Photos by MJ Klein, including FOOD PHOTOS!

Recently my brother John visited Taiwan, but we weren’t able to blog on his visit in real time due to a couple of technical difficulties that are now resolved.  So, without further delay, we bring you installment #1 of his visit!

This is John arriving in Taiwan at the Taoyuan International Airport.  It was at night and we took him out for some food of course, but no photos.

The next day we started off getting John acquainted with our local area and giving him a chance to get oriented a bit, since this was his first trip both to Taiwan, and Asia itself.  So, we took him to the Hukou Old Street area.

Hui-chen took some time to explain some of the rituals that people perform at temples in Taiwan.

This is the temple at the end (or beginning of, depending upon your viewpoint) of the Old Street.

A cold, windy day for a walk down the Old Street.

After the Old Street, it was time for lunch, so we took John to Xiao-hui’s!  Now it was time for food orientation!

All of our favorite dishes were in attendance.

This overview shot tells the story: we covered the table with dishes.

John sang many of the few English songs in the karaoke machine.

The next day, we introduced John to downtown Hukou.  Most foreigners go to Taipei on their first trip and most of them stay in Taipei (where they can speak English).  I was determined to give my brother a more genuine Taiwan experience by spending very little time in Taipei and going around the island, showing him how everyday people live.

Here we see John checking out the Hukou day market.

This was our lunch, from a little corner restaurant in downtown Hukou.

Later, I took John over to meet the only other US citizen in the area, The (pronounced “tee”).  This is a shot of a nice beef salad the chef prepared for us at The’s place.

Later in the evening we enjoyed hotpot.  This was John’s first hotpot experience, and we picked a nice cold night for it.

Hui-chen and I took John around on our normal routine.  We went to Hsinchu city the following day and I showed John this government building (city hall) which dates from the Japanese colonial era.

Not far from the city hall building is Hsinchu’s oldest temple, Cheng Huang 城隍廟.  We took John to check it out.

Outside, someone was selling these odd snacks.

They have a layer of taffy inside, some peanut powder and cilantro.  We got a couple to check them out.  They’re “different.”

More local offerings.

We stopped for lunch at this duck restaurant.  Enjoy the photos of what we had.

In the evening, we got an invitation from Shawn, owner of Titty Tea, to join him at the Ikki Grill in Zhubei.

Everything at the Ikki Grill is great.

This woman grilled the stuff for us, right on the bar in front of us.  It was a nice dining experience.

On the way back to our car, we stopped by the local pet store, where we found a tank containing a pair of Nautilus.  This was my first time seeing one in the flesh.  They are very interesting creatures!

Near our home is a coffee shop on the side of a mountain.  We took John there to enjoy the view.  Since John’s visit, this place has been torn down and a new viewing platform is being built.

In Sanyi, there is an old broken bridge from the Japanese era, called the Longteng Bridge.  It’s really something to see in person – photos don’t do it justice.  We were in Sanyi, checking out the wood carving places and decided to drive out to this bridge.

Notice the lights in the foreground.  We didn’t see it all lit up but I bet it looks cool.

We took a little footpath to this pedestrian bridge for some photos.

There are 2 more abutments nearby.  These can’t be seen from the main part of the bridge because they are on the other side of the river.

You can walk up a path to the top of the ridge, and we did so.  I wanted to see if there were remains of rails, and sure enough, there were.

This is the view of the top of the abutment remains.

As you can see, something is being built beside the broken bridge.  Some kind of park, presumably.

That evening, we went to Chubby for dinner.

Delicious!

Thanks for reading about John’s first 4 days in Taiwan.  Later, we’ll show you our trip around the island and the beautiful East coast and parts of the Rift Valley.

First, it was a problem with the update that broke a vital plugin.  Now my main computer has broken and is in the shop for repair.  My brother was recently in Taiwan for 19 days so we have a lot of things to show you, so please be patient with us.  Thanks!

Mobile phone food photos by MJ Klein

Well, dear readers, we apologize for the time interval between posts of late.  There is lots going on that has been demanding our attention, but not much going on that is blog-worthy.  However, as we’ve said before, Hui-chen and I photograph nearly every meal we have, so I think we should do more food posts since people really seem to be interested in the food we have in Taiwan.  We intend to make this more of a regular feature so please do let us know if you like it.  Now, onto the food!

Before we get into the actual week’s food offerings, I just wanted to start things off with a shot of a wonderful Vietnamese style beef salad.  Not totally unlike similar offering from other Southeast Asian countries we’ve visited, this dish was definitely Vietnamese flavored and every bit as good at it looks.  This was made right in my neighborhood on the next block at a little place called 乾杯小吃.

Because we didn’t have a food article for last week, I’m going to show you a few teppanyaki dishes we had in nearby Zhubei.  This is fried cabbage.

Fried egg, and it was a lot better than it looks in this photo.

Oysters, teppanyaki style.

Teppanyaki beef.  Cooked perfectly.

The same can be said for the teppanyaki pork.

We almost didn’t get a shot of this teppanyaki chicken before it was gone!

Most Western diners will recognize this classic Chinese restaurant dish: Kung Pao Gi Ding, at the famous 11 Street in Zhubei.

These are sweet potato greens, and if you haven’t tried them, you don’t know what you’re missing!

Not sure what they call this in English but it’s “mainland beauty” in Chinese.  Nice, crisp, clean flavor.

Boiled dumplings, always a favorite of mine.  Delicious!

Pumpkin soup.  Better than most places, and quite good.

Next, we went to Friday’s in Zhubei.  This is Hui-chen’s Walnut Salmon with Couscous.  She like it very much.  UPDATE: HC says this is rice with Saffron.

I know, I know, how stereotypical of me to get the burger, but that’s what I felt like getting, so I did!  I didn’t care for the Jack Daniel’s sauce (too sweet for my taste) but the burger was great without it.

Last but not least, is the dessert at Friday’s.  Fresh fruits, caramelized sugar and ice cream.  Delicious!

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Photos by MJ Klein

Recently more work went on behind our house and on the main roads in the area.  This time, the traffic island was jack-hammered to pieces, removed and replaced.  I have no idea what was wrong with the old traffic island and why it needed to be replaced, but I was fascinated to see how fast the new island was created.

Here we see debris from the old traffic island being removed….

The backhoe changed tools and is now digging the trench, clearing it of concrete debris from the old island.

The entire main road got this treatment.

A couple of days later, concrete forms were assembled and concrete was poured into the molds.  Yes, we are actually seeing a traffic cone being used as a funnel!

More mold forms.

This is the end, or nose of the island.  These get formed last.

Notice the new, smooth concrete, recently poured.

The new island sure does look good.

On the sidewalk are pieces of wood that (I assume) were used as shims in the form assembly procedure.

One side of the road was shut down during certain operations.

The junctions where light poles occurred were also left for later.

Notice the reinforcing bars (buried in the concrete, foreground) and the wire conduits in the center.  At first, I thought that the city was running new cabling in the islands, but I didn’t see anything new being laid.

This section was recently poured and the forms are being removed.

Concrete forms on the sidewalk.

If you look at the ends of the concrete forms you can see the general shape of the island.

These men are removing the forms from a recently poured section..

I turned the corner and observed the actions on a side street.  These men are surfacing a nose.

This is the section behind the nose in the above photo.  This section is almost finished.

The nose at the opposite end.

I went further down the road to see the operations on a new section.

These men are assembling a rebar “cage.”  We’ll get back to this in a minute.

Meanwhile, this man is assembling the concrete form for the nose of the island.

A small bulldozer is used to pick up and carry the forms while being positioned into place.

This shows a section that has the rebar cage ready, with forms being installed left-to-right.

Forms waiting placement.

This is a pile of rebar used to make the cage.

While it looks like there is a lot more to be done, this work went along very quickly.

The trench was covered up while waiting further work.

Now for the details about this wire rebar cage being built.  Notice the angle-iron frame that is being used as a form to shape the cage.

This is how the cage is assembled: by using small wires that are twisted around the rebar pieces to hold them in position.  Once finished, the cage is lifted off the angle-iron form and placed in the trench.  The cage will be embedded in the poured concrete and will give it the necessary strength and flexibility.

Our last shot is a finished nose.

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Photos by MJ Klein

Warning:  In this installment, I documented the preparation and roasting of a pig in the local village.  If such images disturb you, I recommend that you do not view them.

I talked with my friend Sonny, and we decided to throw a barbecue party for his relatives and friends in the village.

On the land behind Sonny’s home, he has a piggery.  We selected one of his pigs to roast, Filipino style, over an open pit.

