Lucas kidney ultrasound

Lucas has 'water on the kidneys' which is related to his urinary reflux problem. It's not serious but it needs to be monitored periodically. We went for our scheduled checkup last week and the doc said his kidneys were looking much better. Lucas even seemed to quite enjoy the experience !



Jen-Ai hospital had told us that the severity of reflux on one side was level 4-5 which usually means surgery, but the Chung Shan doctor assured us that it's 'only' 3-4 which has a much lower chance of requiring surgery.

Partial lunar eclipse

A few days ago we had a partial lunar eclipse which I was quite excited about. In the end it was a bit of a let down. I thought that the earth's shadow was going to take a much bigger bite out of the moon than it did.



I am amazed that this shot actually came out. This is what you get with 3x optical zoom and a very steady hand ! The miniscule 'bite' is at the lower right part of the moon in case you were wondering.

Taichung City Gov't Adopts Whisky Slogan

Based on the Chinese meaning I think Mayor Hu is trying to say 'keep moving forward.'

Old photos of Taiwan

Great pictures of Taiwan's yesteryear. I wonder what Internet historians 300 years from now will make of our photoblogs. Thanks Michael for the link.

Bike trail flowers

Like I said, loads of lovely flowers. I'd be bending over some flowers trying to get a shot and I could feel all these eyes gawking at the foreigner as they passed. Some kid yelled out "Frenchman!"



This is where we rented our bikes from. Very cheap. Mine and Jason's bikes came to NT$150. Next up we have a girl on a unicycle who whizzed by at great speed. Then we have a chicken and a lovely red flower - it's that kind of trail. Lastly, a typical road crossing where scooters and cars do not slow down for bikes and bikes only slow down when it's almost too late in many cases. Jocelyn was nearly clobbered by a truck which thankfully stopped in time.

More bike trail pics

Kelly was convinced that there would be battery-powered bikes available as there were in Feng Yuan. Alas, no, so she pushed Lucas in the pushchair while the rest of the gang raced off on their bikes. Jason ended up on the back of Johnny's bike and I kept turning back to see how Kelly and Lucas were doing.

We made it to about the 3km mark and the others got as far as 6km I think. This gave me chance to 'stop and smell the flowers' as it were, and there really were many kinds of flowers along the trail. I spent as much time kneeling next to flowers trying to capture a nice macro shot as I did pedalling along the trail.

 
 

Bike trail trip

Last Sunday we headed out to a bike trail in Tan-dz. It was fun. Overall, I preferred it to the one in Feng Yuan. Lots of rice fields and flowers -just try to ignore the derelict warehouses. One big problem with this trail is that it crosses many roads. The small roads are more dangerous than the main roads because the kids aren't looking out for oncoming scooters and cars. It's better to start this 10km trail at the other side we have since discovered.

 
 

Just testing out the Picasa update

 

You know I think I prefer using the Hello program. It's much faster, although you can't post a title which is a pain. 

Lisa's grandparents

I find old black and white photographs fascinating. Here we have Lisa's grandparents in their wedding garb over half a century ago. Whenever I went to Lisa's house they would always greet me with a polite nod and a smile. It feels a little odd seeing the twenty-something versions of them. What I really want to see though, Lisa, are pictures of your mum and dad when they were in their twenties. I am sure they are highly entertaining !

A shocking banner in the PRC

Found this on Karl's blog (Chewin in the Chung).
If you don't read Chinese, the literal translation is: Hit it out, press it out, 'flow' it out - just don't give birth to it.

banner
By Chaon.

Birding In Taiwan

Birding In Taiwan: " "

Came across this site by accident. Here is an interesting factoid for you that I gleaned from a China Post feature of all places: Taiwan has the second highest number of bird species per square km in the world (Madagascar is number one). Taiwan gets a lot of migratory birds (from Siberia stopping over before heading on down to the Phillipines) but it also has a very high number of endemic species.

Kelly and I always said that when Jason was bigger we'd head out into the hills with the birdwatching group that we joined before he was born. Now we have Lucas so we'll have to push that back a bit. I'll have to make do with the birds in the back garden for the time being. We do get some interesting visitors sometimes. We had a black bulbul once and occasionally we get Himalayan tree pies. From the roof I often see drongos, black-crowned night herons and storks but these are fairly common. Most of the time in the back garden we just get Chinese bulbuls, Japanese wagtails and Japanese white eyes. I can't be 100% sure but I think we may have had a white-browed bush robin one time.

Chocolate fountain

Last week we went to the Splendor Hotel to have 'afternoon tea.' My favourite section was the pasta bar. You point out what kind of pasta you want, what bits and pieces you want to go in it, and the sauce, then they cook it up for you right there. Highly recommended.

