Tumbling In Taiwan

Beginning of this month we took Susan to see Xiao Wulai waterfall in Taoyuan county.

Drive up there wasn’t pleasant. All the twisting,turning, going up and down on the mountain road made both Susan and myself sick in the stomach.

That didn’t stop us from enjoying fresh mountain air though.

First we enjoyed a bird’s eye view of waterfall from the observatory. Next we went down to the skywalk built right on top of that waterfall but learned that the next available slot would be two and half hours later. That wasn’t a bad thing as we still had to find a parking space and we also hadn’t eaten our lunch. We bought our tickets (50 NT$ each) and went about finding a parking space. It took us another half an hour to find it.

We came back after a luxurious lunch at a local restaurant nearby the observation deck and went straight to the main entrance of skywalk facility. It’s a 15 mins walk down the slope to the actual skywalk bridge from there. Skywalks are generally arranged in 30 mins time slots. There is space for only 50 people on the skywalk which is a transparent bridge that extends over the 50 meters high Xhio Wulai waterfall.

This massive rock, knows as Fengchueishih (Wind Moving Rock) sits just around where the water free falls 50~70 meters down. It is almost a miracle that it stays the way it is without falling with all the water activity going around it.

Here is a side view of the skywalk.

Susan sat there on the transparent floor mesmerized by the noisy frothy gushing waterfall and I was actually worried people might stomp on her. But, like us, most of the them were watching the transparent floor to experience the presence on this giant waterfall below.

Later on we came back up near the main entrance and noticed there was a bigger calmer water stream nearby. Lots of people were soaking their feet in the stream and we decided to join them.

Susan getting her feet wet

… and hands

With camera around my neck I followed Susan along as she explored the waterbed.

Susan got bored of throwing small rocks in the water from the bank and I got bored of following her along so I picked her up and took her to the middle of the stream for a bit of an adventure.

It was much more fun now to get ourselves soaked in cold water of the stream.

I had to keep close watch on Susan as she was one stumble away from banging her head on the rocks.

Selina joined us a while later which allowed me to slip away for few minutes to grab photos of the scene around us.

One family gets ready to leave

while another joins

Young guns relaxing on the shore.

I wanted to enjoy my way back in daylight so we moved on an hour before it would start to get dark. As expected Susan was pretty exhausted by the time we made our way back to the car and fell asleep as soon as I had put her down.

I had wonderful time at the Xiao Wulai waterfall but next time I plan to go bit more further to maybe lalashan.

Few months ago my father-in-law gave me his 2 35mm film cameras that he hadn’t been using for a while. One of them was Pentax Zoom 90 WR and the other Nikon N70. Pentax one is a 35mm compact film camera with a 39-90mm fixed zoom lens. It is bit heavy for a compact camera. I like that the shutter is extremely quite. I might send to get it cleaned inside out as there is some dust inside the view finder and the lens as well. It takes great photos when the light is plenty so good for my lunchtime walk to snap few street photos. Last month I took few photos using it. Here are few select ones.

street corner, dihua street, datong district, taipei.

xinhai city god temple, dihua street, datong district, taipei

Road work, Yanping north road, Taipei

Sidewalk gamer, Yanping north road, Taipei

Noon nap. Minsheng west road, Taipei

Signal wait at Dihua street and minsheng west street crossing, Taipei

Poster sky. dihua street, datong district, taipei.

All other photos can be found on my Flickr here

Looking backwards from the harbor main building entrance, a family noshing on seafood snacks at the entrance

A typhoon was forecast a fortnight ago. Notwithstanding we made our way to Yongan fish harbor and luckily it turned out to be a brilliant Saturday for us. Although it was bit late in the day when we reached harbor I guessed we still had an hour or two before Sunset. I dragged Selina to the elevated wooden deck on the left of main harbor building. We took a leisurely walk on the long deck admiring the calm sea and beautiful sunset skies while Susan busied herself with the tricycle. Much to her amusement few planes thundered overhead as they made their way towards Taoyuan Int’l airport.

Sunset portrait

My ladies taking in the breeze

Ignored by his masters. That little thing was quite ferocious actually as it jumped on me when I moved few feet closer to take his photo.

Sunset couple

Before and after

As the darkness crept upon us we made our way back to the main building. It has three different halls. One of them houses restaurants where you can have a leisurely seafood dinner. Choosing which one to eat at is basically no-brainer as every single one of them pretty much have the same stuff cooked in pretty much the same way. Each of them offer plenty of variety in seafood crabs,lobsters (really expensive), prawns and all sorts of fishes, fried or boiled you name it. So save yourself from the dilemma and pick anyone of them with least number of people in it so you get served sooner. Or you can move to the next hall that has lots seafood snacks. We grabbed a basket of fried oysters and a mixed fried seafood basket before moving on to the next and last od the three halls. This one housed all fresh picks from the sea. Selina went on shopping few fishes to cook on the following day and in the coming week while I was enjoying Susan’s excitement of seeing so much live marine life. Finally we grabbed some fresh Sashimi and headed back to the wooden deck. It had become pitch dark by the time and wind had also picked up a fair bit so we decided to get back to the car and head home.

Yongan fish harbor main building

Saturday we had a family bbq in Sanxia. It was at the same place as last time. Unlike last time very few people made it to the bbq this time. It was fun anyways. Susan had great time running around the block. We didn’t have to worry about keeping a watch on her as it was a closed compound and it had plenty of empty space. It was a leisurely affair. We made our way to the venue around 5pm and the party was about to begin. SIL’s husband took the lead and fired up two grills.

