TravelStream™ news feed for member mcswaink on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/mcswaink en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 14 May 2008 09:14:30 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1210391220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1210391220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1210391220/tpod.html Wed, 14 May 2008 09:14:30 -0400 Adventures in Taiwan - A technical trip interlaced with some fun, I hope.

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Clayton, North Carolina, United States

I couldn't sleep. I am not a morning person, so settling down to snooze when I know I need to get up early is not easy for me. We were scheduled to meet Dr Wu and his assistants at 6:15a to begin our journey home. I arrived down stairs in the lobby at 6:10a to find Dr Wu there. I'm not sure why this surprised me, he is always on time. A minute later Melinda joined us. Dr Wu would not be joining us on our trip to the TPE airport because he had many things to do today. David, Alan, and Patrick would be taking us to the airport. Patrick and David arrived, and it turned out Alan overslept and he would not be joining us.We said "good bye" and "thank you" many times to Dr Wu before piling in the van for the trip to the Tainan HSR station. I will miss the buzz and bustle of Tainan, but for now I really want to get home.It doesn't take long to get to the HSR and 30 mins later we are waiting on the platform for it's arrival. It is barely 7am already it is 80 degrees. If the clouds stay away, it will be a hot and sticky day. As always, the train is on perfect time. I relish these train rides. I desperately wish the US would come up with an equivalent. Our 1 hour 20 min ride is completed too quickly for my liking, but soon we are exiting the train and moving off the platform to find our hired car. A brief 10 min ride and we are at the airport. Our plane leaves at noon and it is barely past 9:30am. Our plane is on-time and present at the gate according to the United agent. Hooray!David and Patrick were gracious hosts to the end. They refused to just drop us off at the curb or leave us at baggage check in. Instead they walked us all the way to security before finally departing. I was sad to see them go. Security did not seem as thorough as that in the US, but my judgment may be clouded by the lack of a line that allowed us to zip through the process in no time at all. Once through security, Melinda and I did a little bit of airport shopping and settled down, waiting to board our flight. The boarding process was a bit different than I'm used to. We were flying on a Boeing 777, which is a big plane. They called first class and business class first, then general boarding, so of course, the 300 people sitting in coach all slammed into line at once. It took us a good 10 minutes to make our way through the cue to get to the ticket agent.Once on the plane, we made our way to our seats near the back and mentally steeled ourselves for an 11 hour flight (thank GOD for an east going tail wind that cut over 3 hours off our flight). As the plan hurtled down the runway and into the sky I felt wistful that I was leaving this beautiful country with it's friendly people. There was so much more that I would have liked to have seen, but what I did experience I will remember for a long time. Someday I will bring my family back to visit.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1210257720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1210257720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1210257720/tpod.html Thu, 08 May 2008 11:33:08 -0400 Adventures in Taiwan - A technical trip interlaced with some fun, I hope.

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Tainan, Taiwan

Dr Wu came to pick up Melinda and me at 7:45a because we wanted to see Alan give his presentation this morning at 8:45. Patrick and David drove Ted and Shuying to Kaoshung early this morning for their 8am flight. When we arrived the lobby area was not full and there weren't many people. Dr Wu apologized for leaving us, and off he went to do what we imagine to be very important things. We found seats in the back of the lecture hall and waited for the talks to begin. I sat and caught up on my blogging, while Melinda worked on some proposals for work. The lectures were interesting, but again we were hampered by the translation issue. I would have liked to have understood more of a talk that appeared to be about using LIDAR data in hydrology, but such is life. At 10am it was break time and Alan, Patrick, and David asked if we would like to pay a visit to the NCKU student store. Both Melinda and I wanted t-shirts to take home. It was a bit of a walk to the other side of campus, and boy was it hot out today. When we arrived there was some debate as to where in the bookstore we would find souvineers. Turns out, unlike at American Universities, students wear no clothes that advertise their university. There was a paltry selection of polo shirts to choose from (I skipped buying one) and a lot more business related gadgets with the NCKU logo, like business card holders, expensive pens, mugs, and briefcases.As we exited the student store, we walked past a laboratory supply store for students and in the window they had models wearing t-shirts. The styles were not exciting, but they were plentiful and cheap! $5 for 2 shirts. Yeah! On our way back to find our "lunch box" the boys suggested that we stop in at the new NCKU museum, which recently opened in the historic campus administration building. We had a very enthusiastic tour guide who made it her priority to inform us about all parts of the museum. Patrick did a wonderful job of translating her information. I was surprised to learn that the initial Deans of the college were Japanese, not Taiwanese or Chinese. It wasn't until after WWII that the college got it's first Taiwanese Dean. The museum had a section dedicated to neat little mechanical devices that were used to teach engineering students about how different motors and gears worked, and a section that highlighted cultural history, like Taiwanese puppets. The museum was nice, but very hot. As it is a historic building, it had not been retrofitted to be air conditioned. Melinda and I were very hot and resorted to fanning ourselves with pamphlets. I even noticed David and Patrick doing the same, so it must have been warm.After spending nearly 45 mins touring the museum, we set off to get lunch. Dr Wu mentioned that today's lunch was a special "lunch box" and to be sure to get it. Alan and David went to pick up the boxes while Patrick, Melinda, and I went to secure a spot at the picnic tables near the old banyan tree park we took photos of when we toured the NCKU campus last week. David and Alan returned with a large bag and cold drinks (YEAH!) in no time. So it turns out the special lunch was much larger than the one yesterday. It contained, well, I'm not quite sure what. Something with taro root, and something in sticky rice that you put a gravy over top of; a bowl of wontons in a gelatinous suspension, and a container with some sort of rice mixture. As usual, it was good, but too much food. I think I could have eaten the contents for 3 meals. Alan, David, and Patrick ate theirs easily.We cleaned up and went back to the meeting to find Dr Wu. Melinda and I wanted to return to the hotel to pack and take naps, but before hand, we needed to make arrangements with Dr Wu for dinner. Melinda and I had requested that we get pizza for dinner, because we weren't sure we could handle another banquet sized meal. Success! Dr Wu and his assistants would pick us up at the hotel tonight at 6:30p and we'd go for pizza buffet at Pizza Hut.Melinda and I returned to the hotel, filled out some papers to ship some boxes back to the US via FedEx, and went to our rooms. I took a much needed nap and awoke feeling better. David, Patrick and Alan returned to fetch us at 6:30p, and off we went to meet Dr Wu at Pizza Hut.Pizza Hut has one sit down restaurant in Tainan, and luckily it is near NCKU. It is on a corner, and is 3 stories tall. There is an area to pay on the first floor, while the eating areas are upstairs. On the 2nd floor there was a pizza buffet, salad bar, and drink dispensers. There were 3 different pizzas on the buffet, none of which even looked vaguely familiar. I took a piece of something that had fine black whisps on it, and a piece of something that looked like it was covered with cheddar cheese.Well, the black whisp pizza I think had squid on it and the black whisps were some sort of tea leaves. The other one did indeed have cheddar cheese on top, but instead of having tomato sauce it had some sort of sweet gravy under it. They both were good, but not what I was craving. Earlier using some sign language, I asked the employee who was refilling the pizza bar if they could make a supreme pizza (they had a sign for it, but none was out). Just as I was finishing my first 2 pieces, the supreme pizza came out. I was SO much happier with that pizza. Much closer to home. Interestingly, Dr Wu, Alan, David, and Patrick all ate more chicken wings than pizza. I think I ate more pizza than they did.We did have a good conversation over dinner about microwave ovens and cooking styles in America. I don't know what we are going to do if they come to visit us. There really isn't much of a comparison food wise. But, I guess like us, they will adapt.We made arangements to meet at 6:20a tomorrow morning so that we can take the Taiwan HSR back to TPE airport. I am sad to be leaving Taiwan, but I am ready to be home. I miss my family and I can't wait to see everyone.This is probably the last entry I will make in my blog until I return to the US on Friday night. Bye until later!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1210216500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1210216500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1210216500/tpod.html Thu, 08 May 2008 02:36:29 -0400 Adventures in Taiwan - A technical trip interlaced with some fun, I hope.