A mother sow and her piglets.  Dont’ worry, we didn’t harm a hair on any of their heads.

In the village that morning, there was a dense fog.

Before we get into the actual pig roast itself, I wanted to show you a couple of other things first.  This is the inside of Sonny’s store.  There is a small kitchen where food can be prepared.  That way the person running the store doesn’t have to close up to get lunch.

The orange liquid in the bottles up front is gasoline.

This is where I slept in Sonny’s home.  The mosquito net is a requirement in this part of the world.

Some men in the village (Sonny’s relatives) had gathered some wood, dug a pit and started a fire.

They are boiling some water to be used to clean the pig before roasting it (after it’s been killed of course!).

Here we see the men leading the chosen pig out of the pig pen and over to the area where they will dispatch it, and prepare it for cooking.  If you are squeamish, I recommend that you stop looking at the photographs now.

One thing that surprised me is that while the pig screamed, it did not try to bite anyone.

If you look at the pig’s mouth you can see that it is screaming for dear life.  Pigs seem to know that they are food animals and when you take them out of the pig pen they scream wildly.

The men dig a hole in preparation for bleeding the pig (to catch the blood).  Notice that they have the pig’s feet bound; otherwise it would run away obviously.

The gentleman who took charge of the barbecue is now going to bleed the pig.  This is your last warning about the content of these photos!

Bleeding the pig is fast.  The whole thing was over in about a minute.

Once the pig expired, the men began the cleaning process, which started with a hot water bath.

Next, the men shaved the pig.

I had never seen this done before.  The men removed the pig’s toenails, which are like a cap that fits over the foot.

The men did a very thorough job of cleaning the pig.  Notice one man cleaning the pig’s ears.

In the meantime, some of the village women began to arrive and start other cooking projects.  These brightly colored hot dogs were an addition to our barbecue party this afternoon.

Also present was fish.

Finally, the outside of the pig was pristine.  Now, for cleaning the inside:

Some men had cut down (what I think are) banana leaves and placed them on the platform.

Now it was time to open up the pig and clean it out.

The barbecue master cut around the genitals, and then made a small slit in the stomach.

The idea is to loosen where the intestines attach to the body and be able to pull everything out without cutting into the bowel itself.

Here, he’s pulling the intestines out through the slit in the belly.

The bowels should come out all together.  The inside of an animal is clean and once the blood has been removed (as in this case) gutting it is not such an unpleasant experience.

Now, he’s reaching up inside to pull out the heart, lungs and other upper internal organs.

And they come out all together, quite easily.

All the organs go into a pan for cleaning.  Nothing is wasted.

Now and incision is made in the front of the pig, to facilitate the next operation.

In the meantime, a crew has started working on the organs and entrails and is cleaning them.

Filipino style pig roasts turn a pig on a spit (but without the cross members), over a fire.  The pig is attached to a bamboo pole running through it’s core.

Now we see the men fitting the pole through the pig’s body.

Eventually the pole exits the pig’s mouth.

Once the pole is through the pig, it gets another washing.

Now back to the clean leaves on the platform.

When you roast a pig on a spit, it moves.  So you have to secure it to the pole.  Here we see the barbecue master nailing the pig to the bamboo pole.

After nails are put in the front, middle and rear, a nail is hammered into the pole for an anchor point so the feet can be wired in place.

More guests arrive.  It was hot that day!

More wire treatment on the front of the pig.

Once the pig has been secured to the pole, it can be stuffed.  Sonny made a stuffing using a local cactus plant and spices.  This stuffing was fantastic!

After stuffing, the pig was wired closed.

Now it’s time to get roasting!

The men haul the pig over to the pit and set it down on the “Y” shaped stakes that were prepared earlier.

The height of the stakes had to be adjusted to get them just right.

Sonny himself checks out the arrangement with a few turns of the spit.

In this photo you can see the cross member installed at the end of the spit, used for turning the pig.  People took turns handling the spit over the 4 hour period the pig was roasting.

Very tiring, the spit must be continually turned over and over, thousands of times in order to evenly roast the pig.

Now the fun begins.  One man brushes on a sauce while another man turns the spit.

This operation went on for hours….

Other things were being cooked at the same time.

Looking good!

Several people took turns turning the spit.

Sonny whips something up here.

Most of the men were interested in the pig roasting operation.

Here we see the pig nearing the time to take it off the fire.

During the cooking operation, the height of the spit had to be adjusted as the fire burned down.

By now, smells of different things cooking filled the air.

I like the cooking stands made of rebar.  Very practical.

Once it was determined that the time had arrived to take the pig off the fire, these men set up a table.

More clean leaves….

Then the entire spit was placed on the leaves for carving.

Here is the finished product!

And this is what we had to drink for the afternoon!

Sonny undoes the wire stitches holding the belly closed.

Somehow, I missed Sonny having placed to large soda bottles in the body cavity with the stuffing!  When he pulled them out I was very surprised!  The bottles were a filler and kept the body cavity open, otherwise the skin would have shrunk during the cooking process.

Now the carving begins!  The barbecue master used 2 knives, often hitting one on the other to cut through sections.

As you can see, the deeper parts inside the pig were undercooked.  The outer layers were just right.  The inner layers were further cooked before being served.

The Filipinos use a type of sauce for this style of BBQ, and here you can see plates of meat with the sauce applied.

More sauce going on….

And what self-respecting Filipino would eat spit roasted pig without some hot sauce?

As you can see, we had quite a nice crowd gathered for the party.

Filipino people eat a lot of rice, so naturally rice was a part of this BBQ party.

This is a show of my plate.  Clockwise from the top left, we see boiled cabbage, fried chicken, and a hunk of that roasted pork with sauce on it.  You already know the pork was fantastic, but that chicken was also killer, and the cabbage as well.

Everyone formed a circle and it was nice being able to face everyone while we ate. (Photo by Salvador Rivera)

This area is know for corn, and I was served this wonderful puffed corn.  I loved it!

Even descended and we put more wood on the fire.

I enjoyed a relaxing evening talking with the men.  Of course, we were drinking.  It was a perfect night.

We hope you have enjoyed our Filipino style barbecue party!  We look forward to your comments.  You may use the icons below, or the Apture bar above for social media sharing.  Thank you for reading!

Mobile phone photos by MJ Klein

UPDATE: See the end of this article for photos of the car, cleaned up.

One of our cars was taken from in front of our house, in broad daylight, a week ago today.  We got a call yesterday from the police in Yong An that our car had been recovered.  Hui-chen and I went over to take a look at it, and the first thing we noticed was that one of the turn signal housings was hanging from the wire.

Our first impressions were bad.  Looking through the passenger-side front window, we saw a bunch of junk in the front seat.  Notice the rope on the floor, and also the weird colored tool bag on the seat.

The rear seat was even worse.  There was scrap metal covered in oil, plus a lot of broken material scattered everywhere.  At this point we didn’t dare touch the car as the forensic investigators were on their way to examine the car for clues.

Here we see the investigation team starting their work.  These guys were great, coming out on a Sunday, and taking this case very seriously.  They were quite thorough.

The trunk was a disaster.  The thief had stolen wire, and then made a fire to burn off the insulation.  He later put this burned-off wire in the trunk, and it was trashed.

The thief had also removed the taillights on one side, throwing away the cover (naturally).

This investigator is looking for fingerprints.

The other investigator looked at every piece of junk in the car that was put there by the thief, including the black electrical tape used to bundle these stolen metal strips.

Next, the investigators dusted for fingerprints.

After digitally photographing a few candidates, they were finished.  Unfortunately the thief wore gloves and didn’t leave many clues behind; he even took his cigarette butts with him (yes, he smoked in our car).  Every single thing that we had in the car was gone, including my Bluetooth headset for my phone, my double lighter plug, change for parking, and of course, my dashcam.

The towtruck arrived and prepared to take the car back to our hometown.

This is a closeup of the 2 candidate prints.

The right front tire was flat.  The thief had apparently hit some stone object (according to eye witnesses who were chasing him for stealing at their construction site) and the tire went flat.  He then abandoned the car and fled on foot.

Today, our mechanic took the car and is now going over everything to give us an estimate of what it will take to reverse the damage the thief did to it.  Right off the bat we noticed that the steering wheel is not straight when the wheels are, so it needs a front-end alignment at least.  The mechanic is going to check to see if the impact did any permanent damage to the unibody frame.

One thing we know has to be fixed is the ignition keylock.  The thief broke this in order to get the car started.  A kill switch would have prevented this theft.  We are going to have a kill switch installed on our other car, and this one, if we decide to keep it.

