Cute
Cute, isn't it? While in Taipei, I looked all over for a die-cast model of
my car. I found a mall near Ximen Station that had a whole floor of toy
stores, with at least 4 die cast shops. Unfortunately, my car is a little
too old; like the real car dealers, they only carry recent model years. But
I did find this 1:87 plastic replica. It's pretty good, except my 1:1 car
has M3 rims, a dark interior, a spoiler, and sunroof. Details, details...
Travel is coming my way once again this week. I'll be attending the Intel
Developer Forum in San Francisco. I've visited that city twice in the last
year or so. However, this will be the first time I'll be lodging downtown.
Perhaps I can experience some of the night life. Should be a good time.
[
] | posted @ 03:55 |
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11990 Kilometres from Home
Still. I was expecting to be home this weekend, but decided to stay here
just a few more days.
Rummaging through my suitcase, I found the GPS I completely forgot was
with me. It took a good few minutes to track satellites ("Have you moved
hundreds of kilometres?"... "Uh, yeah!"), and in the end it still couldn't
tell me the distance to home. Garmin only does that for distances that fit
four digits. I guess I could have switched to imperial units. Instead, I
just plugged the coordinates into some web site. It told me what I already
knew; it's far. But, with a twelve hour time difference I expected that to
be closer to 20,000 km. Being some distance North of the equator makes for
significantly shorter distances.
I spent the entire weekend at the Maokong mountain. This was my first
time in South Taipei, and I clearly should have gone there sooner! There is
a gondola there that takes people up on a 25 minute ride. As usual over
here, the price and service are fair, as it's linked to the metro system.
The entire mountain seems dedicated to tea production. At the top station,
there are many tea venues, a tea promotion center, and most enjoyably,
hiking trails. Hiking steep mountains is no easy task with the kind of
humidity Taipei experiences. Nonetheless, I took a path down and then up
(through a valley) to the next gondola station, Zhinan Temple Station.
There were several temples there, but Linxiaobao had the best view of the
city. I waited around and read a book until sunset, then let the camera off
its leash. Looking back at the photos, they don't quite capture the feeling
of the actual sunset. It is impossible to capture in a photo the full
sensation of watching the sun go down on a breezy mountain, at the front
steps of a large temple, with the smell of burning incense.
So it was an alright weekend. It's August already. Time flies, and I'm
missing my whole Canadian summer. I'll have to come back here when it's
winter.
[
] | posted @ 17:34 |
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