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Tainan, Tainan, Taiwan

Today was the first day of the 2008 Geological Society of Taiwan Annual Congress. Patrick and Alan picked us up at the hotel at 8:30a, and we made the very short trip to National Cheng Kung University. Two weeks before leaving for Taiwan, I attended the Southeast Geologic Society of America meeting in Charlotte, so I am anxious to compare our geologic meetings to those in Taiwan. Upon entering the hall to pick up our registration packets, it becomes obvious that there is no comparison. There are people and large fresh flower arrangements everywhere, the kind that bring to mind a wedding or a funeral. Patrick tells us that there are over 900 people registered for this conference. There are so many people who wanted to speak that there are 5 concurrent speaking sessions in which presenters are limited to 12 minutes talking and 3 minutes of questions. There are over 500 posters spread among 4 sessions in 2 days. The amount of student involvement is so much higher than in the US. One of the sessions that covers both days is hydrogeology, and our talks are scheduled for this afternoon.Patrick brings us our badges, and we walk around a bit. Inside our badge packet are tickets for lunch on both days and a ticket for our conference gift. The gift turns out to be a cup with a lid and a briefcase. There are many fewer vendors displaying their technical equipment (I think I counted 2), but a much larger display of books and reference materials for purchase. It's almost time for the Key Note talk, so we wander upstairs to the main presentation hall. It appears that not many people are interested in hearing the Key Note Speaker talk about investigating earth science using a diamond anvil, because the hall is relatively empty. However, I am surprised when I realize that the speaker was part of the group at dinner last night. I am embarrassed to admit that I had problems staying awake during his talk, but the combination of dim lighting and a topic that did not particularly interest me led to my demise.Thirty minutes later we were back downstairs listening to talks about hydrology. There are definite differences between presentations styles in the US and styles in Taiwan. In the US, we try to put very little text on our slides and instead use many more maps, graphs, and pictures. In Taiwan, the dominate style is text based slides with bullets. This made understanding the talks agonizingly difficult for the most part. However, interestingly, about a third of the talks had presentation slides in English, but the talks were conducted in Chinese. Dr Wu's assistant David had the last presentation before lunch, and it was interesting to see him in his element.Lunch was the traditional Taiwanese "box lunch". In order to get it, we followed directions written on large yellow feet that led to the box lunch distribution point, several buildings away. Ted opted to skip lunch and stay behind, scouring the internet for news about Obama campaign in the US. After getting our lunch, we searched a bit for somewhere to sit and eat. Patrick suggested that we return to the main hall to the VIP room to eat. I think we all would have been perfectly happy to eat outside, but off we went. Today's lunch box was a chicken thigh on rice, some sort of egg and tomato mixture, something that resembled stuffing, cabbage, and a green vegetable that looked like spinach. No soup this time, which surprised me because they didn't distribute a drink with the lunch either.We all were scheduled to talk after lunch, with Shuying and I speaking before break, while Ted and Melinda spoke after break concluded. They all went well. Shuying did her talk in Chinese, while Melinda, Ted, and I of course did ours in English. Not a whole lot of questions from the audience, which didn't surprise me, although I did expect Shuying to ge a few. I figured the language barrier would be enough to foil our audience, so I was pleasantly surprised when I walked out into the hallway to leave for mid-afternoon break and was stopped by a gentleman who asked me many questions. Patrick presented in the afternoon, after Ted, and I have no idea what he talked about, but he had pretty maps. By 4pm, I was ready to go back to the hotel and take a nap. No rest for the weary however, as we have yet another dinner tonight, and Shuying and Ted have to pack for their trip home. Patrick and Alan agree to drop us off at the hotel for an hour before dinner so that we can take care of some stuff.Patrick and Alan were back again at 6:10p for dinner. Tonights dinner was with many people. There were 20 tables seating 10 each. It was held in the reception hall of a very fancy restaurant. The hall was decorated everywhere with pink fabric, and Alan mentioned that it is a popular place for wedding receptions. Tonight I sat in between Alan and Shuying for dinner, and for the first time Alan did quite a bit of talking in English. His English is actually quite good and we had a very pleasant conversation. Also at our table was an English speaking post-PhD igneous petrologist who is working in Taipei at the Academia Sinica IES. Ted sat next to him (he was across the table from me) and they seemed to have good dinner conversation.The food tonight was not as good as other meals we have had, but the presentation was spectacular. Lots of decoratively carved fruits and vegetables. There were the usual 10 dishes and 2 desserts as well as fresh fruit. Like most dinners that involve geologists, the beer was flowing and 2 of the tables around us got into a beer drinking contest. I'm still not sure who won. At 9pm we left dinner and went back to our hotel. Dr Wu discussed the arrangements for returning Ted and Shuying to the airport in the morning, while Melinda and I discussed plans for the next day at the conference.Ted, Shuying, and I decided to walk down the street to the local massage parlor to get a neck and foot massage. Unfortunately, the only options available were 60 mins for feet only or 60 mins for whole body not including feet. Neither of which were appealing to me. so I returned to the hotel. I'm tired anyway, and it's time for bed
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1210086000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1210086000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1210086000/tpod.html Tue, 06 May 2008 11:33:51 -0400 Adventures in Taiwan - A technical trip interlaced with some fun, I hope.

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Tainan, Tainan, Taiwan

I got up with the alarm today, though I am feeling more rested after my early evening. Patrick arrived to pick us up promptly at 8:30a, and surprise, surprise, I was late. Today is our presentation day at the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan. It is a very short ride to the university, and even with my tardiness, we arrived with time to spare. Inside, we are shown to a theater style classroom with a large screen and a podium on one end. By the time Dr Wu gives his introductory talk, there are about 50 people seated in the room. I cursory look reveals more women in the audience this time, about 5 I think, but it appears that all but one are students. Lunch was a "boxed lunch" in the style we had in Taipei. I didn't like the contents of this one as much as I liked the first one. I did enjoy our lunch company. We kept Dr Ting busy answering our questions all through the meal. I don't think the poor man ate very much of the contents of his lunch box.The rest of our talks go well, and we actually finish on time. There were many fewer questions than we answered in Taipei, which certainly helped our time schedule. Nearly all the questions were from professors, and it appeared that the student were too shy to ask questions, or maybe thought they would embarrass themselves. Either way, I have no doubt that when questions were asked by the audience, Dr Wu put his own spin on our answers when translating back. After seeing our presentations for the second time and asking his fill of questions, he seems to be able to answer the questions without our input. I feel like I need one of those in your ear translation devices like they have at the UN.Since we finish on time and will have a about 1 1/2 hours to kill before our dinner, we ask Patrick if he can take us to the Jade market in downtown Tainan. It closes at 6pm, so we have about an hour to get there and do some last minute shopping. Alan and Patrick drive us there and accompany us into the market. Unfortunately, although it is only 5:20, the majority of the stalls at the market are nearly packed up. I would have liked to experience the full effect, but I'll take what I can get. There are several vendors still peddling their wares, so we did have a bit of a selection.After shopping, we leave to attend our formal dinner with the NCKU Geology Department. The Geology Department is not only hosting us today, but also a group of minerologists from Taipei who have come to give talks as well. Both groups attended dinner together, though there wasn't much interaction. Once again, dinner was an excessive amount of food. There were 12 courses including dessert. No big surprises this time, but I did get one food I hadn't seen: crab. It was very yummy, though I didn't get to eat as much of it as I would have liked because they don't supply crackers and I have not quite mastered the many uses of chop sticks. Also, I love to dip crab in melted butter, and there wasn't any served with dinner. As usual, everything was good.We left the restaurant and Patrick drove us to our hotel. It's already 9pm and I am anxious to get out of my suit and into some comfortable clothes so I can veg out for a little before bed.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209991500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209991500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209991500/tpod.html Tue, 06 May 2008 10:08:58 -0400 Adventures in Taiwan - A technical trip interlaced with some fun, I hope.

