done. But I looked out across and saw that it was pavement on the other side so I rode through it and started climbing.

And climbing.

To say it went up fast is an understatement. I was in my lowest gear quite a bit and it was still a hard slog. I had been warned about the trucks coming down but after 1500 vertical feet I had seen nothing. But then, the first one came down. Did I mention this was a 1 lane road?

The first few trucks were a little nerve-wracking, but after that I made my peace with them, and they with me. I saw that the first guy was on his radio when he passed me, so I can only assume he was sending back the message of, "Holy shit stupid fucking white man in blue and orange neon is riding his bike up the quarry road!"

The looks on the truck driver's faces ranged from a nod, to shocked surprise, to smiles. One guy even stopped his truck and we cobbled together a conversation in mixed Chinese and English. We both knew a little of each other's language so we were able to get through that it was really high up there, my wife is Taiwanese, her family lives here, we're on vacation, I work online, and my boss lives in Chicago. He asked a few more questions which I didn't understand. So I told him he had a big ass (ni de pi gu hen da!) and we moved on.

One thing I find fascinating about this island is the prevalence of hiking trails. Apparently, when the Japanese colonized the island they forced the natives to build all sorts of cross-island trails, roads, and railways. Many of these are now washed away in landslides and from general lack of use. But some are still active and yesterday I caught a few glimpses of trails here & there. Note the rope to help you get up:

I also found the next pic insanely interesting. There was a bucket conveyor that went all the way up the mountain. It was essentially a ski lift for rocks, but I presume to send them down. As I started climbing the hill, I saw that it went way, way up. As I got way, way up, I later came to a spot where the mountain just loomed over me in gigantic fashion. I had thought I was getting close, but I rounded a turn at one point and saw that I was, in fact, not close. The crazy conveyor kept going up:

They apparently wash down the rocks before they load them in the truck, for whatever reason, and this leaves a stream of water on the roads after the trucks pass. This was good going up, as the trucks all took the same route. So when I would approach a truck I would see where he was going to go, and I would avoid it. I presume I was much less of a hazard this way. As I got closer to the top, however, it struck me that the water was also mixing with stone dust, which is the same stone used to make cement. Everything on the island is made of cement.

So, for those of you who have ever mixed cement, you know that when it's wet, it's slick as grease. What was basically slowly covering the road was a greasy film. As I went further on, it started to rain.

Just after I had talked to the driver who stopped, and rounding the turn to see the massive mountain looming ahead, I realized I'd never have enough time to make it to the top. I had to get to the point where the GPS said 2500 feet, but then had to turn around and head home. This was unfortunate for 2 reasons. The first is that this will be my only trip up this hill, as it's pretty dangerous and dreadfully dirty. The second was that I was now faced with the task of going down the hill that was covered in greasy cement dust, in the rain, with the trucks now coming up the hill. I thought it would be a slow affair, and it was, as I only averaged something like 12 mph going down. But the GPS reeled off the vertical in rapid fashion, going from 2500 feet to -150 in absolutely no time. Even putzing along, it was a rapid descent.

My bike and I were both covered in this shit when I got home:

We had loose plans to hit up a local museum but the light rain made it less appealing, as it is partly outside and it's not as cool if you only stay inside, apparently. So we ran some errands which included going to get a data plan for my phone, grabbing a coffee, getting 2 Ethernet cables, going to an arts and crafts store for Julia, and then grabbing lunch. But before I post the pics of food that you weak-stomached mortals complain about, let me just say again...

Data plan bitches!

Let me also say that the 3G here is just about as fast as my wifi at home. This island is data saturated.

Ok, with that out of the way let me give you the sticky rice with pork sauce on top:

In the afternoon we went for a little walk again, which resulted in us buying more stuff. The danger of living here is that there is anything you can think of within a half-mile radius. So we go out and wind up buying something to eat & drink each time we go, plus something we forgot the last time. This trip was bubble tea, the bakery, an extension chord, and some lotion for Julia. They put these on the sidewalks when they don't want scooters to slaughter the area:

Back at the apartment where I get back into a little work, though I admit that the first day is hard to find my work groove. I did some documents earlier and figured out a little of what I need to get done. but it's hard to really get into anything when the rest of the company is sleeping and the market hasn't even opened yet. So I punch out a few emails to help with some of the stuff I'm doing and then mull around the house all day. I need to define some concrete work items to make it easier to get stuff done.