One last shot to finish out this article.  The police think they will catch this guy and when they do, we can sue him personally for the amount of money he cost us.

UPDATE:

Compare this shot with the one above, now that the car is all cleaned up.

We had the mechanic install a kill switch to prevent this car from being stolen again.  Of course if someone wants it bad enough they’ll just pull up with a truck and haul it off; but the kill switch makes it harder to steal.

The back seat is now nice and clean, and the oil came off, thankfully.

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Photos by MJ Klein & Hui-chen, including FOOD PHOTOS!

Recently Hui-chen and I were invited by a television production company to participate in a new show they were shooting in Taiwan.  The show stars Bob Blumer and will air in Taiwan on a yet-to-be-determined network.  It’s called “World’s Weirdest Restaurants” and it sounds like a fun show!  The show has been confirmed for the Food Network Canada.  Be sure to look for it!

Hui-chen with host Bob Blumer

The shoot took place at the famous Five Dime restaurant in Taipei.  HC and I had gone there before with our camera to take some photos for the blog, so we’ll show you what it looks like and then tell you about meeting Bob and doing the TV show.  It was a blast!

This overview shot of the outside of Five Dime tells the story.  Diners are in for a new experience here.  This article is geotagged with the location of the Five Dime so you can find it on our Geotagged Articles Map.  By the way, if you call them to make a reservation, you must speak Chinese.  The staff doesn’t speak English on the phone. Their phone number is: 02 8501 1472

Detail of the upper portion of the building (with the Chinese name of the restaurant: 伍角船板).

The first time Hui-chen and I went there, we had no idea what to expect.

The entrance is in the front on the right side.

One has to go up a ramp….

…. and through a short tunnel.

This is the entrance to the restaurant.

Once inside, it’s a bit dark, but after your eyes get accustomed to the ambient light you will find yourself in an amazing space.  Five Dime has 3 floors, with a very interesting staircase.

We were seated at one of their large tables.  Five Dime is a great place for group dining.  The menu features a fusion cuisine (more on that later) that has elements from other Asian influences.

Although somewhat difficult to photograph due to the low light, you should bring your camera anyway, as the place certainly is interesting.  The decor is somewhat of an input overload!

This dish is a soft shell crab roll.  This dish reminded me of Vietnamese fresh spring rolls (as opposed to the deep fried kind).  The flavor wasn’t specifically Vietnamese however.  I would call this a fusion dish because this type of roll wouldn’t ordinarily use deep fried soft shell crab.

I ordered a banana shake, and I never expected it to arrive in a chilled stone mug!  The small bowl on the right contains a locally made Taiwanese dessert using sticky rice powder.  The English name is “mochi” (麻糬).

The view behind our table

One of my all-time favorite dishes in Asia, sweet potato greens (炒地瓜葉).  I’ve had this dish many times in Taiwan and this was one of the nicest versions I’d experienced.  The burnt garlic added a sweet flavor.

Hui-chen’s drink, kiwi juice, with the local dessert in the small bowl (麻糬).

The Five Dime menu lists dishes in Chinese, with English underneath.  I found a few of the dishes said they were Thai style in Chinese (泰式) but not mentioned in English.  It seems that Thai is a big influence in Five Dime and Hui-chen and I have a great deal of experience in Thailand and with Thai food.  This is sliced Thai style chicken (泰式椒麻雞).  The dish was great, but it wasn’t totally Thai style.  We’ve had grilled sliced chicken in Thailand, but not deep fried as is this dish.  The treatment of the chicken was more like a Japanese pork tonkatsu don.  So again we see the fusion theme in this dish.

Korean style pickled vegetable with “New Year cake” (韓式泡菜炒年糕).  This dish was hard to place, as it was totally unlike anything I’ve had before.  Even the picked vegetables were unique.  It was good!

After dinner Hui-chen and I walked around to take some photographs for the blog.

This is the main section of the restaurant, right next to the staircase.

I went up to the top of the staircase and took this photo looking down.  It’s much more impressive in person.

The detail is mind-boggling.  There isn’t any comment I can make that adequately describes the decor.

One final shot of the lobby.

Outside at night, the Five Dime takes on an entirely different look with the yellow sodium vapor lamps illuminating it.

The TV Show Shoot

The big question that everyone wants to know is: “What’s it like to meet Bob Blumer?”  The answer is just what one would expect from watching Bob on TV.  Bob is very polite and personable, and super-professional.  Bob was busy of course, so we didn’t have time to chit-chat.  Hui-chen and I sat at our table and watched him work.

Here we see the crew scoping things out.  That’s Bob in the red shirt, with producer Vera in the blue shirt.

If you’ve ever wondered how they get those overhead shots, now you know.

This is the cameraman (unfortunately I did not get his name).  He explained what was going to happen and how he would be shooting the scene.  Bob would be sitting in the seat on the left, next to where I was sitting (I took this shot).  Hui-chen was a bit nervous because she’s never been on television before, and she told me she would rather not do any speaking, which is understandable.  Frequent readers of this blog know that television isn’t my usual performance gig, but I’ve been interviewed for news stories before, and I wasn’t apprehensive about being on camera.

After the cameraman explained what was going to happen, Bob sat down next to me and we went to work.  I did not take any photos during this time because we were too busy.  Bob was very easy to work with, and quite patient with me.  We talked about the restaurant, the decor, the ambiance, and also the food.  Later on I’ll show you some food photos and tell you what we talked about.  It seemed like we were shooting for about 15 minutes.  It will be interesting to see the edited final version.

After we were finished, Hui-chen and I continued eating and watching the crew work.

Now, for the dishes.  This is sliced roast pork (香烤豬里肌肉) and as I told Bob, it tasted like dishes we’ve had in Hong Kong.  We liked this dish very much.

This is water lotus (清炒水蓮).  Normally in local restaurants, it’s cut a bit shorter and it normally does not contain mushrooms or carrots.  So they added their own flair to the dish.  A good dish.

Chopped garlic greens (蒼蠅頭), also known as “Fly Heads” because of the fermented soy beans that look like fly heads.  Notice the concentration of hot red peppers.  This felt like a Thai dish to me.  It was very good but almost too spicy.

This dish looks like some kind of fried tofu, but it is mushrooms (幸鮑菇燴鹹蛋), made with a salty egg yoke on the outside.  A very Taiwanese treatment, this dish was quite good.

Before we left, we got a few more daylight shots of the exterior of Five Dime:

This is the view just outside the main entrance door.

Another shot of the tunnel.

Thanks for reading!  We hope you enjoyed this article about our experience with Bob Blumer’s new TV show.  We’d like to thank Bob, Vera, Leanne, Stephanie and the crew for making it possible for us to be on the show!

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Photos by MJ Klein

In this article, we’ll travel from Tuguegarao City to the village of Santo Nino.  My guide, Sonny is from that village and I wanted to visit his family and friends there.  Please note that many of these photos were taken from a moving Jeepney without looking through the viewfinder, due to circumstances.

This is our Jeepney driver, who spoke excellent English and was very polite, calling me “sir” throughout the entire trip, lol.

We made our way out of the city and headed to the village.

We stopped at this grain warehouse to pick up some bags for the village.  I snapped this guy spreading out some kind of grain for it to dry in the sun.  We’ll see more of this later, so follow along with me while I figure out what this stuff is.

This is the local chicken store.

They bind the feet of the chickens and you simply grab them and throw them up onto the Jeepney.  It doesn’t get any fresher than still alive.

Some of the road sections are in bad shape because of the big truck traffic.

I saw these bags alongside the road.  At this time I didn’t know what they were for.

Notice that the road has this golden hue to it.

It was only after we got really close that I realized this was corn placed on the road surface to dry!

Then I saw these farmers sweeping up the dried corn and bagging it up, leaving the bags at the roadside to be picked up later.

No one drives on the corn.  Most of the local people are farmers themselves and they respect the crop of the other farmers, too.

This might seem like an unsanitary method of drying corn, but honestly, what else can the farmer use?  The road is the only flat surface that’s relatively free of debris and has the vast area required to dry a large crop.

No corn can be dried on this gravel part of the road, however.

Soon we approached a body of water.

It turned out to be a large river.

What is this thing out on the water?  Believe it or not, it’s a locally fabricated ferry boat made from 3 boat hulls!

This ferry was carrying a fully-loaded Jeepney and it’s passengers across the river!

I walked around to the other side to get a better look at the loading procedure.  The shack-like structure is for passengers to get out of the hot sun while they cross the river.

