This afternoon, we headed down to Taoyuan and met up with a some friends in the MXMC to go climb a big hill. We left the apartment around 10, met up in Taoyuan aroun noon, had some lunch and then walked/hiked/climbed for about 4 or so hours. We left Taoyuan right around 7:00, and now it’s almost 10:00. We’ve been home for a little over an hour, and I’m completely pooped. I’m not especially looking forward to kindy tomorrow, but it was worth it. Anyway, here are a few pictures from the afternoon for your viewing pleasure!
An especially light-hearted mural seen at a high school we walked past on the way to the mountain (hill). It says “The world is too dark/I prefer not to look”
More of the murals.
This guy was right at the entrance of the park area. Clearly, he’s keeping away the riff-raff.
Fellow MXMCers: Irene, Josh, Cathy, and Caleb (not pictured: Mike, Seth, and me - we did a group shot, but I our camera’s slow enough that I didn’t want to burden a stranger to use it, figuring I’d just copy Caleb’s or Josh’s, instead).
Update, November 5: Ahh, look, here’s the picture of all of us!
Left to right: Irene, Josh, Me, Seth, Cathy, Caleb, and Mike
One of many views of Taoyuan from the climb.
Same view, slightly different angle.
At one point there’s a clearing where, apparently, people go to fly RC airplanes. We watched for a while. It was windy enough that we got to see some fun crashes.
Seth has a thing for taking pictures of me while he’s standing way too close, and I have a thing for trying to make a cool smirk-y grin. Clearly, neither is working out too well.
We went up, so we had to go down. This was a pretty steep climb down, though, although having steps made it a bit easier.
The steps we had just come down.
The sections that didn’t involve steep climbs or drops were pretty pleasant and easy to navigate. I think the pretty scenery did me some good (quite a change from my adolescent funks on climbs in CO, huh mom?).
In front of a temple at the end of the afternoon, just outside the park. Remember that thing I said about Seth taking my picture while he’s standing much to close for the picture? Uh-huh, he’s doing it again! Also note the fabulous view of the horse’s ass there in the background.
In front of the horse and soldier statue seen above was an awesome fountain of dragons. This guy was one of the smaller ones.
As always, click any of the pics above for bigger versions! Also, there are more pictures in my Flickr stream, if you’re interested.
Despite the troubles Seth discussed briefly regarding getting our visas, we were able to get them, and they’re now in our hot little hands. So, um. Guess what? We’re going to Taiwan!
I should actually be finishing up repacking our bags right now. Most everything is more or less ready to go, but I need to organize my carry on, decide what I’m going to be knitting on the plane (well, I know it’s going to be a sock. I’m really deciding on the pattern - it’ll either be the Straight-laced Socks pattern or the Shetland Lace Rib Sock pattern), and pack away the last few things we’ve been using, like the toothbrushes and stuff.
Hmm…housekeeping. I need to post some links to our RSS feed, but I’ll put them here for now.
Well, that’s everything I can think of for now - I’m sure we’ll have more soon!
First things seem rosy regarding our visas, then slightly less so as we’re asked yet again for more documents than we were told to expect to give. Worse yet as we receive a call informing us the documents are unsatisfactory. Those are all the details I can give on that subject at this time. Suffice to say the situation is a tad frustrating.
So we spent Monday in the city, where we discovered that not only does the Virgin megastore have the smallest book section of any store ever purporting to have books, but that somehow it holds otherwise difficult to find (offline) books. I’ve been looking for The Illuminatus Trilogy for some time now, and excepting Amazon.com have had no luck. Virgin miraculously had it burrowed into a spot between the dozen other books on their shelf. I exaggerate, of course, but it’s a three-story building, with a sign on the door saying “Books Upstairs,” and they have maybe three hundred books in stock. I’m very excited that one of them was the specific Robert Anton Wilson title I was looking for.
Disillusionment: Apple, the company that’s all about aesthetic, functionality, user experience? Dirtiest place we went all day. Several of the things we tried to play with were broken. The first iPod I picked up was actually bricked. Still it was a pretty cool place, and it would be hard for their devices to survive the insane crowds that were in there.
Today we walked around San Rafel, which was an altogether more calm experience. Lisbeth discovered the brick-and-mortar home of a place one of her aunts orders supplies from, and found some cool yarn there. I stopped in a great game shop and picked up the GURPS rule books and the Illuminati University game for it. We ate great burgers at a place that smelled like the burger joint at which I was employed during high school, and when it was all done, James picked us up for a foray to Muir Woods and a lesson in how cold the Pacific Ocean really is. Good times.
I’m waking up after my first full day in San Francisco, slightly surprised not to be hung over, and super excited about everything we’ve done so far. James and Emily took us into the city yesterday for Dim Sum in new China town, where I ate more shrimp in one sitting than I’ve previously consumed in my entire life. Then we toured old China town, which we’re told is about one-fourth as crowded as Taipei, and doesn’t smell like diesel fumes and cigarettes.
We went back to James and Emily’s house for a fish barbecue, and it was just killer. There were creatures I’d never tried before, drinks that tasted just like lemonade but were distinctly more than that, (see above, “slightly surprised not to be hung over,”) and I ate sashimi. And liked it. A lot. I liked all the fish I had last night, and was shocked each and every time. But especially at the sashimi. I wanted to try it, sort of, but raw fish was a bridge I wasn’t quite ready to cross yet, until Chippy walked over and insisted that I just close my eyes. Then he fed me a piece of the most incredible tasting fish, it was just unbelievable.
Sometime around then I found out that not only had Andrew worked at Broderbund, but that Myst had been “his game.” I yelled at him about the puzzle that made me give up. He was gracious, and laughed instead of getting angry when he told me it had been long enough that not only did he not remember “the three digits with the two levers,” he didn’t remember any of the puzzles. He told me some great stories, which seems to be a hallmark of this area. Everyone has great stories, and many of these tales involve people I’ve heard of but never met.
Eventually Lisbeth suggested we walk down to a bar to hear the Marones, a Ramones cover band that plays every Sunday night down the road from where we’re staying. I wasn’t too surprised to see Lisbeth was familiar with Blitzkrieg Bop, but when they played Rancid’s Ruby Soho I was very much impressed to see her singing along.
I know I’m leaving out a lot, but I’m typing this literally first thing in the morning, so I haven’t had coffee yet. This place is beautiful though, and we’ll be here just long enough to fall in love with it, and we get to leave before we could possibly begin to see any of the downsides. How much better could it get?
So, we’re in San Francisco, visiting my ex-coworker James and his wife. We got in sorta late last night, but today we had dim sum for lunch (verdict = good. really, really good, if a little unnerving. also, mom, guess what? I ate mushrooms! And greens! and I like them!). We’re back at they’re house now, along with a few of his friends, one of whom likes to fish. We’ve got Mahi Mahi, tuna steaks, and sea bass. They’ve made beer-battered Mahi Mahi for fish tacos, and are grilling the rest. Mmmm…looks like it’s ready now, so I’ve got to go!