Black Arts Diary

Taipei Street Scenes

2012-06-08T09:36:01Z

Home to nearly 3 million people, Taipei is an amalgam of Asian exoticism and Western affluence. Old mixes with new, occidental and oriental live side by side.

Rainy streets

Geek heaven

Street temple

Eating & Drinking in Taipei

2012-03-18T15:21:22Z

An ideal place to start exploring Taiwan’s deliciously exotic culinary spectrum is at one of Taipei’s night markets. If you’re a Westerner, set aside your prejudices as to what is edible and what isn’t, and dive right in. Pro-tip: nearly everything sold as food at night markets can be considered edible. However, not everything might be palatable.

Hia Xi Night Market

Local residents flock to night markets for dinner on the move.

Seafood and shellfish

Juice bar - fresh is best

Several markets in Taipei are open by day as well, mostly from early afternoon. For the weary traveller, this is an excellent opportunity to use daylight to make sure your next meal isn’t still alive.

Not everything sold at a night market is edible!

Of course Taipei also has its share of restaurants catering to every taste (such as the Sherwood Hotel’s Yi Yuan restaurant’s excellent Peking duck).

Sad Super Hot Noodles

Deciding what to get...

Edward endorsing the food at the Taipei 101 Building Observatory Restaurant

For Westerners wishing to restore their equilibrium with something familiar, there’s always the Brass Monkey pub.

Brass Monkey Pub

Draft beer on tap at your table.

And of course, finally something sweet to cool you down: iced green tea served with clotted cream and sugar!

Mengjia Longshan Temple, Taipei

2012-03-18T14:47:20Z

Built in 1738 by settlers from Fujian, Taipei’s Mengjia Longshan Temple worships Buddhist, Taoist, and folk deities such as Matsu.

Entrance to the temple

Taipei 101 Building

2012-03-11T10:07:07Z

For a while there, the Taipei 101 building was the tallest building in the world, until it was overtaken by Dubai’s Burj Khalifa in 2010. The 509.2m high building is currently the second tallest building in the world, and was the first building in the world to break the half a kilometer mark.

Taipei 101 building disappearing into clouds

Tuned mass damper

A 660 tonne steel pendulum serves as a tuned mass damper, swaying from side to side to compensate for the movement of the building caused by gusts of wind. This prevents structural damage to the building during frequent typhoons.

National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine, Taipei

2012-03-10T19:01:51Z

The National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine is dedicated to the Republic of China’s war dead. From Wikipedia:

Built on Chingshan Mountain and overseeing the Keelung River in Taipei’s Zhongshan District in 1969, the Martyrs Shrine recalls the architecture of the Hall of Supreme Harmony in Beijing’s Forbidden City. The structure houses the spirit tablets of about 390,000 persons killed, among other engagements, during the Xinhai Revolution, Northern Expedition, Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese Civil War, and the First and Second Taiwan Strait Crises.

Entrance to the National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine

Changing of the guards at the National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine.

Spirit tablets for some of the war dead.

Ceiling at the National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine.

Lu Hao-Tung, designer of the Taiwanese flag

Core Pacific City Mall in Taipei

2012-03-10T13:08:15Z

Housing the Mira Department Store, the Core Pacific City Mall‘s 11 story sphere is made of imported Finnish granite.

Peking Duck at the Sherwood Hotel’s Yi Yuan Restaurant, Taipei

2012-03-10T12:01:18Z

The Sherwood Hotel‘s Yi Yuan restaurant serves the most amazing Peking duck. The duck was prepared in a private dining room by a chef and his assistant, thinly sliced and served in small pancakes with a mouth watering sweet, savoury sauce.

Chef preparing the Peking duck

The chef and his assistant

Preparing the Peking duck

Thin slices of duck

Peking duck served in paper-thin pancakes

Side dishes: fried pork belly and unidentified vegetables

Duck left over after the pancakes made into a hearty soup

Bits of duck fried with rice

Fine dining at the Sherwood hotel

Edward at the Sherwood Hotel

Only a few ducks are available each day, so be sure to book ahead.

Come on in, Berlin, the water’s fine

2011-08-05T13:51:56Z

The AquaDom in Berlin is a unique experience in near-underwater living, a giant 25 meter high aquarium in the front lobby of a Radisson hotel in the city centre. With a diameter of 11 meters and holding 1,000,000 liters of water, the aquarium cost around 12.8 million euros when it opened in 2003.

Stasi informant went from radical left to neo-Nazi right

2011-08-02T12:38:35Z

Some people are simply born to cause trouble.

Horst Mahler was a leader of the German radical left in the 1960s and ’70s. Now he’s a member of the radical right, sitting in jail for denying the Holocaust. But he’s reportedly verified reports that he informed for Communist spies in the ’60s.

More at Spiegel Online.

Morgellons: Is it all a load of old cobblers?

2011-05-12T15:23:23Z

Morgellons disease doesn’t exist, say the scientific research community. Does too, say the people who claim to suffer from this distinctly unpleasant condition. “The more you try to prove you’re not crazy, the more crazy they think you are,” stated one self-diagnosed sufferer. The claims of conspiracy and nanotech gone wrong really don’t help.

Happy Birthday Hugo Gernsback

2010-08-17T11:57:08Z

Yesterday, 16 August, marked the 122nd anniversary of the birth of Hugo Gernsback, master of science fiction and father of a genre. Tomorrow will mark the 43rd anniversary of his death. This is a man who predicted radio speakers in 1909, radar and television in 1911 and radio contact with the moon in 1927. Happy birthday, alpha geek.

Watching The Watchers

2010-04-28T11:12:16Z

Google, living up to their lesser known slogan of “Do no evil – but if you have to tell everyone”, has published a list of nearly all government requests they received between July 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009. Government agencies around the world approach Google to remove content or reveal information about users, and this page lists the number of requests per country.

Obama’s First State of the Union Address Analysed

2010-01-29T12:17:02Z

An analysis of Barak Obama’s State of the Union Address delivered on 27 January 2010 reveals some interesting core messages, the most significant of which being that the economy is growing stronger. Click on the image below for a higher resolution version.

This visualisation was based on a transcript of the address released by the Office of the Press Secretary, and was created using the Many Eyes application developed by the IBM Visual Communication Lab.

Cymothoa exigua exists on a lick & a promise

2009-09-17T16:09:01Z

Meet Cymothoa exigua, a nasty little parasitic crustacean that has evolved a particularly ingenious way of making himself comfortable in his host. The parasite enters his host, the spotted rose snapper, through its gills, and proceeds to suck blood from the fish’s tongue until the organ atrophies and drops off. The clever little bastard then becomes the fish’s tongue, grabbing on to the stub of the original tongue and behaving just like the real thing. The parasite feeds off the fish’s blood and mucus, apparently without harming its host. Charming.

The Boy Who Heard Too Much

2009-08-25T12:02:31Z

Great article on vintage-style phreaking in Rolling Stone. The article includes this alleged exploit:

Last year, during the presidential campaign, Weigman heard a YouTube video of Mitt Romney’s son Matt dialing his dad. Weigman listened closely to the touch tones, deciphered the candidate’s cellphone number — and then made a call of his own. “Mitt Romney!” he said. “What’s going on, dude? Running for president?” Weigman says Romney told him to shove the phone up his ass, and hung up.

Well, well, well. Mitt Romney has a thing for phones up his ass. Who knew?