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Pingtung, Pingtung, Taiwan

It's Monday morning and I don't feel like I've had a very restful weekend. Seven days of trying to keep up with Dr Wu is wearing me out. At 8:30a, Alan and Patrick arrive and we pile into the van. We need to drive by NCKU and pick up Dr Wu at his office before heading off on our fieldtrip. We are headed to the southern coastal plain of Taiwan to view an area of land subsidence. We traveled by interstate to Pingtung County, and I am impressed by the highway system of Taiwan. For the most part, they are at least 4 lanes and in many places they are 6. They must be fairly new, because we pass through 2 sets of toll booths along the way. We also passed through a tunnel in Kaohsiung County that was at least 1/2 mile long. Just before entering the tunnel we passed a sandstone formation that looked exactly like those I have seen in the Badlands of South Dakota. This is the only place in Taiwan I have seen erosional formations like them.In a little more than an hour we arrive at the seaside town of Linpien in Pingtung County. Our first stop is at a now abandoned house that looks like it was built for the 7 dwarfs. The door is short and the window sills are sitting on the ground. Dr Wu explains that this area is sitting on a very large alluvial fan. Aquaculture is the areas most popular way to make a living and years of over pumping the ground water to control the salinity and temperature of the fish ponds has caused enough ground water depletion to compact the alluvial sediments. Land surface has dropped by around 10 feet in 50 years. Over time, the subsidence has caused this house (and others like it) to flood during the rainy season, so the homeowners continued to fill in the front yard with excess dirt and raised the floor inside the house. Eventually the inside of the house became unusable and the house was abandoned.Standing on the front porch of the small house and looking forward I see what looks like a levee (or sea wall) that stands about 20 feet above ground level. We drove a bit further down the street, got out, and walked up the steps onto the sea wall. The coast bordering the China Sea is about 150 feet away from me and the first thing I realize that the beach sand is black. Also, there is an inordinate amount of trash on the beach. The Taiwanese do not swim in the ocean on the west side of Taiwan because years of industrial and municipal dumping have polluted the waters, a fact that is now plainly obvious. What I have noticed is that the homes below the sea wall are at least 10 feet below the level of the sea, and it's probably more than 15 feet. I have been to New Orleans and I don't remember the topographic relief being this stark, but I was younger then and I don't think I grasped the implication of what I was looking at. There is no way this area could not flood severely during typhoon season. I cannot imagine the devastation it must bring the towns people each year.From the coast we moved inland toward the foothills of central Pingtung County. We are going to meet Dr Ting, a professor of hydrogeology from National Pingtung University of Science and Technology. But first, we make a quick stop to view a local spring. During the wet season the water table rises so dramatically that they use the water to fill a large public swimming pool. Right now the water level looks to be about 20 feet below us. Next, we stop for lunch. Lunch goes about the same it always does. We sit, Dr Wu orders 8 to 10 dishes of food, and we eat whatever he is in the mood for. Today it is fish and vegetables in many different combinations and sauces with a few surprises thrown in. The only dish I have eaten before is boiled cold shrimp, including head and tails of course. One new dish, is pig intestines, which were surprisingly tasty. As usual, I don't leave hungry.After lunch we continue on the study site where we will be meeting Dr. Ting. This must be an agricultural center for Taiwan, because for the first time we pass farms growing row after row of soy beans, pineapples, beetle nuts, corn, and coconuts. There were many other plants that I didn't recognize. In the middle of a set of fields we stopped at a fenced area that includes a maze of blue pipes and large electrical panel. Dr Ting arrived and we learned that this is a pilot study site to stave off land subsidence as well as supply irrigation to the farms bordering the site. The pipes are really a complex system for aquifer withdrawal and injection. Water is withdrawn from a deeper aquifer and can be injected back into the shallow aquifer to help with subsidence, or withdrawn water can be diverted to irrigation ditches if needed. There are several nests of monitoring wells to track the subsurface movement of water.We get back in the car and move on to the Linpien River. The river is very wide (over 2000 ft across at least) and it is obvious by the size of the boulders littering the river bed that flow rates can be very high during the rainy season. It is unimaginable to me what this river would look like when it is flowing, and how you would make a discharge measurement on it. There are several dump trucks traversing the nearly dry river bed, and Dr Wu explained that companies mine the gravel in the river bed to be used for construction. The mining has turned what little water there flowing in the river into a grey sediment laden stream. I hope there aren't any fish trying to survive in the water.We stop on the right bank of the river next to what looks like a large concrete gaging station, very similar (but more ornately decorated) to our "mushroom" houses in NC, only larger. Looking out into the river we see an exposed concrete slab that extends about 750 ft perpindicular to the river bank out into the river. Dr Ting tells us that what we are looking at is an underground river weir, originally built by the Japanese in the 1920s, to provide irrigation for sugar cane in the dry season. When it was constructed, it was covered by 4 to 5 meters of river gravel, but recent gravel mining has exposed the concrete top of the weir. There is a second weir that parallels the right river bank but it collects ground water that would be discharging into the river. Underground, the ground water weir T's into the river weir and the waters combine into one subsurface tunnel that supplies drinking and irrigation water to the village near by. Dr Ting asked if we would like to enter the gaging station and climb into the subsurface tunnel. His graduate student has just emerged from below and announces that the water is about 2.5 ft high and flow is about 1.5 m3/s (somewhere around 12 cfs). Ted is all ready to go, while Melinda and Shuying opt to stay up top. I peered into the gage house and saw a small sub floor that leads to a series of rebar rungs set into the poured concret wall. Ted had already removed his shoes and began climbing down the ladder after Dr Ting's graduate student. Not wanting to miss out, I decide to go too. I roll up my pant legs to mid thighs, remove my shoes, and empty my pocket contents just in case. I also gave my wedding ring to Shuying to hold since I have lost it once before and Paul will be most unhappy if I lose it again.So before I give the description of what I did next, I just have to acknowledge that my dad was a health and safety manager for different industries in the US, and I know what we did violated about 7 different OSHA laws in the US, most of which involve confined space entry. I shudder to think of the things that could have happened, but didn't. OSHA-like laws in Taiwan are non-existent and I am amazed that I don't see more people with catastrophic injuries from mechanical devices that are not properly protected. Dad, I'm fine, don't worry. Nothing happened.I enter the gage house and encounter my first problem, there is a 4 ft drop down from the floor of the gage house to the sub floor near the ladder rungs that go below and there isn't enough room for me to jump without falling. There is a valve stem and wheel sticking up near the center of the house and nothing else to grab on to or step on. Since there was no one to help me, I used the valve body as a step stool, which was not all that comfortable on my bare feet. Once on the sub floor, it was an easy transfer to the ladder rungs, and I began my descent to the water 50 feet below. The ladder rungs were very competent and hardly corroded with rust, which surprised me. The climb down did not take long, and soon I was standing in thigh deep water next to Ted and Dr Ting's student at the bottom of the shaft.The water was flowing with more of a current than I expected and the temperature was pleasant, about 75F. I had a brief mental image of what fun this would be to have an innertube and go from one end to the other. I was standing in a small tunnel that I expected would be rather cramped, but it wasn't. To my left (in the direction towards the river) was a sliding gate that could be lowered from the ceiling and I assume was connected to the valve stem I saw above. Using a flashlight to look down the tunnel (towards the river) I could see that the tunnel was quite sizable, about 5 1/2 ft tall and 5 ft wide. Looking the other direction (in the direction of flow away from the river) the tunnel began to decrease in size, but it looked to only go down to about 4 ft x 3ft.Dr Ting, Alan, and Patrick soon joined us, and Dr Ting suggested that we walk upstream through the flow to look at the weir itself. We stooped under the raised sliding gate and began walking, following Dr Ting who had the flashlight. The walk was made more difficult by the uneven bottom, but the rocks were not sharp and pointy and there was no algae or slime to make them slippery. At this point I gave up on keeping my pants dry, as when I walked the water splashed to nearly my hips. I was happy to be short, as I could walk in the tunnel without bending over, while everyone else was slumped over. After walking about 150 ft, the tunnel we were in was joined by a second tunnel. Dr Ting explained that this second tunnel was the conduit from the ground water weir, a fact that became obvious when we walked past it and realized that the water coming from the ground water weir was about 20 degrees colder than the water coming from the river bed weir. Another few steps and we were standing beneath the subsurface river weir, a series of granite slabs stacked at a 45 degree angle to the the downstream flow of the river above. I'm not sure why I expected a torrent of water, but the weir was collecting a subtle flow of no more than a trickle of water over a very large area, which when accumulated together amounted to quite a bit of water. Dr Ting thinks this design is ingenious despite the fact that it is nearly 100 years old, and I have to agree with him.The walk back to the ladder seemed like it took a lot less time, and I found it more difficult to keep my footing with a current pushing me forward. Once at the ladder, I climbed back up to the sub floor, and muscled my way up to the gage house floor. Once outside, I explained what we did to Melinda and Shuying, retrieved my stuff, and put my shoes on, while everyone else made their way back to the surface.Next stop was the exit side of the tunnel Ted and I just wandered around in. The water emerges a mile or so down the road, where it is channeled in several different directions. There are many grey pipes that are piled in the water channel, and I am told that they are supply pipes to people's houses. There is not local water supply and treatment system, so people divert water using pipes in the channel for their own uses. This is a common practice in Taiwan, and it explains the grey pipes I have seen in ditches along roadways in the mountain areas.Next stop is a large cistern like vat with 5 different sluice gates to control water distribution to irrigate the fields. Dr Ting tells us that the unused water eventually returns back to the Linpien River after making several more stops along the way.Further down the flow path of the weir water is our last stop, one of Dr Ting's pilot study sites. This site is an infiltration basin, to transfer water from the land surface back to the aquifer system, in the hopes of staving off land surbsidence problems. Dr Ting would like to apply this process on a much larger scale than the 10mx10m basin they are using now. Several students have gotten dissertations off of this site, so it has been very useful.We said good bye to Dr Ting and his companions and set off to return to Tainan City. We stopped about a 1/2 hour into our trip for what Dr Wu described as an "icy dessert". Of course we Americans were expecting ice cream. Not quite. Dr Wu's idea of an "icy dessert" is a bowl filled with a baseball sized lump of sugared taro root, wet peanuts, cold green beans, small marshmellow like globs of rice dough (called sticky rice), and a larger blob of sticky rice with some sort of soft fruit (maybe a date?) in the center, all covered with snow cone shavings. The ice shavings are then flavored with a squirt of a brown syrup made from brown sugar dissolved in hot water. There are only a few things I have eaten here that I really disliked. This "icy dessert" was one of them. My limited experience with Asian deserts is that they are not sweet, but this was very sweet to the point of being over powering. Shuying absolutely loved it. She ate all of her taro, most of mine, then had Dr Wu order extra. Ted, Melinda, and I all felt about the same, slightly queasy.Back in the car, we head for Tainan City via the interstate system. Most everyone took advantage of the down time to catch up on some much needed rest. Dr Wu is a master of sleeping anytime, anywhere. He would have to be, because by his own admittance, he doesn't sleep much at night. He is a very driven man. So, I couldn't resist having Shuying snap a photo of Dr Wu power napping in the front seat on our way home.We arrived outside our hotel about 6pm. None of us were hungry for one of Dr Wu's big meals, so we asked if he would mind if we just spent the evening in the hotel getting ready for the next day. A gracious host to the end, he seemed concerned that we didn't eat dinner, and left us only when we agreed that if we got hungry we would call him and he would take us to dinner. Of course, that didn't happen. The only person I saw the remainder of the evening was Shuying, who I bumped into as I was walking down the stairs to go to 7-11 for some chips. Otherwise, I enjoyed just having an evening to relax and take it easy in the hotel.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209957000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209957000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209957000/tpod.html Mon, 05 May 2008 08:35:23 -0400 Adventures in Taiwan - A technical trip interlaced with some fun, I hope.