The Jeepney is going to board the ferry.  I’m glad that I took the driver’s suggestion and got out of the Jeepney for this procedure!

I walked aboard following Sonny, in the black shirt and ball cap.  Notice the wide gaps in the deck planking!

This is the car engine that drives the beast.

This small gasoline powered pump keeps the bilge water at a manageable level.

This is the “captain” steering the boat with a home-brew tiller arrangement.

Yikes!

I shot a short video of the ferry ride with my Samsung Galaxy S phone:

Even in this remote area, there is cellular telephone service.

Sonny told me that the river’s peak depth is about 25 meters!  Considerable in volume, this river often floods its banks inland to a distance of more than 1 KM and that it washed out the bridge (which is why there is a ferry).  The government isn’t going to rebuild the bridge because the river will wash it out again.

This is our destination dock up ahead.

Notice the cut log sections.  These are used to manage the height of the planks to match the ferry as it docks.

This guy man-handled the ferry into position with a rope and his back.

As soon as the ferry was tied up, we disembarked.

The people came across first and then the Jeepney.

I asked one of the men if there had ever been any accidents, and he told me that recently (a “few months ago”) a Jeepney had fallen off the ferry.  He didn’t go into detail, but it sounded bad.  I didn’t ask any more questions.

Once back on dry land we headed to the village.

This area has some of the finest corn I’ve ever seen, or eaten!

Soon, we turned down the main road of the village.

I got off the Jeepney and went around the back to say goodbye to my fellow passengers.

This is our destination – Sonny’s store.  His home is behind the store.  In Part 2, we’ll show you the BBQ party we had for the village, with a roasted pig, Filipino style!

Thanks for reading!  You may use the icons below for social media sharing.

Mobile phone photos by MJ Klein

Recently the almost year-long project on the corner near my house was completed.  Now they’re really tearing up the road again and I have no idea what it’s all about this time.

I did see a guy with a metal detector, but I’m unsure about what he was looking for (or even if he found what he was looking for).  In this photo you can see they’re tearing the pavement up.

You don’t see this machine every day.

The part in the center/bottom of the machine grinds up the pavement and then a conveyor brings it forward to where a truck would be driving along in front, to receive the debris.

The path of destruction is considerably long.

Anyone have any idea what they’re doing?

Photos by Hui-chen and MJ Klein, including FOOD PHOTOS!

A few weeks ago, Titty Tea hosted a cookout for their regular customers.  We’re going to show you what we cooked.

Now you know that anything that begins with charcoal and a torch is going to be good!

Notice the round aluminum grill.  I’ve been wanting to get one of these to use with the Dutch oven, and finally I did.  This one fits my 12″ Dutch oven like it was made for it.  Using this grill meant that I didn’t have to build the fire on the ground and I didn’t lose much heat.

Most good meals begin with garlic….

To which I added the meat – in this case Australian shin muscle.

Next to me, Marcus had a grill set up and was doing various kinds of meat, these bratwurst being some of what he was grilling.

Once the meat was browned nicely, it was time to add more ingredients to the pot.

Sliced white onions went in next.

Followed by potatoes and carrots.

Regular readers of this blog know that I like to cook with oyster sauce.  It adds a great flavor element and also negates the need to add additional salt to the dish.

Our friend Marcus brought some rosemary that he had grown in his herb garden, and it made a very nice contribution to our pot.

This is the scene beside where Hui-chen and I were set up.  The closest 2 grills are for cooking vegetarian food items.

Once the 12″ Dutch oven was going, I started another dish in the 8″.  Here we see bacon and sliced onions being sauteed.

A quick check on the contents of the 12″ and we’re back to the 8″.

In a local baking goods store, I found several varieties of beans, which I added to the bacon and onions.

This slightly-out-of-focus shot shows the 2 kinds of beans in the pot, stacked on the 12″.

This is the second type of bean I used.

And this is the brown sugar that went into the dish also.

In the meantime, Hui-chen had our other grill going, with these ribs (and something else in foil that was cooking for someone else).

That’s Bootsy BBQ Sauce that Hui-chen is brushing on the ribs.  They were very popular with everyone.

Now it’s time for grilled corn!

This type of grilled corn is virtually unknown to local people in Taiwan.  But once our Taiwanese friends tried it, they agreed that it is much better than the dried-out-to-death grilled corn that is served in night markets all around Taiwan.

Marcus surprised everyone with some of his home-baked sourdough bread.

Here is a closeup.  I can’t tell you how good this bread was, but it was some of, if not the best bread I’ve ever eaten.  Honestly!

We settled into evening as I got the last dish ready – a Dutch oven cake that I baked in the 10″.

Now, Marcus really outdid himself on this one – a tiramisu that was outstanding!

Hard to see, but this is a close up of the inside of the tiramisu.  I have no idea how he did it, but Marcus managed to balance the flavor elements perfectly, creating the best tiramisu that I have ever tasted!  Marcus is some kind of culinary genius!

Most of the Dutch oven fare was gone….

Here we see the 10″ with the cake baking.  It came out OK.  The fire was a tad too hot I think but overall it was pretty good.

Everyone was having a good time, with English, Chinese, Japanese and Taiwanese being spoken throughout the day.

Our last photo of this article is Bella posing with Hui-chen.  A fitting end to the story of a great day.

Thanks for reading.  Please leave us your comments and recommendations below.  You may use the icons for social media sharing!

Photos by MJ Klein, except where noted

Dear readers, we sincerely apologize for the long interval without a new article.  With the recent passing of my father I wanted to leave his obituary at the top of the blog for some time; I’m sure you understand.  But now we must move forward with our next installment of my trip to the Philippines, and my visit to Tuguegarao City.  I was fortunate to be able to visit this city 2 times.  Once when passing though on my way to the Cayagan Valley, and then on my way back, so this article will be a composite of both visits.  I liked the city very much and I already want to go back there.  Here is what it’s like to visit Tuguegarao City:

This hastily framed photograph is of the terminal building at Tuguegarao Airport.  This is one of the smallest airports I’ve been to, but perhaps not the smallest.

This was our plane.  Notice the figures surrounding it.

There were Philippine military guards placed around the plane because apparently our passenger plane was also carrying a lot of Philippine currency that was being transferred.

Here is the armored truck that was being loaded.  The boxes are currency.  If you click on this or any other photo you will be taken to the Flickr.com page where you may view the large size and see more detail.

Apparently Filipino people are so used to security guards that having soldiers around, carrying fully automatic weapons didn’t bother anyone.

More currency coming down the conveyor.

Now you see bags coming down the conveyor.  These are bags of coins being transferred.

Finally, after about 45 minutes (where nothing was explained, at least in English) I see my bag coming down the conveyor (the blue one).

Now it’s time to leave!  But how will we be getting to our destination?

By the standard mode of transportation in the Philippines – Jeepney!

This is Sonny (my guide in the Philippines) and his wife making their way to the Jeepney that will take us to their village (another article).

Each Jeepney runs on a fixed route (but not necessarily on a fixed time).  Written on the side and front of each Jeepney is the route it will take.

Horse drawn carriage is a common way to get around Tuguegarao City.

Seen in our last article, these tricycles are sitting idle, awaiting passengers.  

Unlike some places we’ve been before, water buffalo in the Philippines are tame and friendly.

We’re heading into the main city (on our way back from the village).

We visited a newly-built mall area.  Gotta love the green color!

Sonny took me on a walking tour around to check the place out and do some shopping.

This is a fairly typical Southeast Asian street scene.  Tuguegarao City reminded me of places in Thailand and Laos, but the signs were in English!

Photo by Salvador Rivera

The people that I met on the street were exceedingly nice.  These girls came over to Sonny and asked if they could have a photo with me.  Sonny said “sure” and he took this photo.

The number of tricycles is amazing.

I had to photograph this mass of wiring.  This must be a real nightmare for service people to deal with!  Don’t worry though, that bundle is all telephone and cable TV lines, nothing hot.

We went to this store to buy something for my wife.

Back on the street, we continued walking around, checking out the place until it was time for my flight back to Manila.

I didn’t try the horse-drawn carriage, but perhaps next time.

Some overhead shots taken from the second floor of that green mall building.  

Overall, I had a great time in Tuguegarao City, and I want to go back there.  The people there are fantastic, so warm and friendly.  The shopping is a lot cheaper there than in Manila and if you want to buy a watch or have one repaired, or buy some good shoes, I can recommend going to the City. Thanks for reading!  You may leave us your comments below, and please use the icons below for social media sharing.

