tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953Sun, 06 Nov 2011 07:50:59 +0000piggreenpresidential racedownloadpeoplefireworksnewsbooksapplepoliticstaipeisingaporegardenfundogtaipei 101lifegpsPresident MaThis is about me traveling around Taiwan, and the world with my GPS-enabled Garmin 60csx.http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (MJ)Blogger92125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-8739995541867923748Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:53:00 +00002008-11-03T23:11:50.944+08:00taipeinewslifePresident MaChen Yunlin (陳雲林), the highest-ranking Chinese official to visit Taiwan since 1949, is staying here in Taipei for five days. It could open a new door towards peace between the two hostile nations, but at what cost?Already, the incumbent Ma's administration is pleasing China by silencing local dissidents. All national flags were hidden from public so as not to anger China and the Chinese http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/11/tell-me-what-you-think-and-win-mini.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)325tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-8168276674236013566Sun, 26 Oct 2008 05:11:00 +00002008-10-26T21:42:12.606+08:00peoplenewsfunlifePresident MaIt happened in Taipei yesterday. It was the "1025 March", a super big demonstration ever after Mr. Ma Ying-jeou was heroically elected a few months back as the President of Taiwan, aka Republic of China (ROC). I will post pictures here, and explain later. It's fun, hilarious as people carried all sorts of slogans to voice their concern to Mr. Ma, who is seen as "spineless" to China.http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/10/big-march-against-president-mas-china.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-1554723572260520467Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:41:00 +00002008-10-22T22:20:36.658+08:00peoplenewslifepoliticsSo it happened that a visiting Chinese official and scholar from China fell to the ground amid scuffles with local Taiwanese protesters.Quote from Telegraph:"Zhang Mingqing (張銘清), vice president of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, was surrounded by a group of activists as he visited a temple in the city of Tainan in the south of the island."I felt sorry for the Chinese http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/10/confucius-temple-where-chinese-official.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-1411161942020601448Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:03:00 +00002008-10-22T21:59:52.164+08:00taipeifunlifeToday is the national birthday of Taiwan. There was a huge celebration in front of the Red House, the President's office, as usual. I ran downtown early in the morning, and got close enough to see some of the teams doing the last-minute practice before the show was kicked off.The Guard and Drill team from The Taipei First Girls' High School (北一女) was one of the major focus. The all-girls school http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/10/happy-birthday-taiwan-and-girls-bands.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-2229357136449457912Mon, 01 Sep 2008 10:57:00 +00002008-09-03T11:23:32.971+08:00peoplelifePresident MapoliticsgreenA lot have been reported and blogged about the 830 Rally last Saturday, in which hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese people took to street to protest against newly-elect President Ma Ying-jeou's inability to revive the economy, and his kowtow mentality to China."Quisling?" That's a new word for me.The crowd turnout was amazing.It was so crowded that it was literally shoulder to shoulder when I http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/09/830-rally-and-green-pretty-blogging.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-394685313870200133Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:12:00 +00002008-06-27T18:53:15.626+08:00peoplelifegpsAs a resident of five years in Tamsui (Danshui), one thing I can say I love this small town of 30 minutes north of Taipei City is that it is full of exotic history.Take George Leslie Mackay, for example. He's the first foreign missionary who travelled all the way from Canada, entered the north Taiwan in 1880s, and settled down in Danshui. He married a local woman, and was buried here after his http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/06/from-george-mackay-to-todd-bentley.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-1435763909868108600Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:28:00 +00002008-06-13T19:14:10.280+08:00peoplenewslifePresident MapoliticsWell, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is officially a 'stay-at-home geek' (宅男) now. Or at least that's what locals are calling him now, after he refused to face the public and play it tough as he claimed he would.(Here in Taiwan, 'stay-at-home geek' (宅男, Zhai Nan) refers to someone who likes to stay behind a computer screen and rarely has social connection with the outside world.)A Taiwanese fishinghttp://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/06/president-ma-read-my-lipsforget-it.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-328527431426151143Tue, 06 May 2008 03:50:00 +00002008-05-06T17:23:27.426+08:00peoplenewsTwo videos found their way into the so-called P2P network. Newspapers picked it up and reported. And people on the island is asking why schools have failed to prevent violence, and teen sex right on their campus.Case 1It's a pretty violent fight. With a dozen boys standing by, shooting videos with their cellphones, two girls wrestled each other by pulling the other's hair and clothes. In the end http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/05/teens-in-school-bullying-and-sex.