The Daily Bubble Tea

I imported all my posts to my new site listed here: http://www.dailybubbletea.wordpress.com

or if you don't want to type so much: http://www.thedailybubbletea.com

I am still working on everything... so things are a little messy at the moment. Update your links!

I'm secretly in love with some of Wordpress's templates. However, I'm not quite sure I have the patience for a full switch. So that's why I was delighted to find Gecko and Fly's K2 template. If I had taken the time to read the comments section thoroughly before starting, I would have saved myself a great deal of energy as one kind user was nice enough to post a fix to a common spacing problem. During this process I managed to lose all my sidebar widgets, so if I forgot anyone in my links section please let me know.

Safari [check]... Firefox [check].... Internet Explorer [...] I am too scared to see how things look on Internet Explorer. Hopefully I'll get around to adding pictures again to the sidebar now that all the details seem to have been ironed out. Tomorrow morning I start another semester of Chinese classes. Perhaps this time would have been better spent reviewing what I know I already forgot... nah...

What better way to adjust to the proper time zone than to stay up all night and head to the 228 Memorial Park and take a lot of pictures the next day? I needed an activity to keep my mind occupied during my last day off this holiday vacation. Originally called Taipei New Park, this park was primarily built by the Japanese in 1908. The park was the center of the incident leading to a widespread uprising against the KMT government and the KMT's heavy-handed suppression resulting in between 10-20 thousand civilians killed during the 228 Massacre (February 28, 1947) and subsequent era of martial law (1947-1987). Today marked the 60th anniversary of the event.
Today was my first time in the museum, as David noted, the museum lacks English signs, however, does have an audio guide in Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka, English, and Japanese. It would be nice to have a written guide to supplement the audio tour, as there is a lot of information in the displays that are inaccessible if you cannot read Chinese. Some of the exhibits are very powerful and emotions inside the museum were running high on the event's 60th anniversary.




The 228 Memorial:







The National Taiwan Museum:






Across the street at Jieshou Park:


Taipei was once a walled-city, the Japanese bulldozed the walls and roads were added in their place... now only the gates remain:

Need quick crowd control? Deploy razor-wire:
The Judicial Yuan, serving Taiwan's highest judicial organ:

The Presidential Office:


At the National Taiwan University Hospital station, this train is headed for Nanshijiao station:

Standing and waiting for a train north towards Beitou/Danshui:
Taiwanese media trucks, I also spotted a few people from the Associated Press and the BBC:I met a professor from National Taiwan University who talked at great length with me about Taiwan, 228, and current political factions. This is as close as we were going to get to the ceremony. We both went our separate ways after the opening aboriginal dance.
This man's sign asks the KMT to return his mother. He was escorted out of the viewing area where he was silent and causing no trouble and taken outside the taped-off perimeter where TV crews pounced on him. This happened right before I left:

A gentleman gave me this DVD-set, I put it in my laptop to see what it was: the video is on two DVDs and Part 1 is bizarrely clips of a man's home videos from 1993-2000 of his trips to Japan, various places in the United States (mostly parades at Disneyland, visiting Amish Country, the Hoover Dam, and an air show), and a few clips in Taiwan. Part 2 takes us to a 2004 air show filmed in Taoyuan. I really don't know what to make of all this... Maybe after he gave me the DVD he forgot to give me the decoder ring?


[Taiwan] [Taipei] [228]

The figure is from McFarlane's Monster Series 4: Twisted Fairy Tales.

[Little Red Riding Hood] [Comic Life] [McFarlane Toys] [Action Figures]

From McFarlane's Six Faces of Madness set, a historic look at some of history's most notorious:

Infamous leader of the bloodthirsty Huns, fifth-century inhabitants in modern-day Hungary, who led devastating plundering raids into western Europe. Known as the Scourge of God, Attila led a vast and merciless mounted army, which left a swath of devastation and death across much of Europe. Attila is said to have died of a nasal hemorrhage on his wedding night [McFarlane Toys].

[Action Figures] [McFarlane Toys] [Attila the Hun]

While in Michigan I spotted this gem at the Somerset Collection mall in Troy:

I had read that these existed but had never seen one in the flesh. It's a little ridiculous considering that there is an Apple store a few yards away (never mind the fact that everyone who lives in Troy already has 2.5 iPods per family).

[Apple] [iPod Vending Machine] [Somerset Collection] [Troy] [Michigan]

I recently returned from my trip home after being in Taiwan for almost a year. I created a small Flickr photoset of some of the sights. Enjoy! When I go back to work on Thursday I have the honor of informing my boss that I will not be extending my contract another year (I anticipate a relentless guilt trip).



[Michigan] [Flickr]

I will be in the United States during Chinese New Year. Have fun without me.

We arrived in Kaohsiung early Saturday afternoon, after checking into our hotel our first stop was the British Consulate at Takao. Designed by a British architect and built in 1865, this Renaissance-style building was the first Western-style building in Kaohsiung.


The building overlooks Kaohsiung Port and Xizhiwan Bay (hmm, that looks like two different methods of romanization).


Inside is a dungeon maze, the low ceilings prevented me from entering:

Next to the British Consulate is a temple:


From this vantage point you can see the entrance to the National Sun Yat-sen University:
Taking the road instead of the steps down:

Next we took the Cijin Ferry from the Gushan District to Cijin Island. We didn't wait long for the ferry, and the cost of the trip was only $10 NT one-way.

The Cihou Battery was built during the Qing Dynasty. Completed in 1875, the site combined Chinese and Western architecture styles and housed four Armstrong cannons to protect Takao Port:





In 1895, during an intense cannon battle between Qing forces and Japanese warships, the first two characters of the inscription "Wei Zhen Tian Nan (dominating the world)" were smashed:
A trip to a night market for dinner:

A few snapshots of the Love River during day and night:

The Love River has undergone an extensive cleanup in recent years:




A few pictures near our hotel. We stayed at the Hotel Kingdom and received an excellent discount because of their partnership with the company Cathy works for.


So the reason we were in Kaohsiung in the first place was for the wedding of one of Cathy's classmates. The bride had to guess which out of 4 men was her husband by feeling the back of our legs blindfolded. Of course, I was called on stage:
Pictures together:



[Taiwan] [Kaohsiung] [Love River] [Takao]

Today, my classmate Tambi and I went to the Taipei Game Show at the Taipei World Trade Center. On the way, we passed by a building holding the International Cosmetics Exhibition. We were asked by the gentleman below to take a picture with him and gladly obliged much to the satisfaction of the couple dozen or so people around.

This woman's friend asked us to take a picture together... It was impossible to say no.
The group from the Cosmetics Exhibition was so nice that we're tempted to go there tomorrow just to see if they are all still there.

Despite it being noon on a workday... crowds managed to make it to the game show:





Many of the booths were for Chinese language online RPGs that I can't even begin to understand.


Microsoft was the only home console maker present, Sony and Nintendo were no-shows.

An online dancing game:



This weekend I'll be visiting Kaohsiung for the first time! I am sure I'll have some pictures sometime early next week.

[Taiwan] [Taipei Game Show] [Booth Babes]