I’m not sure how to put this, but my father James E. Klein (seen on the left in the above photo) passed away on July 3rd, 2011.  Many of our readers will remember the good times we had with him on our most recent trips to the USA.

“Jim” was born January 30, 1923 in Canandaigua, New York, the 4th child of Fred and Mildred Simons Klein.  His father was manager of I.J. Newberry’s stores so the family lived in many places in New York State and eventually settled in Buffalo.  He was a Veteran of World War II and served as Second Lieutenant in the Pacific Air Zone in the 373^rd Bomb Squadron, 308^th Bombardment Group.  Stationed in China, Jim served as navigator/bombardier aboard a B-24 Liberator named “Little Egypt” until the cessation of hostilities.  He was awarded the following honors:

1. Presidential Unit Emblem
2. Honorable Service Lapel Button
   
3. World War II Victory Medal
4. American Campaign Medal
5. Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, with 4 Bronze Stars (each star represents an addition qualification for the award).
6. Good Conduct Medal

After the War, he trained to become an electronic engineer with RCA. He owned and operated Television Laboratory Sales & Service in Buffalo, NY for many years, before moving to Florida in 1959 where he became the first certified color television serviceman in the entire state. He joined the staff at Honeywell in 1963 and was employed by them until his retirement in 1988.  Jim moved to North Carolina in 1973 to join the Greensboro office of Honeywell, and later became a private contractor for Honeywell and other companies when he started his own company, Jimboco, Inc. after his retirement from Honeywell.

He is survived by his wife Wanda of Walkertown, brother Frank, and niece Diane Palmero of Cheektowaga New York.

He is preceded in death by his parents, Fred and Mildred Simons Klein, brothers Clifford and Thomas, sister Mildred and two infant children Ellen Ann, and James Allen.

He was the proud father of son Michael and wife Hui-Chen of Taiwan, daughter Janet Hunnicutt and husband Michael of Stokesdale, NC; daughter Nancy Landi and husband Tom and grandson Josh of Fort Collins, Colorado; and son John Thomas Klein of Greensboro, NC. He is survived by grandchildren Adam and wife Christin Hunnicutt and great granddaughter Madison, and grandsons Casey and Elliot Hunicutt all of Stokesdale NC.

He was a devout man, a loving father to his children, and took great joy in his grandsons, music, fishing, golf, and swimming anywhere and anytime. He was know for a sharp sense of humor and his ability to repair nearly anything.

He will be greatly missed….

Photos by MJ Klein

Driving around recently, we noticed that some names on highway and road signs have changed:

Take a close look and you’ll see the entire name on the left has an overlay, and “Zhu” on the right is overlaid on the sign.

But not just in that one spot – it seems that every sign we saw within a certain radius has been changed too.

“Zhudong” got a makeover too.

But on certain highways, the changes haven’t caught up yet.  In case you’re wondering, “Cyonglin” is the former spelling of the new “Qionglin” seen at the beginning of this article.

Several words on these signs will eventually be changed.  The reason they are changing is because the government of Taiwan has adopted the standard Hanyu Pinyin for all place names in the country (back in 2002).  Now I’m all for standards, but personally I dislike Hanyu Pinyin because it’s hard to tell the actual pronunciation from the looks of the spelling – it’s not instinctive.  Hanyu Pinyin uses the English letter “Q” without the following (and necessary) “u” which violates the rules of English.  Another hair-brainer is the use of “X” for the “sh” sound.  So, instead of using the easy-reading “shiao” (for 小) they use “xiao” which also makes no sense in English.  One may as well learn BoPoMoFo.  I did 3 semesters of Chinese at NCTU in Hsinchu and I’m still not sure how to pronounce certain Hanyu Pinyin spellings.

I do understand the need to adopt a standard, and I also understand the reason behind choosing Hanyu Pinyin.  I just think it gives a “PRC” feel to the island’s names.

Now this just looks weird.  Take a look at the Chinese words in these 2 green signs.  You don’t have to read Chinese to be able to see that the second word in “Hsinchu” is the same as the first word in “Zhubei”  (竹 which means “bamboo”).  Eventually “Hsinchu” will become “Hsinzhu” if the standard is to be held.  Also, the second word “bei” in “Zhubei” (北 “north”) is the exact same word used in “Taipei” (台北) which means that someday Taipei will become “Taibei!”

This is the worst example of Pinyin I have ever seen!  I have no idea what system this is, and it almost looks like Cantonese.

This sign was shot across the street from the previous one and shows the correct Hanyu Pinyin rendering of 中山.

Have you noticed any signs changing recently?  What are your thoughts and reactions to them?  Please leave us your comments below.  You may use the Apture bar above or the icons below for social media sharing.  Thanks for reading!

Photos by MJ Klein & Hui-chen

Last Monday was a holiday in Taiwan, and our friend Xiao-hui (also spelled “Shao hui” in some blog articles) invited us to join her party at Neiwan, a touristy town in the mountain region.

We made our way down under this bridge to a flat area beside the river.

I could hear karaoke music coming from the place beside the far end of the bridge.  Sometimes, there is just no escaping it….

Making my way down to the riverside, this is where all the people are gathered, doing their thing….

These days, Xiao-hui’s staff is Vietnamese, since nearly all the Thai people have gone back home.  These guys (who are with us) were scouting out a good place to camp out.

You can see how crowded it is in this place.  So naturally we were looking for a clearing.

The black hose in this photo comes from the far end of the bridge and brings water to this side.

Beside the automobile bridge is a pedestrian suspension bridge.

We decided to go down a trail to find a place with less people.

Part of the trail involved walking under this trellis.  At my height it wasn’t pleasant.

Then, the trail required us to walk over these boulders.  Not pleasant either.

Finally we reached the river, a few hundred meters upstream from where we began.

That’s Hui-chen with the hat, scoping out the river.

The young Vietnamese guys suggested that we cross the river at this point and end up on the other, less populated, side of the river.  I took a few steps on the very slippery rocks and decided that with a Samsung Galaxy S mobile phone in my pocket, a camera bag on my shoulder, and a wife on my arm, it couldn’t safely be done.  The Vietnam contingent and Xiao-hui pressed on, while Hui-chen and I turned around and went back on the trail.

The plan was for us to cross the pedestrian bridge and somehow catch up with everyone on the other side of the river.

I want you to notice one thing….

The amount of trash that people just left at the bridge (like it’s going to clean itself up) was appalling.  Note to local people:  Do NOT do this unless your Mother is around to clean up after you!

Anyway, here we are on the other side of the river, on the suspension bridge, looking for a way to get down to the water.  There wasn’t one.  So, eventually everyone decided to go back to the place we originally went to.  We wasted about 45 minutes on that exercise.

Here we see some of our group trying to cross the river again, to get back to the original place we started.

Everyone was soaked (except Hui-chen and I) as they made their way back.  The blue cooler is ours.

Finally, the young guys got down to the business of making a fire, which they were very good at.

After the fire got going, they placed a couple of those famous Taiwanese scrap metal grills on top of the rocks.

And, before burning off the plating (which I believe is cad-chromate and therefore, poisonous) they started grilling.

In this shot you can see how shiny the plating is on the grill.  These are made from welded scrap pieces left over from stamping processes.  It’s an ingenious use of scrap material but i wish it wasn’t plated with that stuff.

This is the meat that Xiao-hui brought.  She seasoned it with Thai spices and it’s been marinating for quite some time.  We’ve featured this marinade before.

Xiao-hui had a few pieces of pork, a mountain of beef, followed by goat. I ate mostly beef and it was out-of-this-world!

The sun was out and it was hot!  Being under the bridge only helped until the sun moved enough that the shadow was no longer covering us.  My arms got a bit red.

The Vietnamese contingient was drinking Heineken, absolutely the Worst Beer Ever!  They were also smoking a lot.

Xiao-hui’s son played in the river, under the watchful eye of one of the young men.

In the late afternoon people were sitting with their feet in the water, trying to cool off.

When it was time to go, we packed our gear and headed up the stairs to the street level.

But not before picking up all the trash.

I acquainted everyone with the American practice of “leaving the place better than we found it” by picking up other people’s trash too. Sometimes I wonder how Taiwanese can be so sophisticated and yet leave their trash all over the place like animals.  It’s baffling.

We hauled our trash out of the area.

We left our cooler and other stuff outside this 7-11.

It sat there for over an hour while we walked down the main street, checking out the shops.  No one even paid attention to it.

We’ve been to Neiwan before and we like this street a lot (but we never blogged on it before).

