Zai san bei

We've had a wild and exciting last few weeks here. Rick from New Zealand and Sri, a PhD candidate from Iowa State, have become pretty good friends of ours and have been experiencing the island with us. Recent events include nights out to the local Taiwan Beer Factory, China Pa (a traditional Chinese lounge bar playing live 1920's Chinese classics), a trip to the top of Taipei 101 (tallest building in the world, 508m, until the completion of the Dubai Tower), another rugby match, a visit to the Grand Hotel, and a hike to the top of the Mt. Cising (tallest mountain in the Yangmingshan National Park north of Taipei).

We've been gorging ourselves every night and having a blast in the city each day. The people here are incredibly friendly and even though we've struggled not knowing the language, the locals' patience and willingness to reach out have left an endearing impression on us. If anyone is interested in spending some time in a foreign country to live and teach ESL (Terry?), the pay here for English teachers is very high (over $45k US) and the demand is endless. Many of the ex-pats I play rugby with have been doing this for years.

So here's a barrage of photos from the last couple of weeks. This is a Japanese style "hot pot" diner. Everyone gets there own boiling bowl of broth to season and cook assortment of vegetables, seafood and meats. I think this is my favorite style for going out. These shrimp were still squirming on the plate before we boiled 'em.




...And at the local pubs... (Nice face, Jake!)



A poster feature "America's Great Beers" had a familiar emblem from the Northwest...Old Wooly from Big Time Brewery in Seattle.



Prof. JS Hwang who works here at NCREE and teaches at National Taiwan University is a PhD graduate from SUNY Buffalo. He's been a good friend to us whether it be figuring out the transit schedules or taking us out. This place, China Pa, had a 70 year old singer belting out tunes reminiscent of old Shanghai in the 20's. He's quite a character and loves to practice his english with us. His words of wisdom are "to not work too hard. One day you'll be dead and realize you never enjoyed your life. Instead just work, work, work." And then he offered to change lives with me. Odd.



These are some shots of the Taipei Grand Hotel. Foreign MP's and Presidents stay here when visiting. It has incredibly decorative Asian architecture and is beautiful inside and out.








Played a bit of rugby on Saturday. The Taipei Baboons have an annual South Africa vs. The World match within the club. I wish I could say I helped the World put those Arfikaaners in their place but I think the final score was 86-10. It looked more like a track event with them continuously sprinting towards our try line.


Saturday night at the Taiwan Beer Factory. This night we had to ask a group of Central American guys to help decipher the all Mandarin food menu for us. Through a mix of Spanish, English and Mandarin (Espandaringlish) we were able to get a great meal and a few casks of beer.


Rick doing his best Harry Potter impression.


Apparently, it make sense to bring the whole family out for the night to the Beer Factory 'cause this place looked like a playground with kids running all around. This kid here is building his pile for the rock fight with his siblings. The fight took place at and around our table. Oh, sweet.



Kelly took a gondola ride over the city and made friends with a Taiwanese family. She ended up having tea at a tradition tea house in the hills with them and was using the 3 kids to translate English to their mom. She got some great shots over looking Taipei.






We stopped by Taipei 101 last week to go up to the observatory because it would be straight up blasphemous to be structural engineering students in Taipei and not visit the tallest building on the planet. It's a interesting building and holds records for the world's fastest rising elevator (600 meters/minute) and the world's largest Tuned Mass Damper. I know. Can you hardly contain yourself? Simply riveting.




A tuned mass dampers is a huge, heavy mass typically placed near the top of a tall building that swings or moves freely to counter the momentum of the building during high winds from typhoons or from earthquakes, minimizing the swaying or shaking movement at the upper levels. Yeah. This really got our geeky engineering blood going as you can see.




Kelly, Sri and myself did a nice little day hike just outside the city. Sri says he hadn't hiked in two full years and even though the hike was relatively short, it was extremely steep at parts. The clouds cleared when we got to the top and we could see all of Taipei and into the China Sea to the west.






Oh, and the other night at the Shilan Night Market we ran into this.


That's it. I'm staying.

We successfully tested our first specimen yesterday and are likely going to extend our stay another 3 days to be here for the second test next week. I'm definitely in no rush to leave. Talk to you all soon.

Jake