Later in the afternoon my FIL comes back and tells me he's found me some more riding partners, presumably a bit more capable than Darin. They happen to be going back to the store so we join them for a bit, and they discuss various local routes. With the limited I can understand and in looking at the pictures, they do seem more capable than Darin but really well below what I'm used to, even with my 20+ pound bike. They have done the "toughest climb" in the country, which goes up to something like 3200 meters, almost 10,000 feet. It's apparently the highest road climb in the country. The cutoff to qualify is 7 hours. That's solid, I'll admit that.

He also told me about a local hill climb challenge that is supposed to be really hard in he last 200 m. Yes, everything here is m and km. I loaded it up on the GPS and plan to do it tomorrow morning. By the time I post this I will have likely gone out & come back already, so the FB users will likely already know if I made it.

Dinner for us is noodles. But Julia eats like most of you and is disgusted with our stuff. She gets Pizza Hut, which I have to admit is actually pretty good:

Taiwan Day 3 - Hangin' with Darin

2011-01-02T23:28:00.001-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Wake up closer to 5:00 today, so I'm pretty much a normal schedule. Today is Sunday, my last day of pure freedom before I have to cobble together some sort of work plan. Yesterday was unsuccessful in finding a back-up connection. There's an Internet cafe a block away so we can try that, though Nat says it's a little seedy. I may just ride it out until tomorrow then figure it out, which surely sounds better than it really is. It's a bit of a scratch workday of sorts, since our 5:00 pm is 4:00 am on the East coast. So I'd be more or less done working before they even started. I can back-load the day a little bit if I have to.

But that's tomorrow.

Today I kicked off the day with my first foray into the world on my own, a trip to 7-11 to get coffee. With 1 small glitch, I'm able to get 2 cups of coffee. The "small glitch" is that I asked for a cup of hot lard instead of actual coffee, so Nat had to be happy with the fact I brought home something that was hot and had sugar and creamer in it. Growing pains.

Breakfast was rice ball again, but this time the better kind, though I have to admit it wasn't as good as I remember it being. Ingredients are rice, fried dough (cruller), pickled veggies, dried pork, and egg, as well as some sort of sauce. As usual, banging:

Then, I had to pay the piper and go for a bike ride with Nat's cousin. I had a feeling that this was going to be a slow ride. Yesterday when I told him how fast I usually ride he nearly fell out of his chair. But like a trooper, he called this morning and still wanted to go. I had a few minutes to get ready and in that time I managed to figure out how to get the work laptop connected with the ADSL router and was able to remote into my work PC. So before 9:00 the work connection issue was solved, as was the blog posting issue. Now tomorrow I just need that data plan and I'll be connected again.

As soon as I stepped outside I knew I was in for an interesting ride. Wearing jeans and about 12 layers of clothing, Darin (as he calls himself) was waiting for me. He also sported a small radio mounted to the bag on his handlebars. I think I mentioned yesterday that his English was so bad that it made me confident in being able to speak Chinese to him. This was well and good for casual conversation with Nat's dad as a translator. But with just us, things were...interesting.

Darrin was a good sport, but I have to be honest, my man isn't going to be riding a bike for a living any time soon. Not that I am, mind you. But he...well, he isn't. We were keeping a pretty slow pace and he still needed to take a break every 10-15 minutes. While Taiwan is a land of hills, this route wasn't particularly hilly:

After the ride, during which he kept insisting we stop and get beer, we went back to his house to drink tea, eat some salty food, and watch NBA basketball then college football. Seriously, you can't make this shit up. I have to say I've come a long way since the first time I came here. I remember the first trip how easily annoyed I would get at being thrust into these family situations and not knowing jack-shit about anything, and not being able to understand or say anything. Here I was today sitting in what amounts to a stranger's living room in full spandex drinking tea and watching basketball. Dude man's wife came in and rolled with it, breaking out some salty snacks to keep us from being hungry.

