It’s Father’s Day, and I’ve been given a rare opportunity to catch up on “stuff.” Irene has taken the kids to meet a friend and dubiously “…let them play in a playground, which [I’d] no doubt be bored doing.” Of course, that’s totally true, but at the same time, it’s rather an obvious excuse to … Read more
Oh, I may make fun of their mystical Chinese medicine, Feng Shui, superstitions, ghost concerns and a host of other completely illogical remnants to the dark ages of man’s reason, but that notwithstanding, the Taiwanese are at heart a science-loving, technology-obsessed people, which makes them infinitely superior to a vast swath of science-denialist Americans who … Read more
At last I’ve finally caught up. All that cow excitement was beginning to make me fall behind, but I’ve got a couple more hours on the train from Taitung to Taipei and nothing to do except burn out my batteries. Michelle has exhausted all but the last of my iPhone’s battery playing Monopoly and now … Read more
I knew that after a visit to the Pastureland Resort Experience, life was going to be a pale imitation of its former self, but I was determined to soldier on. It seems that Guanshan Township is part of the great Taiwanese bicycle experience. Sometime after our last visit, a bicycling craze overtook the island, with … Read more
If I haven’t got you confused with my post numbering by now, I never will. Let’s see, I left off at the sugar refinery, on our way to the cows. Oh, OK, right… so, we left the sugar refinery and we went to the cow place, known formally (in English) as Rareseed Ranch, where they … Read more
As you can see from this picture, I made it to the “Pastureland Resort Experience Area” but if you think I’m going to tell you about it straight away, you’ve got another think coming. It was a long day to get to those cows, and it’s going to be a long blog post to get … Read more
Taiwan is a different place. Oh, I know, that’s not the single most insightful thing I’ve ever written, but neither is it as fatuous as it sounds. Regular readers of my blog may remember my last trip to Taiwan where we went to visit a major tourist destination: a sheep farm. It was pleasant and … Read more
Our first day in Taiwan passed somewhat uneventfully. We ate, we went to the park, we fought the insidious effects of jet lag – rather unsuccessfully, as, while I managed to stay awake until around 8:00PM local time (5:00AM AZ time) I awoke just before midnight feeling refreshed, wide-awake and hungry. The rest of the … Read more
The first part of any Arizona to Taiwan trip is a misery. There’s no long and short of it, it’s just a royal pain. Arrive two hours early (at 5:30AM) for a 7:30 flight. Flight to LA, 1 hour. 6.5 hour layover in America’s most miserable airport – no thanks, we decided to take a … Read more
In a couple weeks, we’ll be in Taiwan. I’ve upgraded (or downgraded, depending on how you look at it) all our travel video gear. This year, in addition to digital cameras and phones that can record video, we’ll be carrying two different mini-HD cameras. Chu-Wan has a “Flip MinoHD Camcorder, 60 Minutes (Black)” (Flip Video) … Read more