The late afternoon sun made for a nice time to take photographs.

We hope you get a chance to visit Neiwan yourself sometime.  We’re sure you’ll like it too!

Thanks for reading!  Please leave us your comments below.  You may use the Apture bar above or the icons below for social media sharing.

Photos by Hui-chen

Saturday night was the first in a series of Open Mic nights at Titty Tea in Jhubei.  I was one of the hosts for the event.  Let us take you through the highlights of the evening:

The event was held upstairs in this beautiful room.

Mimi started the show off with a reading of Shakespeare.  Her English is really great and she did a very nice reading for us.

Next, our co-host of the evening, Van Stokes, played some country songs.  The audience loved them!  Hearing those kinds of songs in Taiwan is a rare treat!  Van will be playing more country songs next weekend!

Our good friend Michael Turton told some jokes in Chinese.  He had the audience roaring with laughter!

This is Allie, singing a local favorite.  She was quite good.

Van and I played a few songs together, in-between the other performers.

This is Joe, who decided to play a few tunes for us, without any preparation!  Later his brother joined him, singing a song while reading the lyrics off his iphone!  They said they will be back next week with some songs prepared.  We can’t wait!

Towards the end of the night, Shawn (the owner of Titty Tea) and Van did a cool ditty that everyone enjoyed.

Pauline came in at the end of the night and played several tunes of her own composition.  She sounded great, and she said she’ll be back again, so we’re looking forward to that!

Titty Tea is hosting Open Mic Night, every Saturday in the month of June.  You’re all invited to join us and you’re also invited to perform!

This article is geotagged with the location of Titty Tea, so take a look at our Map to find it.

It seems like it was yesterday when we were talking about the 5th anniversary of TheNHBushman.com, but now it’s been six years since we started!

Hui-chen and I would like to thank all of our loyal readers who have stuck by us and faithfully read our articles about our personal travels and experiences.  This website would be nothing worthwhile at all without your readership and especially your participation in the comments sections.  We’ve very much enjoyed sharing our travels with you and we hope to bring you much more in the future!

Thank you all!

Photos by MJ Klein

I thought I would talk about how I’m doing with my exercise routine, since I got the new machine a few weeks ago.

This is my home gym/music room.  Having the Yamaha PA system directly across from the exercise machine makes it nice when listening to music while working out.

This is a shot of the room from the opposite corner.  I was standing in the doorway for the previous shot.

I have a Total Gym 9000, and I use it in conjunction with the Johnson gym.  The Total Gym can’t bulk you up but if you use it for certain exercises, it can decrease fat and tone you up.

And this of course, is the Johnson home gym I recently got.  The preacher curl is the last exercise I do, so the preacher curl pad is on the machine between workouts.

Now, for the workout routine that I am doing:  I used to spend hours in the gym several times a week, in my youth.  I know that many people work out for under and hour and they break up their workouts into body segments, such as chest and back on Monday, abs on Wednesday, arms on Friday, etc.  But I’m used to doing a full workout starting with the large muscles first, and working down to the smaller muscles, and all in one routine.  The total time it takes for the entire routine is about an hour and a half.  So that’s what I’m doing, 3 times a week.  Here is the routine as defined on Jefit:

ANY	Full		Add/Edit | Delete
Body Part	Exercise Name	Rest Time	Reps	Sets	Track
Abs	Cable Crunch	60 Sec.	8	3
Abs	Cable Seated Crunch	60 Sec.	8	3
Chest	Bench Press Machine	60 Sec.	8	3
Chest	Machine Fly	60 Sec.	8	3
Chest	Cross Over With Bands	60 Sec.	8	3
Shoulders	Cable Shrug	60 Sec.	8	3
Back	Cable Incline Pushdown	60 Sec.	8	3
Back	Cable Seated Row	60 Sec.	8	3
Back	Close-Grip Front Lat Pulldown	60 Sec.	8	3
Back	Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown	60 Sec.	8	3
Back	Wide-Grip Pulldown Behind The Neck	60 Sec.	8	3
Triceps	Cable Lying Triceps Extension	60 Sec.	8	3
Triceps	Cable Triceps Pushdown	60 Sec.	8	3
Triceps	Tricep Pulldown Over Bench	60 Sec.	8	3
Biceps	Cable Lying Bicep Cable Curl	60 Sec.	8	3
Biceps	Preacher Curl	60 Sec.	8	3

I do 5 exercises on the Total Gym and the rest on the Johnson machine.

Jefit is an excellent Android application for defining and tracking your workout progress.  I have a Samsung Galaxy S and it performs flawlessly on that platform.  I recommend Jefit for anyone trying to get back into shape.  It certainly helps me to stay motivated.  The app is fun to use, and very easy.  Check it out!

Thanks for reading.  Please leave us your comments below, and your retweets using either the Apture bar above or the icons below.

Photos by MJ Klein

Recently, I was in the Philippines on business.  I spent a few days in Manila and then I went up north to the Cagayan Valley.  First I’ll show you what it was like in Manila.

Greg (on the left) was our driver, and Sonny was my guide in the Philippines.  Greg is a former Manila taxi driver and he knows the city like his own backyard.

Everyone I met in the Philippines was exceedingly polite.  In general, the people that I came into contact with were perhaps the nicest people I’ve encountered in all my travels.  This photo is one example of a “Jeepney” vehicle, the main form of public transportation in the Philippines.

We went out to eat and pulled into this area, known for seafood.  Notice the touts running around trying to get our attention.

Very persistent, the touts compete directly against each other for customers.  They are paid by the various places, and I assume it’s on a commission basis but I’m not really sure.  I just know that they are rather annoying when you’re trying to negotiate the street without hitting them.

Like many countries around the world, the Philippines has it’s share of political turmoil.  As a result, there are armed security guards in most places.  Even though at first it seems strange in the presence of people carrying guns (and sometimes automatic weapons) I felt entirely safe while I was visiting.

Everywhere I went, the security personnel were very professional, polite and approachable, unlike security forces I’ve seen in other countries.  The guards held doors open for me on many occasions and always had a nice warm greeting for me, never failing to call me “sir.”  That’s a tactical shotgun this guard is sporting.

As we neared our destination, we saw touts along the way, beckoning us into their establishments.  It wasn’t unlike visiting a fish market in Taiwan, for example.

I’ll be showing you some choice examples of the food I enjoyed in the Philippines in separate articles at the end of this series.

One tout makes a final desperate attempt to get our attention!

We had to visit several companies in the metro Manila area.  So we bought a large map of the area and laid it out on the restaurant table and located the places we wanted to visit so we could set up a logical route.  The greater urban area of Manila is the 5th largest in the world with an estimated population of 20.6 million people!  It was a good thing we had Greg driving as I would never have been able to manage getting around so efficiently without him.

Here we see Sonny, Greg and one of the girls from the restaurant trying to locate a place on the map.

Driving around, we saw lots of Jeepneys.

Just like Thailand, there are lots of street vendors who walk in between the lanes of cars stopped at traffic lights.

At night time, Manila has some great places to eat and hang out.

This is another very common form of local transportation in the Philippines – called the tricycle.  It’s a motorcycle sidecar.  Yes I did ride in one, and no, I did not fit.  I couldn’t raise my head enough to look out the window!

In some places the number of tricycles is considerable.  We’ll see more of them in the next installment.

Some tricycle owners have a sense of humor.

This is our hotel, the Aloha.

Since firearm carry is legal in the Philippines, many places aks you to check your firearms with security upon entering.  Our hotel was no exception.

This is the vehicle we used.  It was very comfortable inside, with sliding doors on both sides.

Our driver, Greg, poses for a shot.

Thanks for reading.  We look forward to your comments.  Please feel free to use the Apture bar above, or the ShareThis service below for social media sharing.

Photos by MJ Klein

Today I snapped a few photos of the more recent work that’s been done near our home:

All that’s left of the work that was being done at night, is this “L” shaped hole, now all patched.

Behind where that hole is,

we see a big pile of dirt and some plastic pipes that have yet to be installed somewhere.  The dirt pile is where a big hole was last week, which presumably connected underground with the big hole directly across the street (detail shot below).  I have no idea where those pipes are going.

The big main site hole is now covered.  Taking months to complete, and with many pilings having been pounded into the ground, I assume that there is now a large room below ground where people are working.  One thing that leads me to that conclusion is the air pump (with the orange duct) seen here, presumably pumping air down into the work space.

