So that it doesn’t seem like I’m constantly down on Taiwan’s dubious implementations to be more “greenâ€, here’s one that makes perfect sense at every level. Taiwan’s Bureau of Energy, under the MOEA, said Taiwan now has 350,000 traffic lights using LEDs as a lighting source, with the remaining 420,000 traffic lights to also use … Read more
I’ve already recounted my tale of the Giant Rat of Sogo, in which I was trapped for 4.5 hours in a rat-infested department store, but what I failed to mention were the “magic†rocks. We were in the bedding department, negotiating the purchase of a house-warming gift. The negotiations were in Chinese, so I was … Read more
Continued from Part I So, I was complaining about the “green fever†that’s sweeping Taiwan, and why it doesn’t make sense when implemented in a knee-jerk fashion or without the benefit of scientific inquiry. The in-laws wanted us to eat more food at home. They feel it’s valuable family time. My wishes that I want … Read more
On my first trip to Taiwan, using a film camera, I took nearly 40 photographs, most of them awful. On this trip, using two digital cameras (and the trip being almost 3 times as long), I saved almost 2,000 photos, after having deleted at least another 1,000 for a variety of reasons. Somehow most of … Read more
One of the interesting aspects of riding on the buses in Taipei are the TV monitors they have to entertain you – or distract you from the driving. Several buses run a series of short animated films, some of them quite funny, others quite bizarre. Some give their URL at the end, but I couldn’t … Read more
I hate jet lag. We took off at around 11:00PM in Taiwan, and after dinner, managed to sleep at pretty much the normal time. By what was 10:00AM for our bodies and time for the day to really get going, we landed at 7:00PM in Los Angeles. There were no sanctioned connecting flights that night … Read more
We’re five or so hours into our flight, five or so hours to go. We took off at about 11:00PM local time and it was easy to get to sleep on the flight after dinner. For some reason, no matter how tired I am, no matter how closely the flight’s “sleep time†matches my body … Read more
Beef Noodle Soup… it seems like such a simple dish and yet somehow it takes on almost mystic proportions. It bears a superficial resemblance to Japanese ramen soup but really seems to be wholly Chinese. It’s not quite pot roast soup with noodles, but then again, it is. On our last trip we just missed … Read more
It’s been terribly hot in the mornings the last few days. “Sweltering†would be a more accurate word. (One of the Taiwan blogs I regularly read, The View from Taiwan, summed it up beautifully: That rain last week induced seasonal affective disorder. Glad its gone and we are now in the sit-in-the-house-and-sweat season. Ah, but … Read more
It’s our last full day in Taiwan and Irene and the kids are visiting with friends. I took the opportunity to go walking and catching up on writing blog posts, which are now dangerously backed up. First order of business was a trip to MOS Burger for lunch. Ordering went smoothly and I was quite … Read more