Miramar Garden Taipei

... After that I decided it was time to go to my next destination, the "Tian Hou Gong" in Xi Men, which is just one station away. The Xi Men district, or Xi Men Ding I think, is quite a hip neighbourhood where the youths of Taiwan hang out. Daniel reckons it's like the Shibuya of Taipei, but less hyped up. Originally, I wanted to walk it but was glad in the end that I didn't try to save 20c and just caught the MRT. There was suppose to be a visitors ...

... major focus being on public education. A huge huge interpretive centre sat sqarely in the middle of the park and could be seen literally for miles around. A couple of hundred school kids were enjoying running around and especially enjoying the noise that school shoes and bird hide floors can create when brought together aggressively. A few good spp here including good views of Eurasian magpies plus numerous egrets ...

Arrival in Taipei: After flying our faces off for over 24 hours including layovers, we arrive at Taipei airport. The gate area is super clean - quite different than in most US airports. Customs is the usual long line - there are very few non-asians. To be expected I guess. We meet up with Sean and Jeff for the drive to where we are staying. As we are driving - the landscape of the buildings ...

... I could've ran for a life time on those sidewalks. And in Taipei there were other races.... brown. black. white. everything in between. For the first time in two years my little diversity loving soul got to hear different languages. So, the report. I took the HSR (high speed rail) from Kaohsiung to Taipei after work on Friday. What an amazing train, 300 km/hr, from one end of the country to another ...

It's not exactly a case of Taiwan being joined back with mainland China, but this week's air links signal closer ties between the two estranged countries. Am I allowed to call Taiwan a country? Maybe not. While Chinese are keen on getting Taiwan back - it took off with half the nation's gold - those across the Taiwan Straits would only consider joining their mainland brothers and sisters after a couple of things: first, once the standard of living ...

... destinations would be very busy and accommodations might be in short supply. Cathy had insisted on a '...nice place for Xmas' and our calculations and time constraints with May meant that we were aiming at crossing into Laos and being in Luang Prabang for Christmas. Prior to researching the trip I had never heard of Luang Prabang but it seemed that I was in the minority; many web sites and countless online forums that I visited described it as the 'Jewel of the Mekong ...

... and would have liked to hit the beaches in Nha Trang with Amber and Bec or Sarah as they had suggested. I envy the time they will be having and the fact that they will likely get to dive there. Unfortunately I could not put my life on hold any longer or neglect my responsibilities that are awaiting my arrival. As I muse over the end of this adventure a feeling of melancholy forms deep in my psyche. It is the thought of not getting to do something like this for several years that ...

... you are going to die. i can't imagine what it's like to be on the 90+ floor when an earth quake hits. the building has a massive steel ball counter weight near the top as a motion damping machanism that they called tuned mass damper. it's for both windy days and earth quakes. the steel ball damper is also the biggest in the world. i have some experience with tuned mass dampers in my professional work but nothing like this scale.

Let's cover Winter Break now. This was literally the best winter break, and quite possibly the best trip I've had yet! Seriously, if you want an adventure, Thailand is the place to go!!! It is so much fun. My winter break was actually divided into three parts. One part getting to Thailand, One part volunteer trip, and One part all about beaches and islands. It was amazing. And all thanks to Ryan who coordinated the whole volunteer thing and Andy who was my travel buddy/bodyguard ...

... really had to ask ourselves "really? is that the best we can do? I swear the empire state building is way taller, or at least the Sears tower." But no, apparently 101 has a good 200 feet on the twin Patronas towers in Malaysia and those are currently at second place. So we went there and paid for our entrance to the observatory on the 86th floor and got a great view of the Taipei urban sprawl. It's actually not terribly impressive since there really is no one thing to look at ...