After the ride I went back and showered, saw Nat's aunt real quick, and was informed that I had 1 minute to get ready to go to lunch, which was with the same posse we had seen yesterday, including Darin. As usual, the food was banging, and I won't bother trying to detail it all here. Check the pic link at the top to see all the food and descriptions. This was one of the things we had, fried tofu:

And Darin got his way after all:

Back at the apartment to make noodles for Julia because she won't eat much of anything in this country. With the addition of video games to her life, she at least allows us to eat in relative silence. Towards the end of the meal things were drawing on a bit long, but she made it with no issue and was able to deal with the array of strange looking foods that were dropped in front of her. After she had lunch, Nat's dad went out to get us some scallion pancakes because we never got it the day before. The last thing I needed was more to eat, but he's just non-stop with this food.

After the early afternoon snack, we took a walk and were surprised that Julia was a trooper and walked much further than either of us thought she would. The weather was nice, mid-60s in the afternoon. We got within striking distance of the giant Giant shop I had seen on the way back from hanging out watching basketball, so we went over and picked up a floor pump for the bike. We also asked about group rides and if one of my planned rides (tomorrow, let's go up!) was a bad idea or not. I found a road not far away that goes straight up the mountain but was told there's a quarry up top and that trucks frequently drive up & down the road. I'm still thinking about checking it out.

Back to the apartment for an easy dinner and low-key night. The first 3 days have been somewhat chaotic and it was nice to get a little down time. But with Julia, such a thing does not exist.

Taiwan Day 2 - The First Ride

2011-01-02T14:44:00.000-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Day 2 begins at 4:00 and change. We all get about 8 hours which is fine for Nat and I but Julia needs more. Still, nothing we do works and she's up for the day just after 4:00 as well. I slept well, waking up only for 2 minutes at 1:20 to the sounds of fireworks and cheering. Apparently it had been going on since midnight, but I heard the last 2 minutes. I was tired. We lay in bed for a bit and head out to look for breakfast at 5:30 only to find nothing open. We settle for 7-11 coffee and buns. I love the tea eggs but it's too early for this:

Back at the apartment I dial it up for my first bike ride in Taiwan. I'm ready to go at 7:30 but Nat wants me to wait for her dad to make sure I have my directions right. After some discussion he sends me out a different way than I was going to go, but more or less the same roads. My plan was going to be to ride out a county road until I was halfway, then turn around. This was sends me out in a loop and returning the same way. This looks like a good basic loop of the county and brings me to the foothills of the mountains I'll be ready to climb before too long.

Temps were surprisingly cold, having dipped into the 40s overnight. When I started it was about 50 or so, but given what we came from it was more than warm enough. Riding through the traffic was both exhilarating and nerve-wracking. In general I avoid high-traffic roads at home so everything was a little intense for the first few minutes. Before long I was out of town and things got pretty quiet. It was nice to get out and I ended up with a solid 2+ hour loop, doing some climbing and seeing sights I never experience at home, such as roads being closed due to landslides. This never gets old to me. This is much bigger than it looks in the pic:

My legs were jetlag-dead still but came around after an hour and change. Coming back to town I really started to feel good and when I went through a town then back to Luodong, I lost some of my fear in riding with these psychopaths on the road. The cars are somewhat predictable, but the old blind people on scooters are tough to judge. I can't wait to get some video of riding in this. Managed to not get lost and found my way back, which is so much easier said than done here. The GPS with the ride track helped at the very end, since every intersection of these towns all look the same. Saw this along the way back:

First ride of the new year! It was still 2010 in NJ when I finished up.

Nat was out getting a haircut and came back when I was just about done with the shower. Lunch was back at the apartment again, just some food that Nat and her mom went out to get plus some rice & veggies that Nat's mom made. More liver, some pig scalp, and a few other things. Another bang up meal of things that most people would be less than thrilled to eat.

After lunch we went out to pick up a few things and saw this guy walking around. Not sure if he was a monk, but he was sorta doing a walking meditation as he walked. He had some form of ID around his neck. Not sure what that was all about:

The shops are a block away, and have more cheap garbage that you can possibly imagine. Many people think that China sends all their cheap garbage to the US, but Taiwan has just as much of it, and it's even cheaper than most of what you see in the states. Here is a pic of the 2 haircut girls with a bag of Chinese garbage:

Mid afternoon and we start some of the relative visits. First, Nat's dad wants to get me some of the famous scallion pancakes but the line is too long. People appreciate their food here:

We stop and try to get a data plan for my iPhone, which I really want because I want to post up my Facebook status as, "Data plan, bitches!" While the price is right (less than $30 for a month of unlimited data) the guy there says we should go with the company across town because the coverage will be better. I'm down with that but I'll need to wait for Monday as they're closed today (holiday) and Sunday.