The information sign that accompanies every construction site in Taiwan, has been removed.  They were behind schedule according to the last time I looked at the sign.  Hui-chen heard a rumor that this construction project has the main goal of eliminating some of the power poles in the neighborhood.  That certainly would be good for us, as there are 2 poles adjacent to our carport.

If I find out anything more, I’ll let you know!

Photos by MJ Klein

One of the great things about living in Taiwan is all the great deals you can get on locally made items, like this Johnson Home Gym.

I have been looking for something like this for quite some time, and then stumbled across it at an exercise equipment store in Hsinchu.  The price included delivery and setup.

The factory sent out 3 men in a truck, and they spent about an hour and a half on setup.  I don’t know how they can do it for that price.

Here are some of the components on the floor prior to setup.

They gave us a few gifts and one of them was this cool floor mat for the gym to sit on.

The guys didn’t mess around and got right to work putting it all together.  That’s my Total Gym 9000 in the background.

Adding the weights to the stack.

The pad in the very front is for supporting your arms when doing “preacher curls.”  Very useful for focusing on that exercise, most of the the time this pad will be removed from the machine.

The weight stack is shrouded with these nice black curtains.

And there you have it.  The complete machine, with the preacher curl pad removed so you can see more details.  The machine does bench press, flies, pulldowns from the top bar, pullups from the bottom bar in the front.  The front bar is used for the curls.  With those options the machine can do a full exercise routine up to 120 pounds on the weight stack.  This machine is just what I was looking for.  Now, get ready for the price.

Delivered, assembled and setup for use, including the floor mat and one other gift (an isometric dumbell) the final price was NT 14,000, or USD 488!  What a bargain!

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Mobile Phone photos by MJ Klein

Last night Hui-chen and I came home to find more road work outside of our home.  Here we see that the local DPW has dug a huge hole in the middle of the road.

They’re in the process of digging it out.

This went on all night long.  Today, the work continues.  We have no idea what they’re doing but it looks major.

FOOD Photos by MJ Klein

Dear Readers, it’s been awhile since we had a strictly food article, and week 14 of 2011 was an interesting one.  So let’s get right into it!

Hui-chen and I had dinner at the Rainbow Restaurant in Hukou.  That’s pork/garlic/basil on the right and fried egg Thai salad on the left.

Next up is this ribeye steak at Chubby in Jhuibei.

This is Hui-chen’s chicken salad at Chubby.  They deep-fry the chicken for this salad, which is a first for me!

This is a Toasted Almond (mixed drink) and brownie at Titty Tea, after Chubby.

This is pasta and bacon at Bravo in Jhubei.  Predictable, but quite good actually.  The pasta was not overcooked.

This is an order of sushi from 順億鮪魚專賣店 in Jhubei, one of the best places around for sushi.

This is a grilled tuna chin 鮪魚下巴.  If you haven’t tried one of these, you don’t know what you’re missing!  They are fantastic!

Grilling at Xiao-hui’s!

We had Bootsy BBQ sauce on hand that afternoon.

Our last group of photos is from a nice lunch we had at 餃餃者麵食館 in Hsinchu:

Dragon Mustache vegetable.

Boiled dumplings.  These were better than a lot of places I’ve tried.

Pineapple shrimp, Taiwanese style.

Seafood roll.

We hope you’ve enjoyed these fine dishes and we’ll be sure to bring you some new ones again soon.  Hui-chen and I are in the habit of photographing nearly every meal we eat, just for the blog!

Please leave us your comments below.  You may use the Apture bar above, or the ShareThis service below for social media sharing.  Thanks for reading!

Photos by MJ Klein

I have one of those popular HD video recording cameras in my car.  Whenever I’m driving I run the camera so it records the actions going on in front of my car.  Here are a couple of still shots from a few days ago:

This one I like to call “the truck salmon” as he is on the wrong side of the road, driving against the flow of traffic.  He’s trying to get back to the correct side of the road as quickly as possible.  I came very close to him, as well as several other cars.  Apparently it’s too much trouble to go with the proper flow of traffic up to the next intersection to turn around.

I’m not sure what to call this one.  Most people pull over to slow down and stop.  This woman decided to slow down nearly to a stop in the middle of the lane, and then pull over to the side.  Here you can see that the brake light is on, she’s nearly to the point where she has to put her foot down and there is nothing in front of her to make her have to stop like this in the middle of the road. Oh well, in Taiwan, driving rules are nothing more than a suggestion.

I’ll have some more dashcam photos for you in the future, I’m sure!

We are happy to announce that Google Inc. has signed a deal to purchase our blog for an undisclosed amount.  Google has hired Hui-chen and I as a writing team for the blog, so the content will be the same as always!  Google, who owns Blogger, has embarked on a new project, aimed at preserving the last remaining personal blogs in existence, and since Hui-chen and I blog on our own life travels and experiences, we are on their list of blogs to preserve.

“These days, the blogosphere is clogged with a myraid of copied and re-post content blogs.  Bushman’s blog is unique because it’s a window into the lives of 2 real people who are running their own business and traveling to exotic destinations and writing about it, but they don’t try to come off as experts on anything, and they’re not promoting an agenda” said Sonya Belanger, spokesperson for Google, and the person in charge of the personal blog preservation project.  ”Their blog has an intimate and personal feel to it.  That’s refreshing.”

We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with Google!

Part of the 2010 USA Trip Series

Photos by Hui-chen & MJ Klein, including FOOD PHOTOS

This, the last installment of our 2010 USA Trip series, is bittersweet because it deals with one of our favorite countries – Japan.  We wish our Japanese brothers and sisters all the best as they deal with restoring things to normal after the terrible natural disaster that afflicted Northeastern Japan.

Hui-chen enjoying a slice of pizza a few days before leaving for Taiwan.

All too soon, it was time for us to leave and head home to Taiwan.  We had a fantastic time in the USA, saw sights and people I haven’t seen for years, most of them new experiences for Hui-chen.  We packed our bags and boarded our flight to Narita, Japan.  But there were some unexpected events that occurred along the way home.

Ordinarily, one wouldn’t leave the secure area and be able to leave the airport like we did.  But since we had booked our own flights on this trip, our baggage wasn’t checked through to Taiwan because we had to switch airlines.  That required us to pass Japan Immigration and be admitted into Japan in order to visit the baggage claim, get our bags and check-in with the airlines for our final flight back to Taiwan.  Hui-chen and I stepped out of the airport lobby for a few minutes to snap this photo for the blog.

Since we had some time to kill before our flight, we decided to eat!  I’ve been to Japan before and Japanese food (I mean actually in Japan) is the best food in the world.  It’s hard to describe the quality of the dishes that are prepared in Japan, but people who have had this experience will agree!  This is a nice salad with pieces of sashimi.

The first round of sushi.

Maki rolls of salmon – one of my favorites!

I just kept ordering more and more – it was so good!

We finished our sushi dinner, walked around some and then finally it was time to board our plane for Taiwan.

Naturally we don’t have any photos of us boarding or sitting on the plane, but we didn’t go home that night. Our plane had developed landing gear issues and they made us sit on the plane while they tried to repair the problem.  During that time they served the airline dinner on the plane.  Now, frequent readers of this blog know that I do not eat airline food – no exceptions! So, naturally I was not very happy sitting there, watching everyone eat that garbage, while Japan itself was only a few hundred meters away.  What made matters worse is that as soon as “dinner” was over, it was announced that the problem couldn’t be fixed and that we would have to stay overnight in Japan!  I could have been out exploring the city instead of sitting there while people ate.  Yes, I realize that they needed to get rid of the food stored on the plane, and also meal time on airplanes is more of a distraction than a meal, but please – we were in a food destination country!

Everyone left the plane and went to Japan Immigration.  In one of the most interesting international procedures I’ve ever experienced, Hui-chen and I were sort of “un-stamped out” of Japan, and allowed to re-enter again.  Once outside the terminal with our luggage we boarded a bus to take us to a hotel.

It was a cold and rainy night in Narita.

On our way to the hotel.

The gates to the airport were locked, so a security guard had to open them for the bus.

This would be Hui-chen’s first actual time to visit Japan.  I wish it could have been under different circumstances.

By the time we got checked into our hotel, it was late.  The last thing I wanted to do was take photos, but I did take a couple for the blog anyway.  Our restroom was typical of those in Japan hotels: an appliance that is installed as a one-piece unit.  However the toilet was installed in a separate small room.

This photo is a tribute to Japanese engineering as it shows the clearance between the door and the toilet.

So, there we were, stuck in Japan, late at night, with no Japanese money. We couldn’t even buy a bottle of water!

The next morning it was bright and sunny.  This is the view out of our window.

