7.23.2006 Do youtube?

Well I like to jump on bandwagons now and then. At my current host I have the ability to stream video but I haven't had much success getting it to work yet so I've started uploading a few of the videos I have onto youtube.

It's great because it gives everyone access to my videos plus it uses their bandwidth instead of mine!

Also, it's inspiring me... I have some ideas.... hopefully I can get off my butt and work on them.

Of course the videos look a lot better on my computer since they're not compressed but I think you still can get the idea.

Let me know what you think. Check out the videos [here]

It's really interesting. Originally my intent with this website was to stay in touch and to amuse my family and friends back home and also to offer a window for people who were thinking about coming to Taiwan into Taiwan. Lately though my audience has been growing more and more and I seem to have more and more visitors from Taiwan. This is in part thanks to me being featured on Bloggers in Taiwan (thanks Andres!), to the new Taiwanfeed site, and thanks to google search + google image search. It makes me think I'm going to have to work a little harder to make my site appealing to my whole audience, and not just the one I've been thinking of so that I can keep everyone coming back.

step one: less laziness.
step two: more road trips and random bus hopping with lots of video.
step three: re-opening my eyes to the wonders around me.
step four: write, write, write, publish, publish, publish.

Labels: taipei, taiwan, Video, Wu fen pu

posted by cat @ 7/23/2006 03:14:00 AM 2 comments |

7.18.2006 beetle mania: my newest little model

A popular hobby that Taiwan has adopted from Japan is having pet beetles. Kids here are obsessed with them.

They have "beetle cards" which document different stats for the beetle and a picture display. The cards have bar-codes too which allow the kids to stick them into beetle game consoles found around the city and play games. I haven't quite seen how these work but they seem pretty cool.

Check out the English site for the cards.

They're frequently brought in as a "show and tell" item and mentioned as a favourite hobby in my classes. I have scores of little entomologists in the making.

Stag and rhino beetles seem to be the "it" beetles. Since my roommates won't let me have a pet rat, which I guess makes sense because of our 2 cats, and since I'm a weirdo I decided to get my very own beetle. I really wanted one of the gigantic rhino beetles (like on the card above) but they run about 4500NT (155$ CND) and I'm too cheap to buy something that expensive that's going to die in 3 or 4 months. Even if they are huge and really really cool.

So I browsed around the pet shop. I decided there was no way I could handle having one of the beetles that's pinchers actually pinch... like this guy:

The rhino guys have pinchers that move up and down but they're pretty harmless, the ones who's pinchers move inward look like they hurt.

That's when I found him. Shining all by himself under a light. Maimed with battle scars but the only beetle that actually had color. And on sale because he only has 5 and a half legs. It was love at first site. I still don't know what kind of beetle he is exactly but he's pretty enough for me.

So I grabbed him and took him home. My ulterior motive is to photograph him, my little model... but I have to get over my squeamishness. I managed to take him out for a couple of snaps but then he flew away (I caught him)... so I'm going to have to devise some sort of netting type setting that won't make me freak out if he starts flying around and I'm caught inside with him.

I've named him Wu dien Bon (5 and 1/2).

Labels: Only in Asia

posted by cat @ 7/18/2006 01:22:00 PM 4 comments |

7.12.2006 Tai ping temple album (photography update)

My photos from Tai ping temple (see previous post) are uploaded. Here are a few teasers:

Click here to check out the gallery.

Labels: Photography, taiwan, Taiwan day trips, Xindian

posted by cat @ 7/12/2006 10:25:00 PM 0 comments |

7.10.2006 Xindian and Tai ping temple

If I could live anywhere else in Taipei it would be Xindian... but right now I'm wedged between Gongguan market and Shida market.... and I'm a 5 minute walk away from work so I'm too lazy to move.

Xindian is just far enough out of Taipei to have clean air and close enough to be convenient. The air is clean, there are mountains, a beautiful river, lots of nice places to eat... just a totally different vibe.

There have been a couple of temples I've been wanting to explore. Han was a bit maimed so we took it easy but we explored Tai ping temple. I'm amazed how individual each temple I explore is. Especially since I choose them so randomly and there are 100s of 1000s all over the island. Han is really unimpressed by all of them since he's grown up here and they don't have the same allure but I'm on a mission to make him see the beauty. I can't complain because he endures my slow pace through them and endless requests to see more of them.

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Tai ping was actually the first temple I saw a yin yang in. At least the first one that I've noticed. I ended up with way too many pictures I liked too much so I've decided to put them in an album in my photography section. They'll be added in a separate post.

Once we were done we headed back down to the heart of Xindian by the water.

I've only been there a few times but I'm smitten. The last time I was there previous to this time Meg and I saw this teahouse way out on the ledge of a cliff overlooking the river. Unfortunately it was waaaay Taiwanese (ie not a drop of English) and we didn't have enough chinese to order. So I made Han take me. We had some deluxe cold fruit tea, and hot flower tea. We tend to eat and run most places we go but we spent a few hours there just chilling out and watching the people below in the river.

Our tea house

There were plenty of people taking advantage of the rentable swan boats, some people in canoes, kayaks, and small motor boats... and to my surprise there were actually people swimming! The river looks clean enough to me but Han was skeptical. I think Meg and I are going to have to scope it out at some point.