First stop is the FIL's sister where we have some tea and snacks. One of Nat's cousin's is there and he can speak a nominal amount of English. He also rides a road bike and was super excited to talk to me about it. His English is probably worse than my Chinese, so I feel completely comfortable in actually answering him in Chinese. The conversation is neat for a bit, but he wants me to commit to a ride Sunday morning and I have no idea if that will work out or not. I'd probably need to ride there if I actually want to make it happen.

Second stop is FIL's oldest brother, and it only ends up being a short visit.

A quick run to the market for juice (and my go-to tea) and I find the beer cooler. I find it hard to believe they import this shit to Taiwan:

Dinner is night market, but at the house:

Night market. In general, you don't get night market food and bring it back to the house. But Julia is fading and it's cold out. So Nat and her folks go out and just pick some stuff up while I sit here and write this and Julia plays her game. Dinner is oyster pancake, which is nothing at all like a pancake, as it's oysters, eggs, and starch topped with a red sauce of some sort. They also get a Chinese hot dog (small pork sausage and a "bun" made out of rice) and grass jelly, which is just a name for some dessert.

Bedtime is early again, 8:30 and we all hit the sack.

Taiwan Day 1 - The Food Orgy Begins

2011-01-02T13:06:00.001-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

Day 1 begins where day 0 ends, which is some point in time when I decide that it happens. Normally a day ends when you go to bed, and the next day begins when you wake up. Without that nightly sleep, there really is no solid ending & beginning. So our first day in Taiwan began when we saw the MIL, FIL, and BIL waiting to pick us up. We piled our stuff into 2 cars and were off.

I always love the first drive out of the airport. Not because the scenery is so amazing, but because the scenery is just so different. You look out and see rice paddies and small cars & trucks. The signs, cars, landscape, buildings - all different. Certainly not in the proverbial Kansas anymore. This isn't anything amazing but shows you a difernt view from outside the window:

The first order of business is breakfast, and we stop to get a rice ball which is more of a rice "stick" than ball. It's sticky rice wrapped around shredded & dried pork, veggies and maybe something else depending on who makes it. We also get a few other things plus fresh soymilk. I love the soymilk here and end up drinking it almost every day we're here.

Back to Calvin's apartment to eat breakfast and shower. Also checked to make sure I could connect to work, and I was able to. That's my redundancy only, since we don't really want to spend 6 weeks there. But I needed to make sure I could get a connection since the whole trip is sort of predicated onmy being able to do some work while we're there. Julia also landed a late Christmas present which she tore into:

Then we piled into the car and headed down to Luodong, which is where the apartment is. We took some day bags in the car and my bike in the trunk. The rest of the luggage was in Calvin's car and was coming down later. The drive from Taipei to Luodong takes about 1:15 and cuts through the mountains on a relatively new freeway which makes the drive much faster than it was 5 years ago. This is where you really know you're somewhere else. I always love this drive with the roads winding through the steep hills then occasionally boring straight into them. Also dig the temples just plopped randomly along the way.

This one shows what I've referred to before. The terraced hillside is used for growing something or other. Land is at a premium here:

Back to the apartment and I put the bike together in less than 10 minutes with the multitool. Unfortunately I left all my bike clothes back in the luggage in Taipei. Not a big deal as it will be hard enough to stay awake through this dinner tonight. So, I'm happy that I was able to get the bike together and more or less ready to roll. Tomorrow I can give it a shot for real.

Lunch is on the later side, which suits me fine as we've been more or less eating since we left the house on Wednesday night. We had liver and noodles with intestine. That stuff is really good:

Unfortunately I wasn't able to connect to work at the apartment. There are a few different options to try still but the primary line doesn't work. It's a wire, not wireless, but I can't even get an IP address when I plug in. Something's rotten with this one. It's an ADSL modem from the stone age, which may have something to do with it. I have 3 days to figure it out.