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Tainan, Tainan, Taiwan

Today was a much needed rest day, though it really wasn't that restful. All that was scheduled for today was some touring around Tainan City. Alan and Patrick picked us up at 9am and we set off to see the sights. Our first stop was the Eternal Fortress near old Anping. Even though it is Sunday morning, there were an impressive amount of people out and about. Storefronts were open and people were busy taking care of business. And boy is it going to be a scorcher today. The sun is out and it must be 85F already.The drive to the Eternal Fortress did not take long, 10 or 15 mins in the car. Once there we paid the $50NT entrance fee and crossed a bridge over a wide moat to the tunnel entrance to the fort. It was built in the typical 4 corner style familiar to me from viewing revolutionary war forts in the US. This fort was built by the Qing Dynasty in the late 1800s and it sits on the Taiwan Strait. Once through the front entrance you walk on to a very large parade ground. The signs that are written in English indicate that more than 1500 troops were stationed here at one time. I can not imagine where they all would go. There were many cannons stationed around the wall of the fort, unfortunately only one was original. Ted picked up a trail of pre-teen admirers who did a lot of giggling and pointing. He was gracious and let them take his photograph. They were there with their tutor who lucky for us spoke English and gave us a brief description of the purpose of the fort. At 10am, there was a demonstration with 3 men in costume describing the use of the fort, and reenacting what was done when there was an invasion. Of course, I don't speak Chinese so I'm not entirely clear what was being said, but when it came time to fire the cannon it shot out fireworks over the fort wall. Quite a neat effect.After departing the Eternal Fortress we drove the the old fort at Anping. We parked about 2 blocks away because the area was packed. Evidently this is also a common weekend market, so it was bustling with people. Shuying was hot and tired so she opted to sit on a bench in a nearby park while Patrick and Alan took us to see the fort. Before entering the fort itself, we walked through the grounds of a traditional Taiwanese temple, and the starting point of the market place. There were people selling food everywhere. Ted was more interested in seeing the marketplace than the fort so he and Alan split off on their own while Patrick accompanied Melinda and me.Again the cost was $50NT, but instead of entering the fort through a moat, we walked up a long set of brick steps. This fort was built by the Dutch (who occupied Taiwan) in the 1600's using bricks that they imported from Java. It is the oldest fort in Taiwan and only part of one wall is original. In the late 1800, the Japanese who occupied Taiwan, leveled most of the original fort and constructed a 3-level platform (reminiscent of mezoamerican pyramids), upon which was built a house for the director of customs. In order to get to the house, we had to walk up many steep steps. At the top of the steps is the house, which has now been converted into a small museum displaying historical relics, drawings, and photographs. On the Taiwan Strait side of the fort there was a large observation tower that we could walk up into and see the Tainan City from above. It was neat to learn some of the history behind Tainan City and Taiwan. We left the old fort at Anping and explored the market place. There were a lot of food vendors and merchants peddling their wares. We bumped into Ted and Alan who were shopping to. Alan went off to get Shuying while Patrick tried to keep track of Melinda, Ted, and me. He had his hands full. None of us seemed to be daunted by our lack of language skills and we kept wandering off. Patrick was a logistics officer in the Taiwanese army when he did his military service so he really is pretty good at herding cats, but we kept him on his toes. He commented that Dr Wu would be most displeased if he lost us and that we needed to do a better job of sticking together. Much like with little children, his scolding went generally unheeded.We left the market about 1pm and headed for lunch. Patrick wanted to take us to Jamy's, a sandwich shop that used to be a Subway, until Subway pulled out of Taiwan. Some enterprising soul took over the shop and kept the same exact menu, including the different bread types. They even had a combo meal with chips and a drink. Ted, Melinda, and I were very happy. Even Patrick ate a sub. Alan and Shuying went off in search of a more traditional lunch.. Since there was no where to sit down to eat at Jamy's, we walked around the corner to a Chinese dessert place and ordered dessert so that we could sit down to eat. Dessert was not ice cream, but rather was a fruit drink ( passion fruit in my case) that included ice and some gelatin to give it thickness. It was not one of my favorite desserts. Melinda ordered one with lemons that she didn't care for either. But, it's all part of the adventure, right?When Shuying and Alan returned, we took off for the shopping mall. After driving about 15 mins we pulled into an underground parking garage and rode the escalator into the mall called "Carrafour". I was expecting a mall like the one in the bottom of Taipei 101. Not quite. As with many things here, the Taiwanese have taken something American, adopted it, and made it uniquely Taiwanese. The mall is large and square in shape. There are permanent stores ringing the outside on 3 of the 4 walls (the escalators are on the 4th), and it boasted the names of designers from Hong Kong and other parts of Asia. The inside however, looked like an upscale flea market that sold clothes. There were not real walls separating vendors, but everyone seemed to know their place. In the downstairs there was a food court that I didn't explore, but I could see a Japanese Hibachi place and Burger King (the first I've seen in Taiwan). In one corner on the 2nd floor was a big box store that could have easily been named Walmart, as it sold the same stuff. I could have picked up socks, an aquarium, a TV, and a moped all in one store. Again, the 4 of us sort of accidentally split up and went our separate ways. I had Alan as my interpretor and I asked him what he thought of the big box store. His comments sounded a lot like American opinions--it's very convenient but it's driving the smaller merchants out of business and what affect with that have on economic stability.It was now about 4pm and we set off for the hotel so that Melinda and I could do some laundry. Along the way we stopped at a small pet store so that I could take a photo of a type of pet fish that is for sale in Asia. Seth (my son) and I had watched a show about jelly fish and in the show they described how the gene for the fluorescent green light jellyfish produce has been isolated and bred into a type of tropical fish. The addition of the jellyfish green DNA makes the tropical fish glow a ghostly green under black light. Since I can't bring them back to the US, I wanted to take a photo of them, and Patrick was happy to oblige me. When we got back in the car Patrick told me that there is a cheap clothes washing detergent imported from China that contains a fluorescent dye. If you wash your clothes in it then go out to a night club with black lighting your clothes will glow, a condition he says is not cool. Shuying decided that she needed a nap, while Ted took hung out with Alan and Patrick. We agreed to meet up in the hotel lobby at 6:30p to go get dinner then visit the night market. With clockwork precision, Alan, Patrick, and Ted returned to pick us up at the hotel. Patrick suggested that we go get spaghetti at an Italian restaurant, which we were all to happy to eat. Dinner looked very promising from the outside. There was an Italian flag outside the entrance, and inside there was a specials board sitting on a easel. The board was topped with a drawing of an obese Italian chef. So far so good. We walked upstairs and found a seat. The usual fun began with menu interpretation. Shuying realized rather quickly that there wasn't a whole lot of Italian food on the menu. Ted wanted ravioli or spaghetti marinara. I was looking forward to chicken Parmesan. Even Shuying, couldn't find anything she was overly interested in. The pasta descriptions were like "spaghetti with milk and chicken" or "spaghetti with pork". Shuying talked Patrick into taking her in the back to see the kitchen and off they went. Melinda and I noticed a table near by us had a basket of what looked like french fries. Ok, at least we have a fall back choice.Patrick and Shuying returned about 5 mins later saying that the milk sauce for the chicken is really butter, and that there is definitely not a spaghetti marinara. There is good news though. They have bread that can be served with dinner(but we will have to make do without rolls). According to Shuying, the reason this is an "Italian restaurant" is because they put cheese on top of the spaghetti, a completely foreign concept in Chinese food. We all choose what we want and off goes Patrick to place our order. Dining out in Taiwan is completely different from the US. At many restaurants, you find your own seat and use an order form menu to choose your meal. Then you go turn in your order and pay. Then, your order is brought to you, but not all at once. Meals are released from the kitchen as they are finished being cooked, not gathered and delivered to the table all at once. Also, they do not generally drink anything with a meal, instead they have soup with a clear broth. Our hosts keep laughing at us because we seem to drink an enormous amount of bottled water, though I suspect we would drink more if it was cold or we had ice.Patrick and Alan's meals arrive first, then mine, Ted's, and Melinda's arrive about 5 mins later. Melinda and I both had ordered sodas and they didn't come until our meal was almost finished. Plus they were warm. Shuying's meal never arrived. Off goes Patrick again and the manager returns saying that her meal will be ready in about 5 mins, maybe. Shuying opts to skip spaghetti and find dinner at the night market. By the way I ordered the spaghetti milk chicken which tasted like turkey tetrazini because it also had red, yellow, and green peppers in it.Last stop, the Tainan City Night Market. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't the nightly equivalent of the NC State Fair. Despite negotiating a small traffic jam, we were able to find a parking spot close to the entrance. The night market was ablaze with floodlights, and there were red and yellow flags in the air everywhere. Near the entrance were port-a-johns, complete with eastern style toilet. Although I have finally mastered how to use one properly, I will hold it until I die rather than use one of these port-a-johns. There is no amount of hand sanitizer that could make me change my mind.Once inside, Alan and Shuying went in search of food, while poor Patrick got stuck herding the cats again. Patrick gave us strict instructions not to wander too far ahead and advised that we be very careful for pick pockets. There was so much to see and buy. Nearly anything was available: food, gambling, rides for the kids, clothing, leather goods, CDs, and shoes just to name a few. Patrick did a great job of keeping us together and interpreting when we needed a question answered. Melinda said she was hungry for cotton candy and Ted swore he smelled it, but we never did find any. Before we knew it we were out of our self-alotted time and we needed to return to the van to meet Shuying and Alan.We drove back to the hotel, said good bye to Alan and Patrick, and agreed to meet them tomorrow morning at 8:30p.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209863700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209863700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209863700/tpod.html Sun, 04 May 2008 11:00:57 -0400 Adventures in Taiwan - A technical trip interlaced with some fun, I hope.