Jason camped out next to the chocolate fountain. Perhaps I should have told him what happened to Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Chocolate fountain
By Naruwan.

Car stickers

Who would even want these stickers on their car? Beats me.

Car sticker
By Naruwan.

Guitar Camp squat poo poster

This is a poster for guitar camp at Chung Hsing university. I am not sure of the significance of the squatting stick figures. At least it's eye-catching !

Guitar Camp squat poo poster
By Naruwan.

Haircut

Jason gets a NT 90 haircut.

Haircut
By Naruwan.

Black kitten

There are many, many cats in my neighbourhood. Most of them seem to congregate in my back garden at night to defecate, fornicate and screech at one another. And they seem so placid in the daytime - probably worn out.

This kitten isn't going to catch anything unfortunately because just under this particular grate is a wire mesh covering which prevents roaches and rodents from going in and out.

Black kitten waits patiently for its prey to emerge
By Naruwan.

Jason's first day at kindergarten

Jason has started kindergarten at last. At first he was going for the mornings only but after just a few days he was pleading to be able to stay until 4 p.m. His class is supposedly bilingual but of course as with most kindergartens that term means 95% Chinese with the other 5% made up of games like 'hit the English flash card' and singing Ten Little Indians. Still, Jason seems happy to be there and he is proud that he has learned some bopomofo (the Chinese phonetic alphabet used in Taiwan). I believe he'll be able to hit the ground running when he starts at elementary school next year.



Jason loves to do crazy 'smiles' for photos but I asked for 'a nice, normal smile' in this shot. Hmmm, I think I'll stick with crazy next time!

It was twitching

Jason had moved the sofa to retrieve something that had gone underneath and he called me over excitedly to observe some wriggling worm-like creature. I thought it might have been another flatworm or something related to a leech possibly. I scooped it up on the edge of a piece of paper for closer inspection.

Jason then explained that he had in fact whacked a small gecko thinking that it would dash off in time. Well it did indeed dash off but the poor thing left his twitching tail behind. No more tormenting geckos, Jason!

It's one of the things I love about Taiwan

People just dry stuff anywhere they can find a space without fear of it being pilfered or interfered with. My neighbour regularly puts various leaves and grasses out to dry on his car bonnet. I have another pic somewhere in the archives of large black beetles being dried out on a car windscreen.

Out in the countryside you often see edible products being dried right by the roadside. Ugh! Imagining all that dust and pollution it must be exposed to makes me think twice about eating dried local produce. I still eat it anyway half the time. Must be turning Taiwanese.

As an amusing aside, someone in my neighbourhood hangs their embarrassingly large underpants on the metal gate shown here (you can see the edge of it in this picture). I'd take a picture of them but if I were to be spotted taking photos of someone's underpants....no, better not go there.

Black turd sculptures have appeared around the lake...

...at Chung Hsing uni campus. There are four in all (you can see the other two in the background). I'm sure they mean something, or perhaps they are simply aesthetic statements - of what no one is quite sure. Most people are in agreement about one thing though - they look like turds.

You know, even if they looked great, the lake and its surroundings just don't need any sculptures. It's already quite attractive enough. It reminds me of those cakes you see in bakeries here which are overloaded with fruits and decorations that don't belong together. Perhaps the university has too much money and doesn't really know what to do with it.

Heineken green tea

Sounds like a revolting combination but you just never know. I'll try it and report back. Actually we usually go to the tea shop right nextdoor to this one called Original Tea. The prices are slightly higher than at other shops but the teas are really excellent and supposedly all organic.

Bad news: Tesco is leaving Taiwan

Good bye Tesco - it was nice while it lasted:

It seems Tesco only just arrived in Taichung and now they're sodding off. Bastards. Carrefour and Tesco are doing some kind of weird swap deal in which the Carrefour gets Tesco's Taiwan stores and Tesco gets Carrefour's stores in Czech and Slovakia. Kelly is devastated. Jason just hopes they keep the car-trolleys.

I spend way too much time on the net...

... so I'm cutting back as of today. I'll probably just post things at the weekend. The idea is to wean myself off the Internet on weekdays to free up more time for wholesome things like reading novels, something I'd like to do a lot more of.

Red millipede

Jason has a wonderful eye for spotting bugs. Maybe that's because he is closer to the ground than me! This magnificent specimen was walking past our doorstep just as we were coming home the other day. It's lucky I didn't accidentally squish him.

To squish or not to squish
By Naruwan.