Like many of you, Julia does not eat intestine and liver, so we went to McDonalds:

Then we walked around town a bit, got some coffee, played at the park with some local drunks, and picked up a few things we needed for the apartment. At 5:00 we went to dinner for my MIL's birthday. I guess it was our NYE dinner also, but that was somewhat of a back-burner thing given that we all just wanted to go to bed. The meal was a super high-end Japanese place, and it was really excellent. Julia was pretty much shot though, and it was all we could do to keep her from falling asleep during the meal. Nat looked cooked as well.

Back at the apartment and we get our sleep clothes together and hit the sack. But first I break out a few of Julia's stuffed animals that I had packed and surprise her with them. The big one was the 2 foot tall smurf which she's totally stoked about. Still tired, she's full of smiles when we go to bed. The day was pretty tiring but the pre-jetlag efort worked, and we stay up past 8:00 with little issue.

Taiwan Day 0 - In Transit

2011-01-02T02:54:00.000-08:00

Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.

I never really count the day of flight as a day of vacation, but we end up spending 1.5 "days" from leaving the house to walking out of the airport in Taiwan. The real time is about 24 hours (24.5 this time) but with the time difference we left the house on Wednesday night at 7:30 and got out of the airport around 9:00 on Friday morning. It's not a vacation day but it counts for something. So I call it day 0.

Day 0 was the flight, and that's it. It sounds like a reasonably easy endeavor. Pack, get on plane, get off plane, and spend 6 weeks in another country. But going halfway around the world makes everything tougher. Aside from the considerable packing we needed to do for a trip this long, the travel is a battle of sorts in it's own right. Unfortunately, this trip is pretty boring and going on about the flight isn't going to be that interesting to many people not in the airline industry. And even then, I'm sure they've heard it all before.

The food was airline food. I remember the food on our first trip here was reasonably good. But as one might expect, the bottom line has been maximized which translates to: You eat trash. The airline immediately puts you on Taiwan time, so you get on and eat lunch, since it's about noon in Taiwan. Lunch was some sort of pork and mashed potatoes.

With the meal, of course they serve spreadable butter. Most of the people reading this will already know the story of my butter-in-law, who asked us to bring 2 tubs of spreadable butter with us. For those of you who haven't heard the story before, that's pretty much it. Well that, and I've changed his title from brother-in-law to butter-in-law, either way he will referred to BIL most of the time.

One of the options on the TV is to show how far you've gone and how far you have to go. The first leg is the shortest, and it's long:

One of the leprechauns (which is what I call the green-clad stewardesses) gave Julia some stickers to play with. It was a big hit, and kept her pretty occupied for much of the trip to Alaska.

Just like I can't imagine how one got through an 8 hour work day without the Internet, I can't imagine what flight used to be like before electronics. Here Nat & Julia sit back and relax and waste some time. I don't love the expression "waste time" but when you're stuck in an 18" wide seat this long, it's not like living in the moment is always a great thing. There is a notion to "be here now" but to me that begs the question: What if "here" is jail?

Mom gives up while Julia watches on:

Finally, Julia gives up also and I find myself with 2 little feet on my lap:

Julia wasn't thrilled when we woke her up in Anchorage. The trip there is longer, but the layover gives you a much needed mental break. Still, she doesn't look like she needs a break so much as more sleep:

The layover was short but then they had to de-ice the airplane. I'm not sure why you need to de-ice the plane when it's 19 degrees. In the air the display says the temps are -62. Either way, we were a little delayed but not much. One of the leprechauns helping with the overhead arrangements:

Leg 2, the mental image is enough to crack your sanity:

Not long into the second leg, the feet come back:

I slept on & off 2 different times for about 2 hours each. Nat slept a bit more than I did. And Julia did about 7 hours in total. I kept a little 1 line journal of the trip and took a picture of each line. I was going to overlay them in a time lapse video but the idea sounded better at the time and nothing explosive ever happened in my head so nothing gold came out. I read a bit (went with Sci Fi: Hyperion), played some games, played with Julia, and slept some. The trip wasn't short by any means but before I knew it we were having breakfast served:

Somewhere along the line Julia refuses to not make a face at the camera now:

Welcome to Taiwan:

The leprechaun army awaits their luggage:

Eventually, the bike is found. I had a feeling it wouldn't come in on the conveyor, and I was right. We found it after everyone else was gone. It was standing off to the side with someone else's guitar. Welcome to Taiwan, bike!

