Elevator Red

After Marks wedding I was on my way to Georg place for a coffee and I happen to see this rather striking red running all the way up the top of the balcony combined with a very conservative geometry.

















Xiniyi style.

Cardboard Dubs

I saw this very close to where I live in Jhonghe I was trying to see if I could take any short cuts to the dry cleaners on the high street, as I walk down one of the small lanes it eventually opened up. Where I found one of the residents had attached cardboard square to the rim of there car. What was more amusing was that they were not even alloys just stand clip in plastic rims.













I am thinking whether I should draw some alloys for them on the cardboard.

I also like this photo of the steel door accompanied by green roof moss and a small collection of bricks by the door to the right.

















Embracing been green.

Taipei Visual Nights

For me the best time to see Taipei is at night, just sitting in a Taxi and watching all the bright lights whiz by I think it's a great experience, you just have to look out the window and not chat to you're mates. You really get an understand that this is a 24/7 city and something you don't have back in Europe.

Drive by.

At night Taipei city totally changes and emits a new image, it hides the congested roads and all the tin roofed apartments and concrete jelly molded architecture. You're just left with this bazaar mixture of silhouetted tower blocks illuminated by an array of colour full lights.





















Photos from my Nokia mobile.

Solar Ellipse Taipei

Today we had a Solar Ellipse, but unlike Shanghai, Taipei didn't have a complete black out just an over casted morning. I did managed to take a few photos of the events unfolding outside company HQ.

The Sun.

The Ellipse.

The clouds.

Hyper Structures

Ok maybe the tile is a bit exaggerated but this is something which I find always amazing when you can see a building at this stage in the build process, I love it you can see everything go on, how it's built, the inner frame etc.

I do hope when they get to doing the outer surface they use an interesting library of materials and not just pebble dash concrete along side non transparent windows, which I can't stand.

I love the blue construction lifts hanging of the sides, and how they are all evening aligned at the top.

In perspective.

Hydraulic Silhouettes

I've noticed this a lot on my travel around Taiwan and every construction site or builders yard I go past all have the Cranes, Cherry Pickers or Fork lifts, with the hydraulic arms extended out all the way. Which is an odd thing to do, because over time the pressure naturally weakens from the hydraulics forcing the arm to come down any way.

Plus for a country which received a lot of rain, especially in Taipei it would make sense to cover as much of hydraulic arm from the natural elements as you can, maybe it is an odd safe saving technique.

When I find the correct photo I'll change it!

It is quite an interesting site when the sun goes down as and all you can see are the silhouettes of platforms or digger buckets behind an orange sun, not that this photo is the best example above as these are cable Cranes.

Disney Rides

I am not really into the roller coaster thing, but I did want to try the log/water ride, but it broke down when I was queuing. I thought the highlight of the day was going on the Star Tours/Wars flight simulator it was so much fun that I went twice and I'm not even a Star Wars boffin and I highly recommend it to anyone.
















Something China Airways could benefit from!

The simulator was a combination of flying though space, with a humorous robot which didn't know how to pilot the ship, it was great!
















Disney is full of these vast man made structures, check out the white mountain in the background

I also thought artistically it was one of the best rides in the park in terms of the specials effects and the animatronics were amazing and just like the film.






















CP30 calling everybody to get of board.





















How our ride looked from the outside.

Disney Land

I never thought I would ever go and as a child I never really had the urge too want to go, but 24 years later I decided I should go and take a look and see what it’s all about.
















One of the center attractions of the park is the Disney Castle, it's a bit odd walking around as it seems so miniature.

It was actually my farther who twisted my arm and said I should go too see how professionally the place is run. Apart from finding it slightly tricky to find the Mickey and friends parking tower the rest of Disney was pretty will organized and all creepily too friendly.















For me going around the shopping area is interesting and good fun as the themed shop fronts I thought were amazingly detailed.

I went mid week as I thought the would be less people and only tourists wondering around, but I was totally wrong as it was full of school children who had just broken up for spring brake. Not only that but I had visited on possibly one of the hottest days in California the was not a could in the sky and this made it all very tiring walking around the park as the sun was so intense.
















Picturesque swan lake, I think?

I decided to visit the traditional Disney park as they have two theme parks. The one I went to see was the first park that Walt Disney built and the place is huge and quite good fun just to walk around and see the all the themed buildings and shops they have.








A rather big lake, complete with pirate ship in the back ground, you can just about see the masts!

The was also a museum dedicated too the last fifty years of Disney, this was very interesting to go around as you could see how the graphic style of mickey had changed over the years.

Disney is full of these vast man made structure imitating either the Grand Canyon or some snow ridden Antarctica.

The vast parking facilities, with electric shuttle buses to take us to Disney Land.

Sun Burnt

Yep stupid I know, totally forgot to wear sun cream and thought because it was an over cast day I would be fine. I think my legs are the worst there super red, I suppose for someone who had spent most of the year working on a tropical island should know better.

Anyway I have been research some new places which I would like to checkout over next weekend. I spoke to my farther and he suggest I should go to Disney Land to see how the place in run so efficiently and my boss was also keen for me to check out the Getty museum which I’ll be doing as well.

