Hong Kong Kosha

Will I am in Hong Kong and waiting to get my 8am flight home to England. Wow I feel pretty shattered hope I can stay awake until I need to board.

It's been six months since I was last home and I have realised that I should aim to see my family and friend at least every six months in England.

I've spend a whole year working for AmTRAN and time has really passed quickly there!

Also Gorge and Norbert finally got me in to down hill biking which has been totally awesome fun and a great way to spend your weekends in the jungle mountains of Taipei.

2010 Taipei

It's been over a year now in Taiwan. I am still having a great time although I miss my family back home. I still lucky enough to have a full time job do design and compared to last year where I struggled to find full time employment in the warm up to the recession and had to rely on freelance work. I am just about to head of too watch the new year fireworks from the 101 which will be a great way to end the year!

Hello December

Wow it's the beginning of December in Taiwan, it seems like time flys bye so fast out here! It's nearly been a whole year at AmTran. Not much has happened over last weekend as I have been desk bound in the office.

I was suppose to go mountain biking in the morning on Saturday and I was looking really forward to my lesson from the sensei, but i got an 8.00am phone call saying the ground was a tad wet so maybe next weekend!

It's starting to get a little colder now in Taipei. I have been debating with myself if it's best to buy a mini oven to heat my room or a fan heater both are the same price, but I can cook on one while staying warm, bring on those cheese sticks I say.

Marks & Sammi Wedding

Today my co-worker Mark was getting married to his lovely soon to be wife Sammi. The wedding was in Nehui at the Grace Hill chapel. They had over 300 guest so as weddings go this was a big one and it was all very Taiwan style with a twist of western essence and far to many professional photographers and camera men ready to capture every inch of detail.


















Mark is on the right and I his brother on the left.














Entrance and our wedding was happening on the right hand side, I also think I was the only western at this wedding.


















Sammi and Mark.

I do have to say though it was all nicely organised and ran thoroughly well. This is also my 4th wedding I've been to in Taiwan. So I have not officially been to more wedding in Taiwan than England.














The must have wedding album.














Show time.

We had some fantastic food and we were not bombarded with loads of meals to eat. All though we had the standard never ending speeches while you eat, which is still culturally weird to me. At first I was told to sit on number 8 table by Mark's brother which was pretty close to Mark, I though I would be somewhere in the back!

Unfortunately number 8 suddenly was invaded by a number of Marks senior relatives, I did my bested to speak Chinese, but the conversation went only so far. I suddenly realised I would be sitting here for the next three hours doing not much apart from smiling and eating away. Lucky Samuel who is one of my R&D engineers came to the rescue.


















Even Vera Wang would be impressed!


















The wedding dress really was out of a movie it was so long.


















Honey moon jet setters waiting to leave.

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.

Death by Paint

Today I headed to Nehui for paint balling, it's fair to say it was pretty wet weather when we arrived and we almost didn't have anyone to shoot at as the other Taiwanese teams were not too keen about getting wet and muddy. But then the weather cleared up and we were on for a few actioned packed hours of shooting.

















Do you feel lucky punk!

I had a really mixed team of international guns but mostly made up of French guys, we managed to all get along, sort off. The might of been a few friendly fire incidents!














Jungle gorillas.















I'll take blue thanks you.

I've got to say I had great fun and I think we won most of our matches. The paint balling place is located in Nehui address, not exactly sure how to get there as I was on the back of a scooter taking a lift, but it's probably about a 10 minuet taxi ride from Huzhou MRT station, definitely worth a go especially as it's much cooler now and not so hot too run around.














Stick'em up.

Danshui Cycling

After having a rather lazy start to the day I thought I would try and do some type of activity so my weekend was not a complete blur. I decided that a trip up to Danshui was in order as I had not been there for a while and you can cycle for a few hours and then head off to have a drink along the rivers edge as the sun goes down








Dabshui harbour.

It's a pretty nice cycle route along the rivers edge, and you can rent bikes really easily, in fact I recommend that you get of at a few stop before Danshui it's less crowded on weekends and you can normally find a bike rental shop very close by.













Lobster anyone?

Action Packed

What a week I've had so far, work has been totally action packed, I had to work last Saturday and Sunday in the office over the Moon Festival. So it feels like it's a Friday today, but it's is Laurence last night out with me in Taipei before he heads back to the UK so it feel like a Friday anyway as were out on the razz tonight.