Finally, we leave the airport. One very short, but mentally long journey ends, and another begins:

James Pearl Likes This

2010-12-17T06:14:00.000-08:00

Wayback 9/21/2008 - Rumble in the Jungle

2010-09-22T07:25:00.000-07:00

Last race of 2008. Again, absolutely do not remember this at all:

I went into this race with no expectations. It is what it is, I am what I am, and all that. Absolutely zero pre-race jitters. The game plan was to go out and enjoy the course and but in a steady but solid effort. Off the start, I jumped out as normal but not as hard. Still, nobody else came off the line. I wanted a fair position but *not* the hole shot. But nobody else wanted it so screw it, I'll jump out. So I went into it in 2nd. It's odd that my class, for all the speed some of these guys have, start so slowly.

Soon I was passed by 3 of the guys I know from other races, all of them still battling for the series. Up and down the water tower hill then into the fence area. Now I understand why people were commenting on this area. Last year it was not even a half mile and this year it must be triple that. The first lap was a little sketchy with riders, and I didn't have my groove on, so that was a bit slow and I was passed by maybe 2 other guys when I clipped a tree - 1 of about 20 trees I would clip yesterday. After that you get to the switchbacks and I kept my pace, just slowly creeping up on people. Just like last year, passing was a non-issue.

First pass of Warthog was uneventful, just kept my head into it and kept a pace. Out in the lot Ben was there encouraging me. The guy who had gotten the hole shot was on my wheel. More pavement then the rocks, Vreeland yells "NORM!" Which prompts a conversation from some guy Chris knows, Mike maybe? May very well be the mfissel guy who replied to me on the economy thread last night.

Well on the pavement there Hole Shot passes me, Mike passes me, black jersey (Kirt's class) passes me. But we're not at the hill yet. So we hit the hill, and I and my 190 pounds catch those 3 guys just as we take the right after pavement. Then a Bulldog guy, then a few other guys I don't know. What's the world coming to when I pass guys on the climbs? With the exception of Black Jersey I would never see any of those guys again.

The second lap through the sketchy stuff was much better. Still plenty of trees to clip but I didn't clip out at all this time. Just kept my pace and tried not to do anything stupid. Out to the end, then up the switchbacks slow and steady. On the switchbacks I see Black Jersey again and Kirt behind him. I know they're in the same class so I'm keeping it steady but trying to hold off Black Jersey from passing to give Kirt the opportunity to catch us. We get to the pavement together and I just keep going, kinda surprised neither pass me.

We enter Warthog and Kirt says something to the effect of pulling him through this. So I guess Black Jersey is fading at this point. We talk a bit, then Kirt says he crashed 3 times today.

"I haven't crashed yet," I proclaim like a moron.

All of 3 seconds later I hit one of the logs and OTB we go.

"I crashed once," I say, under the bike.

Kirt asks if I'm ok and he goes on, Black Jersey behind him. I get up and try to tag along but they're too far out ahead so I just try and pace myself out. For the rest of the trail to the end, I just enjoyed myself and at point found myself just having more fun in a race than I've ever had. Nobody in my class ahead, nobody chasing me, so I just do my thing. I pass a few people but for the most part it's desolate out there.

Eventually TJ catches me, I had no idea he was behind but apparently he flatted. We talk out the last half mile of the course. Nobody in the lot to chase. Nobody chasing us. We just roll in.

Overall 6th place, 6 minutes out of 5th. So that lead pack was way off the front. All in all thrilled with my race, the course, and the day.

Wayback 6/29/2008 - Bulldog Rump

2010-09-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

State championship, 2008:

So I would never say something like this before the race but this one was pretty important to me because I screwed the pooch on the Stewart race. I was in good shape coming into this one and I had tapered off a bit because I wanted this to be a good one. I didn't want to be thinking about it for the next 10 weeks until Ringwood.