First up were chicken butts lol

and tiny sausages for the kids

soon the big items made their way on to the grill

pork chops

beef

Selina enjoyed pork ribs while counting the number of hours she would need to spend on treadmill to get rid of all that fat.So did I minus the counting

Susan gorged on all that protein she needed to keep her energy levels up all evening.

bbq wait. Only two grills but lots of people to feed so waiting was inevitable.

I spent my time photographing whatever I found interesting around the house.

This old lady was having hard time carrying all those drums on her tiny bike.

freshly picked flowers from the garden

Rusty old retired tractor in the backyard.

Rust close-up

We did grill some vegetables too for sanity’s sake Huge ass mushrooms and bamboo shoots (not in photos here)

Unlike last time I didn’t venture out. I was quite content throwing cheap rubber balls high up in the air for kids to catch and fetch them from under the car in case kids couldn’t reach.
Soon it became dark and out came the sea creatures.

But before that experts gave the grills a breather.

and it all started again

I went upstairs to take a bird-eye view but with no tripod and a wide angle lens it was a tough ask to come out with a better photo.

That’s it for a great fun evening of bbq.

Here are some random mobile shots from past few months. I haven’t used my 450D much this year which should explain lack of posts here. I got bored of it for a while and also haven’t been to any new places this year except one odd day trip to Yilan few months back. Most weekends are spent in Sanxia tasting new restaurants near Taipei university area, taking a stroll in yingge park , at old street for few late evening snacks and/or lots of time wasting watching crap movies on MOD.

Anyways here are the photos followed by some descriptions

Some days Susan just doesn’t want to go to her kindergarten. Here she is watching her classroom on the kindergarten live web camera view.

Coffee hunt

Me and Susan with one of her favorite mini mouse dress.

This is how deserted is Sanxia old street on a weekday evening.

I am at loss to understand how reckless this dude is. He has ear plugs in and there is a good chance he would miss hearing which side train doors would open. In my 6 years of riding trains in Taiwan I have seen many times that train conductors open doors opposite to the platform only to run across and correct themselves later. But that’s enough for this dude to fall through the door and possibly run over by the train coming in from opposite direction.

Old couple sharing an umbrella outside Yingge train station. Some days I miss my morning train and that means another 15 minutes wait for the next one.

This one is in the evening. Same spot as the umbrella couple above only on a fluffy clouds and moon night instead of scorching sun morning.

SIL’s uncle’s house in Sanxia. The one where we have had many summer BBQs. Its square shape reminds me of spongebob squarepants.

In my two years of working in Datong district I have seen Datong district to be always under the hammer.

and more hammering, drilling and jamming

flower bus

Rice cooker reflections. Jimmy,my colleague, hard at work before a conference call with customer.

Summer evening contrast to end the post with. Taipei main station and 55-floor mitsukoshi tower as seen from my office building.

Saturday saw opening of a fantastic riverside park in Yingge township. I have been watching development of this park for quite sometime as I pass by it on my way to Yingge train station every single working day. I was bit surprised to hear from my Sister-in-law about the opening as I thought it would take another couple weeks or even months to complete. Sunday brought better weather so we decided to head there and see it for ourselves. It is still work in progress however remaining bits wouldn’t get in the way of visitors.

Spreading over couple small hills this park is way bigger than I thought it would be. Unlike Luodong Sports Park in Yilan it is one long stretch along the Dahan river bank. Now I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Kid flying a kite in front of a giant pottery at the riverside park in Yingge Township.

Yingge being ceramics hub of Taiwan it shouldn’t be of any surprise that there would be tons of clay/ceramic artifacts in the park. This giant pottery minus potters-wheel is right at the entrance of the park. Giant saucers, cups, spoons galore everywhere.

These lovely four ladies were having such a great fun taking funny photographs of themselves and laughing their heart out. We stood fascinated and so did Susan.

Susan had terrific time climbing small hills,small structures, running around them and chasing pet dogs.

Susan running around giant pottery

They have also opened the bicycle path that was closed during the development of this park
If my guess is correct this riverside bicycle path continues going further ahead past Yingge/Sanxia for another 15 odd kms. There is a bicycle shop just around the corner near the entrance that rents bicycles.

Silhouette of a couple standing atop a small hill

If you live in Taipei it makes a perfect getaway on a weekend afternoon. You can catch a local blue train from Taipei main station and get off at Yingge station. Exit at Wunhua Road and turn left. Walk upto the end of that road and turn right to see the park. Or if you are driving your own car take freeway no. 3 and take Yingge exit. Cross over Dahan river bridge and turn right at the second traffic signal (You should see 7-11 to your right just before the traffic signal).

Visited MOCA over the weekend to see Finding India, new art for the century exhibition. It’s running till mid of December so plenty of time to visit if you are interested. I’m no arts guy but nonetheless I found it interesting. More details on the exhibition on facebook. Here are couple of pictures I took while I was there. Just couple spoilers out of tens of art pieces on display.

Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei

No tripod no problem find a tree (or a plant that can hold weight of an DSLR + wide angle lens as in this case). Oh by the way hope you had a great moon festival day yesterday.

some latest photos of susan shot with EOS 5 QD and 50mm f1.8 II. This is the the first roll that I have shot with it and as you will see I have a lot to learn.

honey bee getting ready for a soak

not all times are happy

not quite there yet with the V sign

5:12:30 AM