Baby contest

Whether parents like it or not, as soon as their baby is born they are entered into a grand competition – a baby contest. It begins right from the moment your bawling bundle of joy is weighed. Lucas was 3 kg when he was born. “Although that’s not an impressive weight…” wrote one of my relatives in an email (!)
It seems that the heavier the baby at birth the better, even though there is absolutely no correlation between birth weight and weight after 12 months. But this is just the opening event in the Baby Olympics.



Another major event is “How Much Milk Does Your Baby Drink?” Jason was terrible at this event, only managing to put away a measly 60 cc of moo juice at a time, and yet has managed to achieve a normal height and weight for his age.

Our next door neighbour asked Kelly yesterday how much milk Lucas could drink. The gauntlet had been thrown down.
"120cc, no problem,” replied Kelly with pride. I admit I too find it gratifying that Lucas has a good appetite.
"Only 120?” scoffed Mrs. White, “Our granddaughter could drink that much at one month!” The granddaughters’ parents live and work in Taipei and come down to visit at the weekends. Kelly still had a trump up her sleeve.
"Ah, but Lucas can drink that much every two hours.” This much is true.
Mrs. White thought for a moment and then conceded that their baby only had that much milk every two and a half hours. She skulked off, dejected. Ha! So we won. 1-0 to us. [whole family performs victory dance]

By the way, Lucas is now over 6kg and we think he is going to win the Earliest Talker event too. He has already started babbling a little. So watch out -
our baby is better than your baby!

Daddy, you're scaring me

I've come across the 'magnified eye effect' a lot at Flickr and thought I would like to have a go myself. It was a lot harder than I thought. Lucas was moving around as was my hand, and it took a good second or so for the camera to focus in the low light which explains why it's somewhat out of focus.

I've recently discovered that at Flickr you can greatly increase the number of photos you can upload in a month by compressing the file right down to 5%. It's great because it has no noticeable effect on image quality even when viewed at full screen in your browser.
I reckon next month I'll be able to upload about 50 pictures. I have a lot of pics both old and new that I'd like to put on show.

What are you looking at, baby?
By Naruwan.

"The number of fingers is five."

This is "What is wrong with this picture? {Part 2)"
You know if you're a lateral thinker, there is a way in which the number of fingers can be five. Think Roman.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Forget the Great Wall of China, I would love to see a thermal image of Taiwan from space during Mid-Autumn festival with all those barbecues up and down the country merrily sizzling away.

On Saturday evening we went round to Lillian's house with fruit and salad things Kelly had prepared. Afterwards we visited Xiao-jen and her family just around the corner who were having a lovely feast then we had a stroll around Chung-Hsing university and let the kids tear around in front of the library. Poor Jocelyn collided with another kid and bashed her chin on the ground.



As you can see I have been having fun playing around with the shots I deliberately took without flash. It's amazing what you can do. Some of these shots came out virtually all black but by cranking up the 'fill light' and 'highlights' with some added shadow you can create some striking effects.

Gaming the system

I'm adding this here because for some reason I can't edit my previous post. Anyway, Jason often cracks me up with his logical analysis of the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.

He just asked me whether he would get two more coins from the Tooth Fairy if he put his two teeth under his pillow again tonight. I said it that I didn't think it worked like that. Undeterred, Jason responded by asking how the Tooth Fairy would know and could he try it anyway!

He's been chipping away at the Santa hoax for the past two Christmases. During one conversation on the subject he forced me to concede that if kids are only a little bit naughty they will still receive presents. He then went on to zero in on exactly how naughty you would have to be to get struck off Santa's gift list.
I really have to think on my feet these days. Last Christmas I had to waffle and fudge an impromptu explanation as to why our neighbours' kids didn't get presents from Santa.

Jason's milk teeth are coming out

Two of Jason's teeth at the bottom were very wobbly and ready to come out so on Saturday morning the dentist helped them along during a check-up. I thought Jason would be in tears but he was fine, not even a whimper.

Of course now he is very proud of his gap. He keeps the teeth in a dinky tooth-shaped container and shows them to people any chance he gets. When he wakes up this morning he'll discover two 50 dollar coins under his pillow that the tooth fairy left for him last night.

Nice haircut

Thanks again to Alice for sending me this. Kelly thinks Lucas has a very similar face. I'm not so sure. That was my favourite jumper, by the way.

Photoblogs.org - Taiwan

There are two dozen photoblogs listed under 'Taiwan' at photoblogs.org. Some are good, some are crap, and some are not even Taiwan blogs. There are also some notable absences.
I think I'm going to have to devise my own personal top ten Taiwan photoblogs - sift the wheat from the chaff.