Of course Han and I couldn't leave without doing the swan boat thing. We paddled around and discovered some crazy cliff divers. I didn't have my glasses on but they were mostly older men. I think they were foreign but there may have been a couple of Taiwanese men. I can't believe the heights they were diving from. Every jump got a big reaction from the people in the swan boats below.

I was a competitive diver for 4 or so years at one point, and I'm pretty adventurous but this looked wild! I wish I could've met these crazy nuts.

If you go to Xindian there is a little food stand on the side of the walking bridge close to the MRT that has some Sri Lankan wraps. Very very yummy. I definitely recommend checking it out.

Labels: taiwan, Taiwan day trips, Xindian

posted by cat @ 7/10/2006 08:27:00 PM 0 comments |

The scourge of Fulong beach (and fun with a waterproof camera)

I am a girl who grew up seeing the sea every day. The only exceptions to this would be my 6 month stint in Bolivia in 2000/2001... and of course my time here in Taipei. If I don't see the ocean every once and awhile I get edgy. It's hard to explain unless you've grown up in a sea-side city. My mom always used to tell me she could never live in a city not by the ocean. I thought she was silly until I lived in Bolivia.

So anyway, Han and I headed to Fulong beach which used to be on my top five places to go into Taiwan. It's probably now on my bottom five thanks to bloated self-important lifeguards and evil jellyfish larvae.

When I go swimming, I go to swim. When I go swimming, I do not go to stand in water waist deep (note: I am 158 cm/5' 2"). But the less than friendly staff at Fulong beach did not care to abide by "Catherine's rules of swimming". See, when you go to Fulong there is a roped in square where most people swim. The water probably doesn't go higher than the chest of a typical sized Taiwanese male and the beach is littered with beach umbrellas and people.

When I go to Fulong I like to go as far away as possible from that area.... which usually leads me to where the surfers are. Surfers=good swimming area. However, this time, the lifeguards at Fulong were going to make sure that I had a miserable day.

Now typically I am not annoyed by what regular non-assimilated ex-pats get annoyed with. It doesn't bother me as bad as in Canada if I get poor food service, if someone cuts in line (even in the bathroom), if someone tries to mow me down on their scooter. It's just the way life is here. Once in awhile... I loose it... this was one of those days. I've been having a rough spot, I'd gone to do what I love most, at one of my favourite places to do it.... I wasn't going to be bossed around!

Because we weren't swimming in the sanctioned area bloated leathery life-guards kept driving up on jet-skis to tell us to go back to the beach. I told Han that next time they came they could physically remove me from the ocean if they chose to. And they kept coming. 3 or 4, maybe 5 times. Poor Han was caught in the middle as translator and peacekeeper.

Han: They want us to go back to the beach
me: (scowling at the lifeguard) WHY??
Han: They say it's too dangerous.
Me: Because it's gone from no waves to some???
Han: They say it's their beach, their rules.
Me: So I paid them to give me rules?? Why aren't they bugging the surfers over there????
(chinese)
Han: They didn't pay to come to Fulong, they're swimming at the beach in front of the temple.
Me: Well, how much does that beach cost? I'd like to swim where the lifeguards don't bully me about swimming where I want to swim.
(more chinese)
Han: It's free.
Me: So I can go over there, and not give them my money and swim wherever I want?
Han: Let's go.
Me: Tell them that I'll be happy to swim there from now on and not give them my money.
Han: Let's go.
Me: TELL THEM!!! TELL THEM!! THIS IS SUCH BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE (insert rant).

Of course Han didn't tell them and was as polite as possible, I'm sure my face said everything and I'm sure the life guards felt sorry for the poor taiwanese boy who ended up with the crazy foreigner but geez, come on, I'm a paying customer not a kid. I'll swim at my own risk. I've been swimming since I was 3!

So we went over to the other beach and it was great.

All day we were feeling these little stings. I'd felt them before in the ocean so I didn't really make much of it. Sunday I woke up covered in nasty sore itchy blisters. Stomach, legs, arms, chest, etc. I was so convinced I was dying I didn't take pictures of them. I actually still have little brown marks all over from where they were but for the most part they're gone.

I was sure I had measles, rubella, the plague, or ocean madness. OK I made that last one up.

Han and I tried hard to find a doctor's office that was open but had no luck Sunday night. He tried to convince me to go to a hospital but I was pretty convinced that was just going to involve me getting an unnecessary shot and staying unnecessarily overnight which I wasn't willing to do until I was sure I was dying.

I decided to go online after to do a search... which I really don't recommend doing if you're already scared and freaked out. I think it worsened my paranoia....however eventually I did find out that from May - August on certain beaches there are jellyfish larvae that when trapped on the skin between a bathing suit will sting and cause a bad reaction known as sea bather's itch. They're about the size of a grain of pepper...so not really visible.I google image searched it and sure enough the same nasty blistery bumps I had I saw on the back of some poor man.

So because I cuddled in the ocean, I distressed little jellyfish larvae, who in turn decided to make me pay with a vengeance! Han felt the same stings but got away without a mark. Ever since I turned 20 my body is against me and I have reactions to everything.

So the lessons learned:
1) Don't swim at Fulong unless you don't actually want to swim.
2) Don't swim at Fulong unless you want to look like you have a flesh-eating virus.

My new co-teacher has been telling me about a "Dashi" or "Dazhi" beach. I think I'll scope it out next. I'll let you know how that works out.

Ps- I'm in love