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Joujou, Nantou, Taiwan

I woke up to an absolutely gorgeous day. The sun was shining brightly and the little sliver of Sun Moon Lake that I can see from my window shows placid water. Breakfast was brought to my room around 7:30, and we were scheduled to leave around 8am. I still had postcards to mail so I wandered down towards the lake in the direction the hotel owner indicated. Although not the easiest to find, I did locate a post office box. Now, we'll see how long it takes for my postcards to make it back to the USA. While I was finding a post office, Ted set off to Starbucks for coffee, and Melinda and Shuying walked to the edge of the lake to take photos. When we all return, Dr Wu decides that we will drive on the road that goes around the lake, and stop at the 2 temples that sit next to it. The first stop is at the Wenwu Temple, the temple we visited last night in the rain. Yesterday we had most of the temple to ourselves because the rain kept the tourists away. Today, is a different matter altogether. It is Saturday, the weather is beautiful, and there are people everywhere. We parked, took some more photos of the lake and the temple, and walked among the street vendors. Melinda, Ted, and Shuying bought hats, while I purchased corn on the cob on a stick. It was very good, nice and sweet, even without butter or salt on it. This was the first time that we really got stared at with wonder. It is obvious that we don't belong, but we definitely fit in with everyone else in the camera toting tourist crowd.We got back in the car and continued our journey around the lake. There is a very small island in the middle of the lake, called Lalu island, that was the homeland of a Taiwanese aboriginal tribe before the dam that merged Sun and Moon lakes was built. Dr Wu explained that before the 921 earthquake the island was bigger, but it sunk into the lake during the earthquake leaving just a very small area sticking out. It doesn't seem very smart to me to dam a lake that sits over an active fault line, but I am not an engineer. During our drive we could see a shore hugging boardwalk that has been built for tourists to explore the lake, and I wished we had a bit more time to stay here.On the opposite side of the lake we stopped at the Xuanzang Temple which houses some of Taiwan's holiest Buddha relics. Again, just like at the WenWu temple, the decorations are very ornate and well kept. Inside, there was a little gold pagoda on an alter with a big fish eye lens built into the front. Inside the gold pagoda are housed 7 bones that had been found in cremated remains of highly revered monks that were brought back from the pilgrimage to India of a Tang dynasty monk. It sort of reminded me of very old Catholic churches in the US. After looking around, we got back in the van and traveled to the town of Jiji to see the epicenter of the 921 earthquake. Unlike at Tsao Tung, the location of the earthquake museum, the city of Jiji was not as spectacularly affected. It is a large tourist attraction still, mostly for the Jiji railroad that will take passengers on a ride to the interior of the island. We don't have time to ride the railroad, but we did get to mingle with the tourists and shopkeepers out for the weekend. Melinda, Ted, and Shuying purchased fresh coconuts complete with straws to drink the milk. I wandered off to look for train souvineers for my boys.All of our mingling is stressing out Dr Wu who likes to keep a tight schedule, but he seems to be willing to give us some room to look around. What it affects is his love of an enormous meal. To make up for lost time, our next stop after Jiji is a McDonalds for lunch, instead of a sit down dinner. It didn't bother us in the least to have lunch at McDonalds.Our next stop on the trip is the site of the Tsao Lin land slide. It took us about an hour to get to the site, which again, Taiwan has turned into a national park. The land slide occurred during the middle of the night, as a result of the 921 earthquake. Nearly 40 residents of the area died as a result of the land slide. I know the photos don't show it well, but it is overwhelming to look at. An enormous part of the hillside went from having a flat slope to a bowl shaped relief. We were able to look at the landslide debris field from 2 different locations, and it is unfathomable how much rock shifted from one area to another in a matter of minutes. According to a plaque at the memorial, this is not the first time either. After driving through this area, and winding back and forth through the roads, I can not imagine how you could situate a drill rig to conduct subsurface investigations. The mountains are so steep that in most places the roads are just barely wide enough for 2 cars to past. What few houses there are seem to cling to the hillside using magic. It is beautiful, but so different from the much older mountains in North Carolina.We settled into a 2 hour drive back to Tainan from Tsao Lin. It is raining off an on, so I decided to take a small catnap. I was not the only one. I think everyone but David (who was driving) tried to catch up on sleep.We arrived in Tainan around 5:15p and were surprised when Dr Wu invited us out to dinner to meet his family. I really was hoping to spend a few hours in my hotel room catching up on stuff, but it would be too rude to turn down his invitation. We checked back into our hotel rooms and tried to relax. Dr Wu would be returning at 7pm to take us to a seafood restaurant for dinner. I am not hungry. I have eaten so much food while I'm here.Shuying and I discussed that it would be appropriate for us to take some small gift along with us to dinner to give to Dr Wu's wife, since he has spent so much time with us instead of with his family. We decided flowers would be a good easy gift to find. Although not a common gift in Taiwan, Dr Wu and his wife both went to graduate school in the US, so hopefully she will appreciate them. There is a flower shop across the road from our hotel, so we went there and had a grouping of roses put together. I don't think I took a photo of the flowers, which is a shame. Dr Wu came to get us at a little after 7, and we took off to the harbor area for food. At the restaurant we were greeted by Andrew, Dr Wu's oldest son, who took us to the seating area in the restaurant. Andrew tells us that he was born in the US and lived there until he was 6. His english is spectacular, with no accent and a grasp of our quirky sayings as well. We also met Dr Wu's smaller children and his wife. They were all extremely pleasant and we had a great conversation over dinner. After dinner we walked along the harbor. There is an enormous statue of a rooster that Andrew said was built the last time Tainan hosted the dragon boat races. There is also a statue of a goddess who overlooks and protects the harbor. Although it was after 9pm, there were many people out and about talking and laughing with friends. There were kids running around, people walking dogs, and merchants peddling their wares. The temperature was perfect. It reminded me of a comfortable night in early June in North Carolina at the coast. Dr Wu took us back to the hotel around 9:30p. I am dead tired. I was hoping to sleep in tomorrow morning, but Patrick and Alan will be back around 8:30 to take us sight seeing.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209780060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209780060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209780060/tpod.html Sun, 04 May 2008 10:05:25 -0400 Adventures in Taiwan - A technical trip interlaced with some fun, I hope.

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Yuchih, Nantou, Taiwan