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-2176821072464101833Fri, 02 May 2008 00:58:00 +00002008-05-03T23:43:14.033+08:00greengardenYou can find some of them all the time. You may find some others at certain odd hours. But you certainly can't find all of them all the time. They live in my backyard, and help keep the world in balance in their little own efforts.She likes to dig the earth, eat flowers and plants, and drive away butterflies and birds who happen to fly into her turf.The Paradise fish eat up lots of mosquitoes, http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/05/earth-day-special-meet-my-backyard.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-247517973073382300Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:35:00 +00002008-03-31T17:57:49.878+08:00funlifegpsFor as low as NT$50 dollars, you can pull and take home as many white radishes as you can, as long as you can fill them all in one bag, and one bag only.It was a government-sponsored festival in Tamsui over the weekend. City folks like me, who's never spent any time in the farm, were invited to have fun for the harvest of white radishes, or moolis.White radish is the core material for fried http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/03/go-pull-radishes.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-2936056927176476777Sun, 30 Mar 2008 06:13:00 +00002008-03-30T14:29:58.855+08:00lifepigappleOn a rare occasion, I saw a pig on display that was placed on an big block of ice as an offering to God in a small temple right on the corner next to the business building where my office is located.The pig was positioned in such a way that it somehow looked comic or, should I say a bit cruel to die in such an awful way. An apple with a few burning incense sticks was stuck in its mouth. Whatever http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/03/pig-apple-and-new-photoshop-express.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-6960854168828991644Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:07:00 +00002008-03-16T22:58:19.917+08:00presidential racepeoplelifeIt's the last weekend before people in Taiwan go to polls and vote for the next President on 22nd March. Both Ma Ying-jeou and Frank Hsieh, who represent the nationalist KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) respectively, had major rallies on Sunday to energize the passion of their supporters.On Sunday afternoon, I went to Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall for a big rally to support Mr. Hsieh, http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/03/yes-we-can-but-sorry-its-not-barack.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-5681887450877647768Sun, 17 Feb 2008 09:16:00 +00002008-02-19T09:30:06.879+08:00peoplelifegps檢視較大的地圖Well, not quite.Those unidentified flying objects were actually sky lanterns set off by tens of thousands of people visiting Pingsi, a small town in Taipei county. Where I came from in southern Taiwan, people only carried small lanterns in celebration of the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of January on the Chinese lunar calendar.But in this part of the world in northern Taiwan, thishttp://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/02/well-not-quite.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-4614641406899013666Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:20:00 +00002008-02-11T21:34:00.356+08:00peoplelifeA trip to the wholesale flower market in Neihu is always essential when the Chinese Lunar New Year holidays were around the corner.Unlike the retail florists, flowers are traded in a bunch of dozens here. They are fresh and inexpensive when you need lots of them for home decoration.There are numerous colours for your choice...Some of them were sprayed in colours that are supposed to be auspicioushttp://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/02/chinese-lunar-new-year-in-taiwan.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-1413107690806775643Sun, 03 Feb 2008 15:30:00 +00002008-02-03T23:53:01.676+08:00dogA friend of mine, Brenda, found this dog on the street the other day. She's either got separated from or deserted by her master. We guess the latter is more likely.She's very well trained, as she can understand a lot of simple commands, such as 'sit' or 'shake hands'.Brenda has taken her to the vet, making sure everything's alright for her.If you are considering having one "big" dog of your own,http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/02/adopt-this-golden-retriever-anyone.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-9221315326185172582Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:37:00 +00002008-01-31T13:09:29.738+08:00singaporepeopleMaybe I was wrong, but it looked like a scam in which innocent children got involved.I saw these two girls performing gymnastics the very first night when I arrived in Singapore on Thursday. At that time, I thought their performance was really great, and tossed a few dollars into the basket right in front of their mini performing stage.Then a couple of days passed, and I saw them again Saturday, http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/01/two-kids-being-exploited-in-singapore.