Plaza & Malls

Today was quite cold in Irvine or at least I felt a little bit cold, I did drive down to the beach to have a look but I felt I should go on Sunday instead. My housemate Frank who I’m currently staying with said I should check out the South Coast Plaza as it quite good for sightseeing and do a spot of shopping.

Not the South Cost Plaza but the Spectrum centre, close to Irvine, similar thought.

As I needed a new pair of trainers I thought I would head over there. The one thing I have realized about California and especially Irvin is that everything revolves around Malls.

This is where everybody hangs out!

You do generally have these vast open spaces between everything and then you reach a Mall which is like the town centre where people congregate and then you drive on again and your back to gated community and office blocks. For me this is totally under and very culturally different as you have to drive everywhere to do anything.

ShiTing Moutain Hike

Today the hiking guru Matt organized for us to go on a six hour hike around ShiTing which apparently means Stone/Rock. Actually I think the trip was more for Georg to try and get fit for his Napole mountain challenge which happens in two weeks from now.

Hiking team.

The first part of the climb was a mega lung buster it’s was practically vertical the whole way up and very steep and we all arrived at the top like a bunch of sweating dogs! This was probably the most challenging part of the hike.

We had wanted to reach 600 meters but I think this was the highest we were able to get!

We were following the route from a book written by Robert Scott Kelly who had a hiking blog called Pashan. The book we had only had words and no pictures so we had to read along as we went to make sure we took the correct way, so the hike had quite a nice theme to it as we would stop along the way to check to see if we were on the right heading, it was almost like treasure hunting.

Matt reading the way we should go.

Top of the rock.

Laid back.

Georg taking in the views.

Simply beautiful, you can just about see the 101 tower in the background.

This was probably one of the best hiking trips I have been on so far and I defiantly plan to do more the views where amazing and it’s such a great way to get out of the city and take in the fresh air and explore the sights.

Nearly home.

Hot Spring Heaven Taiwan

After about 5 hours of waling around Yangmingshan Mountain and feeling slightly cold and completely drenched from the rainfall. Georg final treat was to take us to a hidden secret hot spring which a friend of his called Lars had found 7 years ago.

Rather nice engraving on stone.

The decent to the hot spring was really cool, because the was so much steam from the hot spring it created a very nice atmosphere.

The decent.

Jonny behind the foliage in the red jacket taking a photo, he slogged this huge Digital SLR Canon around with him all day and then proceeded to only take handle of shots, quite funny and he is on the way to becoming a full Taiwanese holiday maker. But you can see his photos here.

Really nice water full which was cold water and a great way to cool of after a bit of hot spring bathing.

Exfoliating.

Model looks.

I was told that the hot spring had been expanded by the locals, unfortunately they had uses bags filled with sand rather than natural stone and plastic pipes, which I felt was a shame as we were surround by forest of bamboo!

Lovely.

The were about 4-5 hot spring pools all at different temperatures and about the size of Ping Pong tables so quite big for a few people. The photo below should is actually quite close to where the hot spring is.

Last of the geysers.

The Geysers From Yangmingshan Mountain

I didn't know Taiwan had Geysers but then it's only recently I've been spending most of my weekends trying to get out of Taipei city and head out towards the various mountains for hiking which surround Taipei.

I love the colour of the bright  yellow sulphur on the ground.

Actually it's the fist time I've seen Geysers before, and the intoxicating smell of sulphur is really strong and slightly stings your eyes, or a least that happened with me. Mind you it was still will worth a visit.

 

Letting of steam.

A lovely combination of fog and sulphur.

In the photo above if you look at the right you can see a pile of rusty old pipes, apparently a Taiwanese company had wanted to extract the sulphur for commercialise use. But the steel structure of pipes they built was corroded by the sulphur so the gave up on the refinement.

Team photo.

The geysers are located quite close to Chingtiangang grasslands, you should be able to find your way just from the smell! 

Corina and Andreas.

Hiking Around Yangmingshan

This weekend I got up very early to go hiking with George and freinds as he had oganiseed a special trip for Oni and Zou to see geisers and also visit the hidden hot springs.

We all had to meet at JianTan station at around 9am which is not massivley early, but when your not home from the office untile 3am it's not a vast amount of sleep you get. I smiled though my teeth as every body pitched up 30 minutest later.

Apart from that it was a tottaly awsome hiking trip. I think we were heading towards Chingtiangang grasslands ?

Oni, programing our route with the infamous battery eating GPS device.

Fog on the lens.

When we arrived it was very foggy and rainy, and I did wonder if my shell top trainers with holes in them was going to be a problem. But at least I had a good jacket and my body core was kepted warm which is the most imporant part.

Just double checking our route.

Enter the mist as you can see it was very foggy and raining when we set off, but kind of exciting as I love this weather almost give a spooky feeling to the trip.

A very muddy track and my foot wear did'nt stand up to well!

Slightly lost but just checking are route and altitude?

Found again as we headed of to the geisures and the weather had started to clear up.

Rather nice old bridge we crossed as we headed towards the hot springs.

Georg fully kitted out!

Some of the local vegetation, not sure what these are called but the leaves are huge.

The joys of modern technology in the rain.

The photo below should in large if you click on it. Photo taken somewhere around Chingtiangang area.