Francis in town

Francis finally visited! We went to Hualien + Taroko Gorge over the weekend. We spent half a day in Hualien - basically just following Rae's list of to-eats : from dumplings to dessert to pancakes. Then we rented a car and drove ourselves into Taroko Gorge. It was great! Our pix are being parked.

Yeah, Francis helped me buy (an English speaking) digital camera to replace the one that was stolen from me - boo you thief! Mostly he has control over it, so please, no comments about the photographic skills on my Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8062670@N07/sets/72157616127698862/

We just got back from beef noodles + ice monster at Yongkang Street, and I'm sitting at my favourite time of the week - the marketing meeting conference call. :( I hate these late night conf calls!

Planning to take Wed (go climb at Longdong) and Fri (climb 7stars peak at Beitou, followed by visit to Tainan). At least that's the plan!

Management of Change

My new manager Edward who came from supply chain has been most helpful. Today he got someone from supply chain, a project manager to come give us a lesson on Mangement of Change.

I thought it might be interesting, plus it offered free lunch since it was scheduled between 12 to 1.30pm.

The guy starts to talk and then I realized he literally was talking about a management of change project.

WTF?

Our whole life's a change! I'm in IT - for goodness sakes!

We're talking about Moore's law and Chaos theory here and he's coaching us about getting a sponser + project manager for a change?

It was too rude to leave after 15mins of him talking, so I ate my free sandwich, complained to Ghee Hwee via MSN, then starting clearing my emails. Tried to type as quietly as I could but I bet that guy was silently cursing me.

So this post is dedicated to Ghee Hwee - she suggested I blogged about it. On hindsight, I think she was trying to get me off her back. Hmm...

Weekend amongst the trees

The good thing about living in Taiwan is that the mountains surround you. In just 2 hours, we went from urban Taipei into the mountains around Hsinchu.

It was a weekend of 霞客羅古道 and 鎮西堡巨木群. Translated, it means I walked amongst trees :)

Honda said it'll be an easy weekend of easy walks. He brought his family including his 2 kids. Others brought their 3 year olds along. Frank brought his 2 year old Scottish terrier. It can't be all that difficult a walk right? So Rae and I happily joined.

Day 1 (霞客羅古道) was nice, a nice flat 10km route through the mountains. This is an old Japanese built trail and we were literally amongst the tribal villages of the Ayatal people (aborigines of Taiwan).

Day 2 (鎮西堡巨木群), we woke up at 6am, over breakfast it started to rain. In the rain, we rode a van to the trail head - loaded up like cargo, our bruised butts bumped around for that painful half an hour ride over a dirt/rocky path. By the time we walked into the cypress forest, it was raining even harder. Thankfully my new Mammut goretex jacket & that 200NT rain pants + my goretex hiking boots kept me dry. Technically, I was wet - from perspiration. The elevation was crazy - we kept climbing until we saw our first cypress trees. Then you feel it is all worthwhile.

More pix here - http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/9718picture-9718picture/gallery?fid=105&page=1

The rise of China

Over lunch, I had this argument with my co-workers (who're Taiwanese) on the use of Simplified Chinese. As with most Taiwanese, they feel they are the main protectors of the Chinese history, culture and language. And while I do agree to a large extent (China went through the cultural revolution afterall), on language I beg to differ.

Language is supposed to evolve with people - if it doesn't evolve, it dies, like Latin did and such.

Simplified Chinese will one day be the no.1 language - whether Taiwan likes it or not.

Just purely on the backs of China as a new superpower.

I was in Palau 2 weeks ago and if you spoke English or Japanese, you're easily understood. There will come a day when speaking Chinese will get you understood all over the world.

When we, the descendants of the dragon 龙的传人 (the Chinese race) will be as widely welcomed and accepted worldwide.

Don't believe me, here's a hint of things to come...
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/16/business/compete16.php

My best diving ever in Palau

Palau is just a short 3 hour flight away from Taipei. And in that 3 hours, we went from 17degrees to 27degrees. Ah.. paradise in the sea.

We set off Friday night, arrived in Koror, Palau early morning, took a 1hour nap and then the diving started.

Altogether we did 9 dives : German Channel, Blue Corner (twice), Blue Hole, St Cardinal, Chandelier Cave, New Dropoff, Big Dropoff. Snorkeled Shark City where sharks swam right by you, huge remora fishes swam minus their host shark - one of which tried to stick to Blues when he was showing off his free diving skills :) And the highlight was swimming with jellyfishes who have evolved to lose their stinging abilities.

I was a little spooked initially - been stung bad before. But these ones are really harmless.

The huge schools of fish, the sharks that swam lazily by you without fear of humans, turtles that ignore the harassment of divers. I grew so blase that I found myself stroking a manta ray (yikes!). It swirled around and bared its teeth at me. Tsk tsk!

Pix of me coping a feel of the Napolean wrasse after it gobbled my hardboiled egg.

We stayed at the Palau Hotel which is Taiwanese owned (naturally since I was in the company of a Taiwanese dive group) - it's a little old and smelt a little musky, but otherwise was clean and comfortable enough. The location is very convenient, right smack center of town.

I really enjoyed every bit of it. Kudos to Blues for pulling it all together.

Coco's pix - http://picasaweb.google.com.tw/cocoislandphoto/98030610palau#

Jack's pix - http://cid-4febe688e58ae2dd.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/20090306%20%e5%b8%9b%e7%90%89%e6%bd%9b%e6%b0%b4%e8%a1%8c

Blue's pix - http://www.flickr.com/photos/aniceday0101/

good weekend

Saturday - Culture Day!
I visited first the Taiwan National History Museum where the Silk Road/Xinjiang treasures were on display. The centerpiece was the Loulan Beauty, a Tarim mummy preserved in the arid/dry conditions of the silk road sands. It was super crowded, which took a little off the enjoyment of the place, but otherwise, very good exhibits.

Next stop : CKS memorial hall where Andy Warhol - king of pop art was on display. After Xinjiang, somehow the light-weightness of pop art really sank in. But the vivid colors and the cheeriness almost outlandish styles was pretty uplifting. While it was also crowded, the real crowds were in the gift shop! There was Andy Warhol everything, from the standard mugs and tshirts to stationery, fridge magnets etc. The queue to pay snaked all the way out, seems like 50 people long. While I would've liked to get a poster or 2, the queues put me off. Perhaps another day or not all all.

Sunday - Sports Day!
Since I was still nursing an achy middle finger tendon (not sure if it's from over-climbing while in SGP or washing my electric blanket out after winter - perhaps both!), so no climbing for a little bit more...

Cycling - I finally bought a bike! I went to the Giant shop nearby chuch in Minsheng E Road. Original intent was a simple mountain bike but those cost up to 8k, and are ugly! So I got a Dahon foldie in pretty red for 12.5k. Then I cycled it home the 4k distance. It really surprised me, it's speedy and I could hit speeds of 17-20k quite effortlessly despite of its tiny wheels. The only unfortunate was I picked a really cold day - it was 16degrees and cloudy. It was a little cold for me.

Gyming - and then I hit the gym in the late evening instead of cycling my little foldie around. Just too cold today.

Guess what I'll be doing next weekend? I am diving Palau! Whale sharks, hammer-head sharks, manta rays, here I come!