I got off to a great start and was 4th after the first field section, then 3rd shortly after that. Things stayed like that, with the 4th place guy behind me through the end of the first lap and into the Root Wall into lap 2 where he got off/on his bike faster and I slipped to 4th. This is the series #2 guy to this point. Shortly after, the series leader passed me and I dropped to 5th.

Second lap was just that. I tried to keep the 3/4 guys in sight but they're really expert-pace riders and I wasn't able to hang. I had gone out a hair hot so I was keeping a steady tempo pace the best I could because I didn't want to blow. It was hot. At the end of lap 2 one of the guys I often battle with was going back and forth with me. On the climb he passed me but I kept him in sight. So I was 6th after 2 laps.

During lap 3 I was caught by 2 more guys, 1 of which I know from racing named Aaron. He's ahead of me in the series because I bagged the Stewart race so it was imperative to keep him behind me. Meanwhile, another guy in the series hunt passed us both, dropping us to 7/8.

As we entered the field the 5 and 6 guys were less than 100 yards, Aaron passed me and I just kept pace with him and we caught the 6 guy. The 5 guy had a bit left in the tank and was out of touch. Going up the hill it was a battle for 6-7-8. I managed to pass Aaron *at the tree* to beat him by less than a second. If I had another 10 feet I think I would have beaten the 6 guy as well.

In all, I was very happy with this race. I'm not really concerned with 6 or 7 or 8. Once I dropped from that lead pack I just wanted to keep it respectable and find my groove and finish strong. I was 10 seconds off 5th place, which I'm happy with.

I remember this one a lot more vividly as Aaron and I battled a lot this season. He was a good guy but I think gave up racing after 2008. I seem to remember seeing his name maybe once or twice last year but he seems to have fallen from the race scene.

Wayback 6/15/2008 - Darkhorse Gallop

2010-09-22T07:09:00.000-07:00

So this is the first part of my recap on the DH Gallop from 2008. Unlike the other races, I do remember this one to a point. Here's part 1:

It may be the beer talking, but here are te 2 best things to happen to me today. The second was when Fred and I were pre-riding and came up on a young, maybe 12 year old girl who was about to cry. She had tossed her chain so we helped her out and told her that if anything happened there was a *very* tall woman behind her named Ann and to ask her for help (I had introduced myself a bit earlier). We saw her after and she thanked us for helping her out.

The best thing was that my little girl, right after her bath, says to me, "Poop....toilet." So I put her on the toilet and for the first time ever she peed in the toilet. Ok so not a poop, but I was pretty psyched about that.

Part 2, the actual sort of recap:

A few minutes before bed so I'll throw out some thoughts. I don't really know what happened but I think a combination of just overdoing it in recent weeks, dehydrating myself doing a pre-ride, and going out way too hard blew my race totally apart today. The prologue was really fun but then after that everything was an endeavor in trying to manage my blowing up. I think my mistake might have been getting on the front of the line and going off too hard.

I found myself doing a lot of things I thought I had learned not to do, like cooking myself early and on the climbs then losing control on the downs and braking too much. By the end of the first lap I was feeling better but when we hit the fire road climb I was dragging ass again. I was just trying to hold on by this point. I'm sure by then I was way dehydrated.

The second lap was really up and down. Sometimes I'd feel good, other times like shit. I cleaned that big hill in the middle even though I was feeling like junk, but after that I had little left. I found it hard to pass anyone, to gain ground anywhere. At the end of the lap my calves both cramped up. The last fire road climb was like going up a 90 degree wall. I was probably doing about 6 mph. 2 guys passed me with about 50 yards to go. I watched them go and had absolutely nothing to give. Kinda sad.

Pretty demoralized after this one. Like Fred and I were talking about after the race, it never seems like you have your best ride when it's race day. But today I had about my worst on a course I should have done well on. So it goes.

It was a good day seeing everyone and I have a new t-shirt and pint glass from Mike who ran the race. Plus I got to hang with Fred all day.

I specifically remember blowing up early. Then I guess after that everything else fades from memory.

Wayback 6/1/2008 - Lewis Morris Challenge

2010-09-22T06:59:00.001-07:00

My recap from the team forum for this race:

Since this seems to be the recap thread, might as well go. So to recap, I think I have mental problems...