Before I say anything about my day today, I have to wish my son Trevor a Happy 8th Birthday! I woke up about 6:00 this morning, not because of jet lag but because I forgot to pull the heavy drapes in my hotel window before I went to bed last night. They do not practice daylight savings in Taiwan, so the sun comes up before 6am. I paid $200NT for an internet connection last night, so I called home this morning (last night in NC) using Skype. I spent way too much time on the phone, then scurried around packing up to go.I got to breakfast just as everyone was leaving. I wasn't that hungry any way, so I just had some cereal. We met Dr Wu downstairs at 8am, so that we could leave to catch the High Speed Rail. We piled into two taxis and rode for about 10 mins to the Taipei rail station. The Taipei railway station reminded me of a modern version of Penn station in New York City. Three different train systems stop here on three different levels of the station: the HSR, the MRT subway system, and the traditional railway system. Dr Wu bought us 9:00 tickets for the HSR, and we sat down in the waiting area. The HSR was right on time. Our seats were in car 5, which was only about 1/3 full. We are headed to Tai Chung to meet David and Alan who are driving from Tainan to Taichung to pick us up with a van so that we can travel into the mountains. The train ride only takes about 48 mins to cover about 150km. Once again, the ride was smooth as glass, but this time since it was light outside we could take photos. Or at least attempt. Our inexpensive digital cameras do not like to take photos when there is a lot of action going on. Neither Ted nor I could get a very decent photo, but we sure tried. That was ok with me, as it gave me some time to write out post cards. When we walked off the train at Taichung, we were greeted at the top of the escalator by a Starbucks coffee. Ted was happy as he hadn't had breakfast. I opted to indulge myself with a chocolate chip muffin. It cost me about $4US, which is outrageous, but it was oh so worth it. Alan and David arrived about 5 mins later, and we set off in the van. Our first stop was at the city Tsao Tung and the 921 Earthquake museum. In 1999 a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck central Taiwan at about 1:45 am. Around 2,400 people died, over 11,000 people were injured, and 29 people were never found. The Taiwanese government decided to turn a highly damaged middle school campus site into a National museum for the purpose of educating for the future and well as honoring the dead. The museum is enormous and a lot of work went into exposing the fault in the ground so everyone could see it. They structurally secured classroom buildings so that they would not fall down under their own weight, but the damage caused by the earthquake could be easily seen. It is a shame that so many people had to be injured in order to get a museum that really talks about nothing but geology, but it is by far the best earth science museum I have been in. There were many videos, interactive displays, and photos to see. There was even a room that simulated a magnitude 5.1 earthquake so that you could sit and experience your own earthquake. I've experienced 2 magnitude earthquakes over 4.0 in my life. The simulator was very accurate. I probably could have spent another 4 hours or so at the museum, but Dr Wu has a pretty tight schedule to keep us on, so off we go.From the earthquake museum, we headed to lunch at a restaurant Dr Wu picked out especially for Ted. The restaurant's specialty is cooking dishes that contain no meat, but tastes like you are eating fish, beef, or chicken. I would have been fooled had he not told us in advance. The waitress brought each of us 12 different small dishes total, but each one was served every 5 mins or so apart. I think 2 of the dishes were made of mushrooms, several used soy, there was brown rice cooked with some sort of crunchy things, pumpkin and cream soup, sweet potato chips battered and fried like french fries, dragon's beard salad, and much more. I ran out of room by the 8th course, but tried everything. Dessert was slices of fresh watermellon and fresh passion fruit juice made from passion fruit grown on the grounds of the restaurant.As we departed from the restaurant and headed up into the mountains to Yuchih and the SunMoon lake area it began to rain steadily. Boy was I glad I had the forethought to put a scopamine patch behind my ear this morning before leaving the hotel. I would have easily been carsick. The roads were windy and twisty, two lanes that crawled up over mountains, and down valleys into small villages. I now understand why the Taiwanese geolgists said the geologic map of Taiwan was not completely accurate as there are areas where only "a monkey can go". I think the mountain slopes here are even more steep than those found in the Rocky Mountains. It also explains the dry riverbeds we kept crossing at lower altitudes that looked 2000 feet wide and strewn with boulders the size of Volkswagon beetles. During the rainy season, runoff must come off the mountains very quickly.We arrived at Yuchih and the SunMoon lake area about 4:15. We were supposed to take a boat tour of the lake, but that got scrapped due to rain. Instead, we checked into our rooms then headed out to visit a very famous Buddist temple (Wenwu Temple) near by before it got too dark. The temple is enormous and sits on the hillside above the lake. It is guarded by 2 very large red lions, sitting with 1 paw on huge spheres. As with all Buddist temples, the attention to details by the artisans who designed and painted the temple is phenominal. The floors were all made of marble, the carvings in the columns were intricate, and every inch of the ceiling was decorated. My photos will not do it justice. We headed back to the area near our hotel to have dinner. I was still stuffed from lunch but went anyway. Again, we had 8 courses of food, most of which were made from chicken or fish. Two of the dishes were something that I would have never touched in the US, but I ate so that I wouldn't seem impolite. They were actually tasty, just visually unappealing to the western eye. The first was small fish about the length of my pinky, gutted, battered, and deepfried so that you ate them still with the head and tail attached. The second was shrimp cooked with black tea leaves, which contained medium sized fresh water shrimp cooked with the head, tails, and legs still attached. Surprisingly, both were rather pleasantly tasting, though I would have liked some melted butter for the shrimp.After diner we set out to walk around in the tourist gift shops. There were lots of things to look at and purchase, but nothing spectacular that I couldn't live without. SunMoon lake is the honeymoon capital of Taiwan, and there were lots of couples walking about. This was our first chance on our trip to walk around, mostly unescorted, and get to mingle with the Taiwanese people. I really enjoyed it a lot. Ted took off with David to go get a foot and head massage while Melinda, Shuying, and I headed back to our hotel to get some rest. The hotel we stayed at was called "the Honeymoon Hotel", because it is marketed at honeymooners. Melinda and I had separate hotel rooms, but they shared a common entrance. Both our rooms looked out front over the street, but mine was closer to the hotel advertising sign attached to the building. It gave the room an interesting glow when the lights were out. The room was rather sparse, but did have a bed, an 42" wide screen plasma TV, and a western style bath, so I really can't complain. This was also my first experience with leaving my shoes outside the door and wearing plastic flip flops while walking around so as not to scuff up the floor. Since there wasn't internet access at the hotel, I decided to watch CNN (the only English speaking channel on the TV other than movie channels) and pretty promptly fell asleep.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209810960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209810960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209810960/tpod.html Sat, 03 May 2008 11:07:14 -0400 Adventures in Taiwan - A technical trip interlaced with some fun, I hope.