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-4454450750749515659Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:45:00 +00002008-01-27T09:58:04.322+08:00singaporeThe night I was dining on the beach of Rasa Sentosa Resort in Singapore, I witnessed a never-die zombie who was killed many times, but still managed to stay alive and became the hero of at least two pretty young things.The zombie came out in droves on the night fall to scare people on this man-made island. Fortunately, all of them were destroyed before they could do any harm. That's all except http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/01/killing-spree-in-rasa-sentosa-resort.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-8128016349952360534Sat, 12 Jan 2008 07:21:00 +00002008-01-12T23:40:35.434+08:00peoplelifeThere are two issues for today's election. One is to select congressional members, who would do the job in the Legislature Yuan for the next three years. The other is to cast votes for two referendum questions.I walked to the poll station in my district at 11:30 in the morning. Quite a few voters had turned up and formed a line.The staff would first checked your identification before allowing youhttp://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/01/legislative-election-in-taiwan-plus.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-1471207431761919609Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:43:00 +00002008-01-01T23:50:06.219+08:00fireworkstaipei 101lifegpsHappy New Year.I didn't want to go downtown on New Year's Eve as I really feared a huge turnout at the vicinity of Taipei 101, where the most expensive firework show in Taiwan, costing more than NT$20 million dollars (USD$625,000), would be displayed.But I did want to see it, the all splendid fireworks exploded along the outer walls of the world's tallest building. Reports said it could be 101's http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2008/01/watching-taipei-101s-fireworks-from-8.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-2392618287022301186Fri, 21 Dec 2007 07:49:00 +00002007-12-21T15:56:04.323+08:00lifeTake a look at this picture, and tell me what you are looking at? Well, you can find the answer in one of the new English-Chinese dictionaries that went on sale last week. One of the authors of this "麥克米倫高級英漢雙解詞典" claimed in his blog that a lot of the latest Taiwanese slang are included in this edition. Here are some of the terms: 爆乳裝：cleavage-displaying dress 台客：taiker; hip grass-roots Taiwanesehttp://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2007/12/butt-cleavage-fuckbuddy-and-roti-prata.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-3616148588769760448Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:08:00 +00002007-12-18T19:00:53.440+08:00peoplelifeThis was the semi-final (第三屆捷運盃熱門音樂大賽), and took place in front of the square on the Tamsui MRT Station on Saturday afternoon. Taipei MRT is the offical organizer, and Jolin Tsai (蔡依林), the local pop diva, was the spokeslady for this music talent search. The final winner, to be decided in yet another round at the end of this month, will take away $120,000 Taiwan dollars ( or USD$3750). When I gothttp://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2007/12/finalists-of-2007-mrt-rock-band.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-2567966762378290085Thu, 06 Dec 2007 03:05:00 +00002007-12-06T12:58:28.902+08:00peoplelifeView the larger map"The words "Da Chung Chi Cheng" were etched on a large gate of white stone to eulogise Chiang, who led the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) which ruled Taiwan for 51 years until 2000, when it lost power to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)."....moreSince the four words (大中至正, translate: "big central gets right") are going to be tore down soon, and replaced with something else, http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2007/12/faded-away-cks-memorial-hall.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-6204725732344315009Sat, 01 Dec 2007 12:16:00 +00002007-12-01T22:03:21.911+08:00peoplelifegpsI heard this piece of information on ICRT. The Taipei European School had a Christmas bazaar today. So I went and had a fun time tasting a lot of international food.The European School is probably not as well-known to locals as Taipei American School, at least that's true for me. Until today, I didn't even realized that this school is located right at the heart of Shih Lin district.檢視較大的地圖The http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2007/12/christmas-bazaar-at-taipei-european.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-3030371377104341587Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:41:00 +00002007-10-11T10:41:05.829+08:00lifeI thought I could take a few pictures of the performance and military parade in front of the Presidential Building this morning in celebration of Taiwan's national birthday.I was wrong. The whole area near the Presidential Building, including parks, roads, small shortcuts, was totally blocked and secured by the police. Only those invited could go in.If you looked at the razor-sharp barbwires, http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2007/10/double-10-day-special-red-bull-on-house.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19559953.post-6058514416766084606Sun, 30 Sep 2007 03:17:00 +00002007-09-30T12:05:52.008+08:00lifeIt was pretty early in the morning, around 7 o'clock. While still lying on bed, I heard the distant whine coming in through the bedroom windows.I thought it was the MRT. But then the whirling motors told me it couldn't be possibe from the noise of a MRT train passing by.Opening my eyes all the infinitesimally a bit, I saw it. In a group of at least 10 helicopters, they were moving slowly toward http://tamsui-taiwan.blogspot.com/2007/09/mysterious-display-by-air-force.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (MJ)0