Tomorrow I am heading down to Taichung for the Love Money Design Talk, I am really looking forward to Dick Powell speach on Innovation in Design can't wait for that. Then over the Sunday I'm going paint balling in Nehiu which should be awesome fun.

Friday I was thinking of doing a bit of home decoration and repainting some walls white again as they have started to go faintly gray.

Saved by Havana's

It's been raining for most of the the weekend and still going strong today, so trying to dry any clothes in a damp climate is near impossible. I have also started to see why my apartment might not be so good to live in during the winter months as various damp patches are starting to appear through the paintwork.

I also nearly electrocuted myself this evening, when I was hanging up some washing, how I didn't put few hundred volts through my body was probably due to my rubber flip flops which earthed me.

It all happened as I was holding a steel bar which I had wedge into the side of the air conditioning support framing to act as a cross beam for holding the bamboo laundry poll. But as the steel bar touched the aluminum window frame the was a massive spark at the window edge and huge bag from the AC unit.
















I'm not sure how I didn't get an electric shock from Taiwanese dodgy wiring.

Crepuscular

It's a nice way to end the working day seeing the sun go down over the buildings with a foggy haze in the back ground. It's just a bit of a shame that I can't see a complete sunset from the my floor.

















Sunset Down.

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.

Touch Down

One of my best mates has come over to Taiwan too visit me for a whole month. I've made a plan of things to do with Laurence so he is not stuck in Taipei city for too long, hopefully we well take a trip down too Green Island which could be pretty cool as I would like to try and visit all the Island around Taiwan before I leave.

Apart from that I've had an extremely busy month at work I sometimes wonder if the is a rescission.

Jet Lag.

Back in the R.O.C.

I arrived a little later in Taipei than I had planed, I did get a bit worried about the fact that I lost my ARC card which I think I left somewhere in Taipei airport before I left, but lucky I had no problems getting back into Taiwan.

I feel really tired from the flight and I've got an action packed weak at work so I don't think I can take a day off too recover and some how I don't think I am going to be able to have my Chinese lesson tomorrow.

Taiwan Street Food

Roadside cooks are very popular in Taiwan and normally totally safe, I've only ever been sick once and that was when I eat Squid in Kenting. This little BBQ chef is located outside the Show Time Cinema near Zhongshan MRT. I also think this is one of the nicer cinemas in Taipei and is worth a visit as the are good restaurants to eat at and nice big park to walk around as well.






















Lovely selection of vegetables and various animal parts!






















For example take Chicken neck featured hear, yum.





















Great some smelly BBQ food for the cinema nearly ready to go.

Electric White

Yesterday I went to a hugh rave in the Taipei Exhibtion Centre we all had to ware white and it's was wicked fun. They had some great DJ's and a really nice crowed of people.

I am only writing about it because it's a big event which was held at the Taipei exhibition hall which is located in the exclusive Xingi district. The venue was pretty good fun and I didn't get home until 5am so I am feeling a bit under the weather and tired today. Now will follow a couple of blurrly mobile photos!






















Hail to the DJ.





















The Gathering!

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.

Solar Eclipse Taiwan

This morning we had a Solar Eclipse, we were not in pitch blackness unlike Shanghai, but you could just about see a faint image of the moon.





















Lens dazzle





















Moon

Taipei Tremors

Last night that was a earthquake, not a big one but it happen at 2am and woke me up it was an odd experience because everything is moving like you're on a boat but you're still sleepy at first I thought I was dreaming.

I have only ever experience earthquakes in Taiwan in the day time. But I couldn't really sleep that well afterwards, so I just got up early this morning and I hope I am not too groggy for my Chinese lesson.

Return to MOCA Taipei

I went back to MOCA this weekend as I met up with some friends who had come up from Kaohsiung and had been spending the weekend in Taipei.

I thought they would find the MOCA interesting because of that amazing installation on the top floor. I enjoyed visiting the exhibition just as much the second time especially for the Hanzi writing.

Pyramid.

Interestingly his Ivan's girl friend Nina told me the correct way of holding the ink brush, it's almost similar to how you hold chop sticks but you use the brush straight and not at an angel.





















Like a pro!

Ivan is also an Industrial Design in Kaohsiung and designs marine equipment for Horizon, which seems like a nice job to have if you liking sailing and living by the sea which I do.