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Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan

Finally! I feel refreshed! Amazing what a difference 9 hours of sleep makes. I woke up around 6:30 with the sun streaming through my window. Breakfast was served buffet style and because this is a much larger hotel, there were many choices of both western and eastern foods. Melinda, Ted, Shuying and I all wound up at breakfast together as we arrived within a few minutes of one another. We all slept better than we had since before arriving, so the jet lag must be abating. Today is the day of our first set of presentations, so we all ate heartily.Our hotel is located diagonally across the street from National Taiwan University, but we rode in a cab to the presentation site in part because of the dressy shoes the women of our group were wearing with their business suits. Our presentations took place at the Taipei Hydraulics Laboratory, which is a sister agency to the Tainan Hydraulics Laboratory, but it is staffed by professors from the university. We will be giving our presentations in a long skinny room, set up much like a move theater. The seats were set up stadium style and were quite comfortable. According to the sign up sheet, there were over 50 people who pre-registered for the talks, and if everyone actually attends, the room could be nearly full. In the lobby, Dr Wu's assistants put together packets that included copies of our presentation and some advertising material for the various agencies that sponsored our trip. When the Taiwanese do something, they do it in full. The copies of our presentations were put together in a soft bound book that is about 3/8" thick with a color cover. Very professional looking.We began right on time at 9am. Dr Wu gave an opening presentation that lasted about 20 mins and described the history of the project that brought us to Taiwan. A very brief speach was given by the director of the Taipei Hydraulics Laboratory, and then Shuying began her talks. While Shuying was speaking, I had the opportunity to browse through all the presentations in the book. I have to say that I am surprised at how well our presentations relate to each other, and how little overlap there is with our subjects. Considering the 4 of us didn't prepare together, and there wasn't any review between us, the flow is excellent.Shuying gave the first 2 presentations and I gave the third talk, which was the last one before lunch. There were many very good questions from the audience, and although they were asking quetions in Chinese or Taiwanese, it was obvious that they were picking up the concepts we were discussing in English. I have no doubt having the printed presentations helped, but still. Fortunately, or unfortunately, my talk seemed to generate many questions. I discussed several pieces of geophysical equipment that we use routinely in our investigations in my presentations that they have not used before. Lunch was supposed to be from 11:30a to 1p, but we didn't actually leave for lunch until 12:15p. That meant that with 1/3 of our talks finished we were already nearly an hour behind schedule.Dr Wu lead us to a downstairs conference room where we had a "traditional box lunch" to eat while we sat with several members of the NGS we had met the day before. Discussion was light and mostly centered around how we were enjoying our visit to Taiwan, but towards the end there were some discussions about the structure of NC DWQ and the different agencies in NCDENR. After returning from lunch, Melinda, Ted, and I gave the last 6 presentations. Amazingly we made up some time and finished around 4:45p, only 10 mins behind schedule. We begain walking across campus towards our hotel and discussed what we were going to do for dinner. We wanted a small fast dinner so that we could do some sight seeing in Taipei, but it has finally sunk in that Dr Wu doesn't do quick dinner. I think nearly every meal we have had here, with the exception of McDonalds, we have had no less than 8 courses of food and it has lasted more than 90 mins. I thought I was going to lose weight on this trip, but that is highly unlikely. At least the desert course is generally fresh fruit.Dr Wu decided that we would eat dinner in the student union cafeteria. I expected buffet, but no, it's still a traditional dimsum dinner. The other think I have to mention about the food here is that I don't think I have eaten the same dish twice since I have arrived. All have been good, though I have liked some better than others, but not once have I eaten the same thing. We left dinner and returned to our hotel about 7pm, changed, and set off with Patrick to see the Taipei 101 building, the tallest building in the world (for now)Riding by taxi to the Taipei 101 building is an adventure in itself, and it is only heighted by the lack of sunlight. Since we didn't all fit in 1 taxi, Shuying and Ted rode separate from Patrick, Melinda, and me. Shuying and Ted's taxi was almost in a accident with another car on the way there, Shuying reported when we caught up with them at Taipei 101. There is a very large shopping mall on the bottom 5 floors of the building, most of which are very expensive (like Gucci and Dolce & Gabana). After wandering a bit we discovered that the observation deck of the Taipei 101 building was still open so we decided to take a tour. It cost $400 NT (about $13US) but it was well worth it. The elevator ride to the top took less than 30 seconds and was smoother than any other elevator I've been on. Once on top we were able to walk around 3 floors. It reminded me of the top of the Twin Towers, glass all the way around, and a spectacular view of the city below. Uniquely, you can walk to the center of the building and see the large sphere that functions as the building's inertial dampener. Some advertising guru decided that an advertising gimic for the Taipei 101 building would be to play up the huge sphere, and they created a series of round colored robot like spheres called "damper babies". I didn't quite get it. Isn't the uniqueness of the building enough? After all, how many buildings look like Chinese take-away boxes stacked on top of each other? Anyway, we also went to the top public floor which is open air and walked around the observation deck outside. There were security guards everywhere, because at one time some crazy guy climbed over the fence around the observation dec fence and base jumped (using a parachute) to the street below. No base jumpers tonight, just a bunch of tourists. We finished looking at the city and took the elevator back to the 5th floor. We exited, hailed taxis and returned to the hotel. Again, Shuying and Ted had bad luck with their taxi driver. Despite giving him a card with an address and a map, their driver took Shuying and Ted to a different hotel. Ted was so tired he just got out, but luckily Shuying noticed the error and they eventually found their way back.After I returned to my room I thought I'd write out some post cards, but I was so tired I just took a shower and went to bed.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209562200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209562200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcswaink/1/1209562200/tpod.html Thu, 01 May 2008 11:37:34 -0400 Adventures in Taiwan - A technical trip interlaced with some fun, I hope.