There are also several Taiwan bloggers out there who take great photos but are not photobloggers per se - Roger in Taiwan, for example. Look at the picture on the left: that is one cracking good photo. Also, check out the one he took of himself with the bottom of a bottle covering the flash. A very weird and wonderful effect. I'm thinking of trying something like that with coloured sweet wrappers. More fun that just sliding scales in an image editor.

"Homo" hippo car sticker

Michael Turton's post yesterday about names of Japanese cars reminded me of this shot I took in Jan this year.
Incidentally, we test drove one of these Solios last year. Horrible, horrible cars. Horrible to look at and horrible to drive.

"Homo" hippo car sticker
By Naruwan.

Ice cream staredown

Alice sent me this great pic of Jason and Mark that she took during our day trip to Birmingham. Jason has grown so much since then. In the picture he looks like someone else's little boy who bears an uncanny resemblance to Jason.

Ice cream staredown
Originally uploaded by Naruwan.

台灣影像部落閣 'Taiwan Images On The Blog'

歡迎來到~台灣影像部落閣。行政院新聞局為配合中央推動深植本土文化政策，並鑑於中部地區長期缺乏完整介紹台灣風俗民情、庶民文化及自然生態的影像視聽資料場所，主動規劃設立「台灣影像部落閣」，爰引網際網路「BLOG」（部落閣）之精神，提供一處能讓中部地區青年學子及民眾觀賞紀錄影片與閱讀的場所，真實呈現台灣本土的文化價值暨濃郁的人文關懷。

The government has set up a centre in Taichung for images of Taiwanese culture (i.e. photographic exhibitions and a library of DVD documentaries). I am not sure where the 'blog' part comes in as it does not seem to have anything to do with blogging. There's a small library and a screening room upstairs. Could be worth checking out.





部落閣地址：(40304)台中市西區自由路一段150.號聯絡電話 04-22249632, 傳真：04-22296800

A funny telephone conversation

Sometimes when I call people on the phone and they hear that I am a foreigner, they freeze up, panic and run away for assistance.

A while back I called my friend, Lillian. Her mother-in-law, pictured above with her son Johnny, got the phone:

Me: 喂,你好. Lillian 在嗎?
L's M-I-L: 什麼人?
Me: Lillian 在不在?
L's M-I-L: [walks away from the phone and yells to son, Johnny in Taiwanese]
美國人....怎麼說?* [I hear Johnny saying something then she comes back to the phone.]
AH-MAY-REE-KA [she hangs up]

In 1993...

...there were no typhoons. It was the year I arrived in Taiwan and I was kind of disappointed. I was looking forward to seeing one - something exciting to put in the journal.

Now we've got typhoons by the bucket. Typhoon Khanun appears to be headed this way according to some reports, but at the time of posting the Taiwan weather folks seem to think it's going to veer off before it reaches us. Hope so.



Everyone out there named Khanun try not to fret. It's probably not going to kill any (or many) people. It's the girls and women called Katrina you want to feel sorry for.

The grooviest toilet seat in the land

Went to B&Q yesterday and bought possibly the sparkliest toilet lid in Taiwan. I spent at least 10 minutes opening up each box to compare which lid had the best aesthetic arrangement of seashells.



I know you're thinking, 'What is the world coming to when people start blogging about their toilet seats?' Well, you're just jealous. You just have a think about that when you're next sitting on your plain old toilet seat.

But what about the best beef noodles in Taichung?

2005台北牛肉麵節~世界牛肉麵之都在台北

I wish I could be up in Taipei at the moment slurping down some quality beef noodles at the beef noodle festival. The best bowl of beef noodles I've ever had in Taipei was at a place on Zhong-zheng Rd. Man, I could eat bowl after bowl from that restaurant if I had a big enough stomach. I wonder if that place is still there.

But what about the best beef noodles down here in Taichung?
The best place is without doubt a restaurant on Xue-shr Rd., near the China Medical University emergency department (!). It's called General Beef Noodles (in Chinese, see pic below) and is run by an elderly gentleman with a scraggy white beard. His beef noodles are completely different from the normal stuff you get. Most beef noodle places use beef broth made from those nasty generic bags of spice which have an overly heavy emphasis on star anise. The broth at the General's place is much more subtle. It's not too salty and the beef is very 'gamey'. Not to everyone's taste but very much to mine.

"Laden vs. USA" handheld game

When I saw this game in the convenience store just down the road from my house (in Taiwan) I knew I had to buy it. This was several months after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The label on the back indicates that it was made in Nanhai city, Guangdong province, China.





A view of the back.