Last weekend went to Juwei, Taiwan. A small fishing port. Had some fresh salmon sashimi...mmm and waited for the sunset .

There I was a little bored puttering along on my rental scooter in Kending. I decided to take a small road that lead to another one that I turned off into another one then into a farmers field, then chased out by charging cows...well they had horns and looked mad, so I turned around.

Continued along the road and stopped near the top of a hill and saw this old house. I thought about something my mother once told me. She said she often looks at old houses and farmyards thinking about what life was like for these people, who were they what did they do.
Well this house didn't look like anything special but what you can't see, is on the other side of this house is a deep valley leading down to the ocean. This is a great location for a house. It really seems a shame that this family has left it. What potential!

Peaceful, clean breezy air rushing off the ocean, a view to die for and even if you dont want to live there (not sure who that would be) but with the tourist potential it would be a gold mine.

Keelung, Taiwan

I was playing with licorice the other day...here are a few results.

Here is a shot of Henchuan South Gate to the city. Now we just drive around it but previousily it would have been one of four guarded gates to the city.




Here is a shot from above at the Geothermal Power Plant near Kending in Taiwan. The big curvy thing is a solar panel display, and 3 wind turbines in the background.

The sign below is either about a new restaurant that may not have passed a health inspection or perhaps something about local 'ladies of the night'.
Here are a couple of quick pics of my very simple and cheap hotel room. Nothing fancy, but the price was right and it was very clean and a comfortable bed.

The pruning techniques used in Taiwan are a little different than elsewhere.

This first one is yesterday....me at Kending southernmost tip of Taiwan.
These are the opposite. They are Keelung. The north cost of Taiwan, last weekend.
A few more of both places coming soon.

I went to Keelung in the northern coast of Taiwan. The ocean was beginning to rage, the clouds were swirling, the rocks taking the punishment that they have taken for years, incrementally changing, carving the landscape a little more, forever changed. Different today than yesterday.

Went to Tainan yesterday. Got up nice and early around 5 am. Tainan is a historical city in the southern part of the island. I took the high speed rail (THSR). It was quite fast, quiet and clean.
As I said I took the THSR to the city took a free shuttle to the main train station, where they have a tourist info place, where....they speak ENGLISH!!! Go figure!!...In 6 years on the island this is the first time on the main island that they had a tourist info place period. Yea Tainan!!!
While on the bus I evaluated the driving situation....its seemed less busy than Taoyuan and more room on the roads. So I decided to try and rent a scooter.

So I got a tip earlier from a student of mine to go behind the train station and rent a scooter from those guys. They were quite a bit cheaper, although absolute idiots as far as customer service, being polite, and non racist. The first guy with the English sign which said, "We rent scooters!" But he didn't rent out scooters...and pointed me to the guy next door. The second guy also said no, and pointed me to the front of the train station...the more expensive guys.

Then I stood where and asked why should I go there....didn't he want to make money...he asked if I had a license, I said yes, and his tone changed... a little...then he slowly go off his butt and helped me out.
Once again simply say no rather than being bothered to deal with a foreigner. Too bad.

Anyway it was cheap about NT 250 for 1/2 day. Thats all I needed.


Cruising around I went to the Bad Monkey Fortress (億載金城 Yì Zài Jīnchéng), a 19th century coastal fortress.

Then Anping Fort (安平古堡 Ānpíng Gǔbǎo), originally called Fort Zeelandia, was built in 1620 by the Dutch.

Then a few temples including the Taiwan Confucian Temple built in 1665 (Chinese: 台灣孔廟; also called Tainan Confucian Temple, 台南孔廟 or 台南孔子廟; or Quan Tai Shou Xue, 全台首學)(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tainan_Confucian_Temple).

And toured the whole city in general.

I got myself back to the scooter shop, back on the shuttle bus, and back home via the THSR.

Home around 10pm.

(more coming soon)

A fallen flower and red leaf on a vine.

feelingblue

This was for a group photo scavenger hunt I am in. The topic...Feeling Blue

Yesterday was a great meal.....


Tom Yum Kung...Hot n Sour Seafood Soup

Always spices up your life...mmm
Spicy Raw Shrimp...not for everyone, its an acquired taste....and i err... acquired it...
Everyone loves Moon shrimp cakes. Golden crunchy on the outside, and warm shrimpy stuff on the inside....and a sour sweet sauce for dipping.
Pad Thai: the staple of Thailand...the everlasting yummmm
Spicy BBQ'ed cuttlefish...just right with the sweet spicy sauce.

THE BOOK IS RELEASED!!!!!

Thailand: My Way has arrived and is available for browsing and of course contact me if you want your own copy.

This book may be the start of it all.

Here are a few pages from the book.







In Asia the book goes for NT$1000 if ordered with in the next week or two.
(I will be putting in a bulk order so I can us get a discount). The Regular Price after that is around NT$1400.

There is no mark up.

In other words if you order from me now your paying cost. I make nothing. It may be silly to do it but this is my gift to the world. More books will follow... but I guarantee they will cost more.

I just really want to have people to have some of my work.

If your in North America then just wait...Nicole will be back in Canada in a couple of weeks and will do a promotional tour on my behalf.

Cost in Canada.....coming soon let me see what I can negotiate.

Here is one from a while back. I knew these two were goofing around, so I watched them then spun around and shot and kept walking.