Taiwan, Random Photos 2

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.  Spent mine at Cathy's parents', feasting on things like turkey, prime rib, Korean potato noodles, and kimchi.  Yes, I know, very traditional Thanksgiving Day cuisine.  Anyway, some more Taiwan photos:

Shrine at Longshan Temple in Taipei. We arrived during a time of regular worship, as a large congregation of people were chanting when we were first there (I tried my best to stay out of the way). Fun facts:  The temple was originally built in the 18th century and I also read it has been damaged/destroyed/rebuilt several times since.

Mom and Cathy strolling down a street in Maokong.  We went to Maokong for the tea since it used to be a very large tea growing area in Taipei. It was a rainy day, but it still made for some wonderfully unique views, pleasant tea drinking ambiance, and reduced crowds.

Wires in Maokong.  Eric and I were walking along when he noticed and pointed out this interesting perspective.  We actually rode a gondola to get to Maokong, which similarly elevated you high above the forested valley and (slowly) plunged you into the fog for nearly four miles.

Best part of Maokong: Big Teapot Restaurant. Mom ordered some sort of "tea meal tour," where every dish incorporated tea leaves. For example, the mushroom/chicken soup simmering on the left had tea bags in it, the shrimp in the middle was sauteed and accompanied with pan fried tea leaves, and the fried rice in my bowl was made with some finely crushed tea leaves. It was a delicious meal, and it didn't hurt that we were also treated to a nice view of the area directly next to us:

The restaurant view from my seat.

Jinguashi Gold Ecological Park. Historically, the area had many productive gold mines and briefly served as a POW camp by occupying Japanese. Some really interesting history and great scenery here.  We also visited nearby Jiufen, which had a fun street market - Mom ate a snail, I drank (and bought) some millet wine, Eric bought some traditional Chinese garb, random stuff like that.

Hot spring in Beitou Dire Valley. Some of the natural pools here apparently approached a near-boiling 90 degrees Celsius (so you weren't exactly allowed to jump in).  Instead, Eric and I checked out a nearby outdoor bath that had several pools fed by a hot spring. Still, one pool was so hot that we were only able to tolerate it for under a minute before having to jump out.

Just a sampling of all thing things we did.  Good times!

Taiwan, Random Photos 1

Cathy and I went to Taiwan earlier this month for a bit of a family vacation. We met up with my mom and Eric shortly after flying in and after that, we spent time here and there with lots of different family, including my grandma, cousins (Tim and Jeff, plus their significant others), uncles, and aunts.  Great times were had.

I served as the documentary photographer.  I used a 40mm equivalent prime lens for 95% of the shots, which I feel is a good street photography length (Panasonic Lumix 20mm f1.7 on an E-P2). Using a single focal length can be limiting but, on the flip side, I was thinking about composition more than usual.  Anyway,  along with Cathy's photos, we ended up with an album of well over 300 photos. Here are a random few:

Shilin Night Market, widely considered the largest night market in Taipei.  Although packed with people, the crowd flowed well and it was surprisingly easy to get around.  All sorts of stuff is hawked here but the main attraction for us was the food, which included tropical fruit, dumplings, pork buns, chou doufu, grass jelly, green onion flatbread, and much more.

These guys are making the green onion flatbread. The baking method was involved slapping dough on the inside walls of a tandoor oven, aka, a barrel of fire. I thought this was mostly an Indian and Middle Eastern technique, but maybe not. Tasty either way.

A view from Yangmingshan National Park.  Apparently, there are some wonderful vistas and geologic features here, but after getting about a couple hundred meters up it was pure fog.  No big deal, since I like the outdoors in all its forms, but it's a shame I wasn't able to get a good look at the lay of the land.

After wandering around a bit, Uncle TaiTai took us to a great restaurant on the Yangmingshan mountainside.  I think the establishment's name translates to Yangming Spring Green Kitchen.  We sat on tatami mats, sipped tea, and enjoyed a beautifully plated and delicious multi-course vegetarian meal.

Another from the restaurant.  The dishes were elegant and employed a host of techniques, but generally consisted of simple ingredients.  And while I'm an unashamed omnivore with decidedly carnivorous tendencies, the vegetarian aspect of the meal did not detract from my enjoyment at all.

A tranquil walk.

There were a number of peaceful feral dogs on the top of Yangmingshan.  We also met a man there who regularly brings snacks up to the dogs, and he said that this dog had been abandoned long ago despite having a collar.  There was also a pack of what looked like a grab bag of Labrador mixes, adults and puppies.  They seemed to be doing alright.  Still, some of them reminded me bit of Quentin, so I was a bit saddened.