My time last year was 1:53:50. This year it was about 1:39:50. That's a 14 minute improvement. My goal this year was to be under 1:40, shooting for 33 minute laps. My laps were 33+, 33-, and 34-. I wanted to start out slow and steady, not blowing on the first 3 climbs - I did exactly that, and after that 3rd climb on the first lap the only person to permanently pass me was Kirt, at the start of the 3rd lap.

In short, I knew this course wasn't great for me. I had a few goals and I hit them. I paced myself very well, managed to reel back in a ton of riders. Never pushed past the breaking point. And yet, I still feel like that race where it all comes together just hasn't come yet. When I was done my legs hurt. Squatting down to get some carrots in the fridge this morning while I was packing my lunch, my legs let me know just how unhappy they were. I feel like I raced at my limit, right where I should have been. I had a strategy, stuck to it, and beat last year's time by 14 minutes. And yet, I dunno, I still felt lethargic out there. I don't know if my warmup isn't right, my pre-race meal, my race nutrition of choice, or what.

Oh and another thing. I joked about one of the experts pacing me through the race. Well just into the second lap, Marc Lewis passed me and we went back and forth the rest of the day. Marc used to work at Planet Bike and used to race expert-level on the Specialized team. NORBA denied his expert application so he was in sport class. Literally for the last 9-10 miles, we paced each other around the course, and at the end we sprinted out the fire road to the finish. He bailed at the end and I took the spot ahead of him, but I'm pretty sure he backed off the gas and let me have it, though we were hammering at a pretty good clip. Regardless, his pressing me at the end is why I managed to keep it under that 1:40 time.

Still, it was a fantastic day. I got to see everyone from the team (except Steve!!!!!), plus a whole lot of other people from the site. These races are turning more and more into really fun events and even if I have the crappiest race, the before/after is really a lot of fun. Good stuff.

The BBQ after was good times. While I wish more people could have come by, my wife would have punched me if the whole team showed.

I do remember Marc Lewis and I racing at the end, but I don't remember much else from this race. A lot of 2008 just blends together when I look back, though I'm not sure why. This is just another race in the stream of races. At this point the LMC is my longest running race, spanning from 2007-2010. I'm luke warm on 2011, though there is that utterly meaningless streak to consider.

I've also done JH 3 of the 4 years it's been run, though again, I have zero recollection of it. That will come in another post, but as it pertains to my memory, Utah insisted that I was there because he said that's where he met me. But I have no memory of that.

Wayback 5/4/2008 - Wawayanda Spring Cleaning

2010-09-22T06:48:00.000-07:00

This is what I wrote shortly after the 2008 Wawayanda race:

"I believe I ended up 5th in my class. Started off really well, for the first 20 minutes or so bounced back and forth with different sets of riders, usually sitting at #2 or #3. When we hit the masses of 19-29 and 30-34 riders in the various rock gardens, it started to take its tool on me. Felt decent through the first lap and just tried to keep my pace for the second lap.

"The second lap started to see the course get greasy, and I just tried pushed at the limit I could handle without toasting myself, but at about the 1 hour mark I could feel it starting to slip away. And at some point I was passed by 2 guys in my class, 1 of which I was able to eventually reel back in at the absolute very end, right before I saw Kirt lose it.

"Given that I've lost quite a bit of mojo in the past 2 months and put on 10 pounds, I'm fairly happy with the result. Still plenty of work to do of course. "

That's a pretty lame recap, but I know at the time I wasn't really into things so much. My step-step-grandfather was quite sick, and actually died that day. This wasn't a sudden thing, he was going for months. In many ways it was better to not have him nahg on too long, which in hindsight he probably did. I doubt he would have wanted to see himself be kept alive being so un self-sufficient for so long.

So I kinda wanted to win one for him, but it was a pipe dream of course. I had been doing these trainer intervals from the Ross book, which was rapidly setting me up for no progress at all. I think I could get away with that stuff now, but then it was a joke, as I had no history or base to pull off such a stunt.

That spring we had gone to Taiwan as well, just before Julia turned 2 and the flight was cheaper. I rode an exercise bike twice while we were there and then gave up and just put on weight.

Here's the post I put up later that week about it:
http://normbrero.blogspot.com/2008_05_04_archive.html