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Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan

I did not sleep well last night. I keep blaming it on jetlag. It was nearly midnight before I dropped off, and I was wide awake at 3:30a. The last time I looked at the clock it was 4:30, and the alarm went off at 6:30am. Ugh. Not a good way to start the day.Instead of going to breakfast downstairs, I ate a pastry that I had bought last night at the market across the street from the hotel. I bought it because it looked like a cross between a doughnut and a cheese danish. Though not quite what I expected, it was similar. Instead of being cream cheese flavored, the filling was a milky coconut, like the middle of a Mars bar. No matter, it suited the purpose. With some creative packing, I was able to squish everything I needed into my two small bags. At 7:30a we loaded everything into the van and left to pick up Dr Wu. We are going to the Tainan Airport to catch a 8:40a flight to Taipei. The airport in Tainan is a combined military base and consumer airport. Right now there is only 1 active airline left that services Tainan. Dr Wu explained that there used to be 3, but with the completion of the Taiwan HSR it has undercut the airlines. It is still faster to get to Taipei by air (it takes about 45 min) versus HSR (1 hr 30 min) but the HSR is cheaper. We checked in our luggage, which they weighed on a mechanical scale and totaled on paper. We passed through security which did involve going through a metal detector and a luggage scanner, though I was very surprised that they didn't ask me to remove my CPAP machine for further inspection. When our flight was called, we exited onto a bus and rode quite a distance to a propeller driven plane about the size of a 727, maybe just a bit smaller. It had 4 seats across and about 30 rows. (Interesting note on human dynamics follows) In the US, the entrance to the plane is in the front so people prefer to sit in front of the wings. In this plane, the entrance was in the back and while the back half of the plane was packed full, I had seat 6D by the window in the front and there was no one next to me or Shuying who had the window seat on the opposite side of the row.Despite the early morning start I remembered to take some Dramamine as I was afraid the flight would be bumpy. Surprisingly, it wasn't too bad. They did serve tea during the flight, which was a pleasant diversion. Also, one of the buttons on Ted's suit coat fell off the day before, and I offered to sew it back on for him. Since we weren't allowed to use any electronic devices on the plane, I was all too happy to have something to do to pass the time. We landed at the Taipei city airport, a different one from the one we arrived at on Sunday. It was about 9:50 by the time we picked up our luggage and headed out to find a taxi. If you could have seen me in the taxi, I'm sure my eyes were the size of dinner plates. Taipei reminds me of Manhattan, but with an even more diverse palatte of aromas, if that is possible. In comparison to Tainan, it is muggier, and definitely smoggier. As Patrick indicated, the traffic in Taipei is more orderly than in Tainan, but not much. Scooters still fly by but their movements seem to be more controlled by the addition of another traffic lane. We were due to meet the Director General of Taiwan's Water Resources Agency at 10:30a. What a sight we must have been getting out of taxis at the Water Resources Agency main building, complete with luggage. Thats like going to meet Bill Ross, the NC DENR Secretary, at the Archdale building and wheeling your luggage behind you to the meeting. I had the theme song from the Beverly Hillbillies running through my mind, but the Director General's staff was more than gracious and agreed to keep an eye on our luggage during our meeting. The pile took up most of their visitor waiting area. I should have taken a better photo.Our meeting with Director General Shen Hsien Chen went well. His english is very good and he was able to describe the reason behind their program and what questions they would like to answer. Again Shuying's translation skills were very appreciated when the discussion turned to more technical matters and it was easier to converse in mandarin. We said good bye and caught a taxi to our hotel It only took about 5 mins to get our hotel, The Howard International Hotel. The lobby is beautiful, with leather sofas and marble floors, very sleek and modern. The desk staff spoke English, which was a pleasant surprise. Although our rooms were not ready, we were allowed to leave our heavy luggage behind the hotel desk and head off to our second meeting with the Director General of the Central Geological Survey. We set off walking to the closest subway station, to ride across town to the CGS and lunch. I like Taipei's subway. It is very clean and the trains are much wider than any other subway I've been on. You can walk in between the cars without opening a door, so if you are looking down the train and there is a bend in the track, you can watch the front of the train move in response. At one point the track we were following made an S as it went under Taipei's main river and it was fun to watch the train cars in front of us turn in response. Dr Wu decided that he would give us a taste of home, and we ate lunch at a McDonalds near the CGS. It is amazing to me that I can be 9,000 miles away from the US, but a big mac and fries still tastes the same. The joys of franchising. And I have to admit, I enjoyed every bite and I ate every single fry. One very unique difference however, Dr Wu, was able to call ahead and make reservations to reserve us tables.Our meeting with Director General Chao-Chung Lin and several members of his staff was at 2pm. We started out in a small but very formal conference room. The furniture was carved from a very heavy dark wood and each of our chairs were separated by an end table. Dr Wu explained our project briefly and introduced us. Again, more questions about the cooperation thing and some raised eye brows. When we were finished we moved into a much larger conference room where we were joined by about 10 additional staff geologists and hydrogeolgists who asked many more questions. This time questions seemed to center around site selection, but they still kept us occupied for at least an hour. As we were leaving they gave us some maps of the geology of Taiwan to take home with us. One thing I have to say, is that there must be some universal dress code for geologists, and it includes a field vest with pockets, jeans, and comfortable shoes. Oh, and other than secretarial staff, I have only seen one female professional, and she must be a geologist based upon her dress.About 4:30p we left and went to another building where they store core. We basically sat around and killed time until 5:15p when it was time to attend yet another formal dinner. Shuying and I rode by car with the Deputy Director of the CGS to the restaurant. In Taipei, this restaurant is evidently very famous for it's chicken soup made with a whole chicken that is cooked in broth all day. Every table around us had a bowl of this soup sitting on it, so it must be popular. The soup was served in a very big bowl and sitting on the bottom of the bowl was an entire roaster chicken, bones, neck, and all. It is served by using a combination of chop sticks and a large spoon to break off a piece of the chicken to put in your bowl, then ladling broth over it. I think there were about 14 people at dinner, and we easily had 14 dishes served, but not all at once. There was a little bit of everything: pork, duck, fish, chicken, vegetables, fruit, and lots of drinking. I ate something that looked like small deep fried curly noodles, which I later discovered was a mass of tiny fish. The black spots I thought were pepper were tiny little fish eyes. There was some sort of pork dish that tasted a lot like BBQ with a sweet honey sauce, and duck that tasted more like ham. By the time dinner ended at 8:30p, I was dog tired and dragging. I could not wait to return to the hotel.We picked up our luggage from the front desk and located our rooms on the 9th floor. I was given an electronic swipe card similar to those we use in the states, but it is made of a bit thicker plastic. I was able to open up my door easily enough, but when I tried to turn on the lights nothing turned on when I flipped the switch. I found another switch, nothing. Same Ted, Melinda, and Shuying's rooms. Then we discovered a funny slot further inside the room that when you put the key inside it, it allows electric power to flow to the room and all the lights turned on. Pull out the key, and everything turns shuts off. It's probably a great idea to prevent electricity waste, but I was so tired it was difficult to wrap my brain around the concept. My room is larger than the one I had in Tainan and it contains a tv, small refrigerator, desk, and twin bed. At this point I could be sleeping on the floor and I don't think I would mind. It's 9:30p and I can barely keep my eyes open. I have no doubt I will be catching up on some much needed sleep.
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