Obviously we weren’t far from the airport.

After one of the nicest breakfast buffets I’ve ever seen, we boarded our bus to go back to the airport.

Japanese road signs are readable if you’re from Taiwan.

Japanese are security minded.  Each vehicle that enters the airport must pass through a security checkpoint.

We had been given a 1,000 yen voucher for something to eat.  That’s about 10 US dollars.  Not very much for 2 people.  Correction: Hui-chen reminded me that we each got one of these vouchers.

We went to a restaurant and sat down at the table.  This device will call the waiter over after you’ve read the menu.  I wish they had these in Taiwan!

A foreigner looking at the menu.

I think many Taiwanese people will recognize this image.

Hui-chen showing the menu items.

Yes, we were looking at desserts.  1,000 yen doesn’t buy much.

These are what we got: (L to R) Chocolate and Strawberry.

The Chocolate sundae actually had chocolate jelly!

After walking around and looking at stores for far too long, it was time to board our place.  Imagine our disappointment when our plane pulled away from the gate, only to go back and park again!  The landing gear problem was not fixed!  Fortunately the delay this time was on the order of 30 minutes.  Finally, we were on our way back home to Taiwan!

Thanks for reading!  We hope you have enjoyed this series of articles about our 2010 trip back to the USA.  We welcome your comments and recommendations below.  Please use the Apture bar above or the ShareThis service below for social media sharing.  We look forward to bringing you our next series!

Photos by MJ Klein – photos are geotagged

Hui-chen and I attended the recent Lantern Festival in Miaoli.  The festival is over now but we wanted to show you what we saw.

This is one of several parking lots for the event.  There were shuttle buses to take people to and from the event.  This year’s festival was a lot larger than I had imagined and news reports put the attendance at over 1 million people!

We waited about 15 minutes to board a bus to take us over to the event.

Once we arrived we were hit with an onslaught of very loud music.  It was so loud that we didn’t dare venture any closer to it.  This is the religious area, with religious-themed lantern displays.  Why they were blasting heavy metal music is beyond either of us.  We declined to visit this area.

We headed towards the lighted gate up ahead.

This gate looked cool in the approaching twilight.

The gate was also a lantern, as this closeup reveals.

We passed this sign and I snapped it.

This was the main drag.

Along this path were corporate displays.

I noticed something that I have never seen before at such an event, an emergency medical station.  A sign of a well-organized event.

More shots along the main drag.

I forget which display it was, but, there was one of those annoying, high-pitched women bantering about something in Chinese, until she saw me.  Then the rudimentary English started up as she welcomed me to Taiwan.  I really wish they wouldn’t do that.

This place was huge! It went on for days!

We ventured down one of the side streets looking for some food.

The food area was basically like any night market in Taiwan.

We walked up one side and down the other before making any decisions about what to get.  We ended up getting some very disappointing mountain pig cooked at one of the aboriginal restaurants.

Returning to the main drag, we approached this large structure.

This was very impressive looking in person.  It was a huge cube of red (and yellow) lanterns.

We took a right turn and went inside the area through the “Peace Gate.”

This really looked cool.

We then took a left and went into what turned out to be the main open area of the festival.

They say that Taiwan is the LED capitol of the world, and I believe it!

We weren’t prepared for how large the main area was.  The planners certainly did a great job with this year’s festival!

The centerpiece was a towering rabbit lantern, this being the year of the rabbit.

We walked along the outside edge and saw some very impressive LED displays.

The rabbit lantern had a few surprises coming up, namely changing colors from the inside.

We took a walk through the fantasy lantern area.

It might be difficult to make out in this photo, but this lantern is a hive of bees.  Very creative.

Suddenly, something started to happen in the center of the main area.  The rabbit lantern started turning around slowly and changing colors.  Notice the green lasers, which were in abundance this evening.

I’ll show you a few of the color combinations that appeared.  There are more shots in the Flickr photo album.

I thought it was cool that they depicted the rabbit wearing headphones.

Hui-chen and I really liked this creative carriage.

Later we saw this LED peacock.

As we walked around, things got more and more creative and interesting.

If you missed the lantern festival this year, perhaps you might want to make plans to visit it next year!

Thanks for reading.  Please leave us your comments and ratings below.  Please use the Apture bar above, or the ShareThis service below for social media sharing.

Photo by MJ Klein

My 12 bottle case of Bootsy BBQ Sauce has arrived in Taiwan, safe and sound!

Stay tuned for more BBQ stories coming soon!

Photos by MJ Klein, including FOOD PHOTOS!

Part of the 2010 USA Trip Series

This post is for people who love real smoked BBQ!

On our last day in the US on this trip, I wanted to use the wood smoker again.  It had been so long since I had cooked with one that I needed the practice to get back on my smoking game.  So I chopped up some wood and started another cooking fire in the fire box, using white oak, which is what I normally like to cook with.

Once the wood is burned down as in the previous photo, you can add the food, which is what I did next.

As you can see there are 2 types of ribs on the cooking rack.

These are Arkansas ribs.

These are baby-back ribs.  These types of ribs are not my favorite, but other people like them, so I decided to cook a couple of racks along with some Arkansas ribs.

Once the food is placed in the smoker, you have to close the cooking chamber lid and adjust the damper for the correct amount of air coming in.  On some smokers, there is a smoke stack damper.  This damper should never be used as it makes the food taste bitter.  The correct place to adjust the smoker is at the intake damper.

I have some more wood in case I need to use it.  When adding more wood to a smoker, you either have to burn it down with a second fire first, or you have to open the cooking chamber until the wood is burned down.  Only lump charcoal or burned-down wood can be used for cooking.

I’ve talked about this before but it bears mentioning again:  When properly adjusted, the smoke will have a light blue tinge to it.

A few hours later, this is the result of the effort – perfectly smoked ribs!

Because you can’t have too many smoked pork rib photos!

Closeup of the Arkansas ribs, my favorite!

Closeup of the baby back ribs.  These ribs were every bit as good as they look in these photos.  I was finally back on my game!

All the ribs together on a platter, ready for the table.

My sister cut up some green tomatoes, in preparation for frying them – a Southern tradition.

My favorite way to cook corn is to roast it over a fire.  The smoky flavor of the fire roasted corn matched the rib flavor perfectly.

This is my sister frying up the green tomatoes.

And this, our final shot, is the fried green tomatoes.  They went along with the rest of the meal deliciously.

We have one more installment to show you in this series – what happened to us on the way back home to Taiwan.  Thanks for reading!  Please leave us your comments below as well as your recommendations.  Use the Apture bar above, or the ShareThis service below for social media sharing.  We look forward to your comments!

Photos by MJ Klein

Part of the 2010 USA Trip Series

I know we’ve dragged this series out longer than any other we’ve done, but we’re coming to the end!  After this installment, we’re going to show you what we did on the last day, and then what happened to us on the way home, so there will be 2 more and then the series is closed.  I recently traveled to the Philippines and I want to start a new series on that trip, so without further delay, we bring you this installment:

People love ‘em or hate ‘em.  There’s no middle ground with Krispy Kreme.  Personally, I love them.  When I was a kid, our favorite place to go after church on Sunday was Krispy Kreme.  Hui-chen had never even seen one before so I made it a point to take her to one and sample their brand of doughnuts.

I like how they call it a “doughnut factory.”

Inside is a large glass wall and behind it is the doughnut making equipment (although it’s not easy to photograph through the glass).

While we were there, the equipment was not running, but there were people inside the factory doing other preparation work.

Out front, the display case tells the story of what’s on offer.  It was hard to make a selection with all those to choose from.

Krispy Kreme has a lot more on offer than they did when I was a kid!

The store is efficiently sectioned into different departments.

They have what they call “Kool Kreme” and also offer iced drinks.

We chose some doughnuts and sat down at a table in their impeccably clean dining room.

This is what we got (clockwise from the top left) regular doughnut, cream filled, lemon filled, and French cruller.  Now for the beauty shots of each one:

Now, for the tasting:

The first thing that you notice when you bite into them, is how fresh they are.  These particular examples were made on-premises and therefore spent no time on a truck in transit.

You can see how light they are.

I loved the cream filled one, but my tastes have changed since living in Taiwan for so many years.  I found it to be a little too sweet (we’ve previously discussed the differences in doughnut shops between the US and Taiwan, in this article).

Hui-chen liked them but also found them to be a bit too sweet.

Nevertheless, she was smiling!

One last overview shot of the store.

We enjoyed our visit to Krispy Kreme.  We hope they come to Taiwan soon!

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