More to come.

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Arcadia Ales Sky High Rye, Dad

MI and FL

Ah finally, the scurrying around is done (for now). The past two weeks involved a family get-together in Michigan, a stimulating work conference downstate, a wedding in Florida, and another wedding in Chicago. I'm ready to do nothing for a couple days.


Eric and Seigo, walking back from Pine Lake on a nice Autumn day. My immediate family resides in three different states, so it's rare that we can all see each other at once. Eric/Rie/Seigo were in Michigan for various reasons, en route to Japan, so Cathy and I hustled on over for a quick reunion. It was a good time, as usual.


Shortly after MI, Cathy and I flew down to Florida for Rachel's wedding. Specifically, we went to Amelia Island, part of the chain of the Sea Islands. View from our hotel balcony. We only had a couple days there since we had another wedding back in Chicago, but it was still great fun. It was a bit hectic at first since Cathy was finishing the wedding cake. Yes, she made Rachel's wedding cake, components of which we carefully transported all the way from Chicago. The cake? It was a fondant covered vanilla bean cake with Nutella buttercream frosting (I failed to get a good photo of it, sorry).


They had a cigar roller at the reception. I've never seen this at a wedding, and although I'm not much of a cigar guy, I thought it was a nice touch. I didn't have my camera with me so I took this with my phone. First phone photo I've posted.


Also taken with my phone, the immediate view from the reception area. It's of the salt marsh on the west side of the island as the sun set. Really nice. With this kind of natural beauty, it's hard to take a bad photo even with a crappy phone camera.

Alright, that does it. I now look forward to a week or two of my normal routine. Sweet, sweet, normal routine.

Cups

Cathy's cousin, Yae Sun, was in town from South Korea this past weekend. She gifted us a handsome set of ceramic cups that she made by hand, here's three of them:


Apparently it was her first time working with ceramic, but she's a talented artist and I think that shows in the worksmanship. Either way, I'm impressed. I plan on using these to enjoy many a beverage.

Highway 1, A View, A Dog...

Visiting Eric/Rie/Seigo/Roland/Clem part two. This post is really just a couple photos from a short drive we took on Highway 1. I've driven most of the 600ish miles before, using it to get to Seattle, but I rushed it and barely stopped to enjoy it. This time around it was much more engaging, since although we didn't go that far, Eric and Rie took us to a couple different spots to go out on little micro-hikes. We easily spent a whole day exploring the nooks and crannies of just a 30 mile stretch...


First stop was Muir Beach. The beach was pretty nice but the best feature about this stop was a little hiking trail that went up the side of a hill where you could get away from the beach crowd and enjoy panoramic views of the area (the photo is just a slice of it). You can also see how low the clouds are here. What you can't see though is how fast they were swirling and streaming in over the hills from the ocean, very much like a river.


Eric with Seigo in tow, hiking down the trail. I'd like to note that I was particularly proud of my mom who, despite being a bit leery of heights, went on nearly all the hikes that involved heights.


The next stop was the Muir Beach Overlook. This was amazing. Although it's known for it's wonderful views, on this day it was a bit different. Just stepping out of the car already felt like stepping into a wind tunnel, and you could "see" the wind due to the moisture in the air. There was a short, developed path running along a ridge line (see photo) that led to a small octagonal overlook platform. That day it wasn't a run-of-the-mill overlook platform but instead it a platform into a cloud. It was a fun experience to stand on this thing and see nothing but the wind rushing past you.


Anonymous on aforementioned ridge line trail.


Next stop was a random hike out to a cliff to enjoy an oceanside view. At this stop, however, I was more compelled to photograph the view behind me. I'm not sure why, but I guess I just liked it.


Next stop was Bolinas. Eric described it as a small, somewhat hermetic, community that tears down any signs along Highway 1 telling you how to get there. We checked out a big beach and saw some nice waves for casual surfing...which Eric looked at wistfully. I liked the (sanctioned) graffiti that decorated the seawalls, like this surfing droog.


This was a view from our last stop. Just a nice little trail down to some big, big rocks (though it's hard to really see how massive this thing was without a reference). Check out the blanket of clouds in the distance. There was a huge rock/boulder, similar to the one in the photo, that you could climb onto but it required negotiating a dangerously narrow trail and climbing up loose stone, all while ignoring the possible plummet to your certain death on all sides. I got about 10 feet into it before it put the fear in me and I turned around.

I left out a lot of events and photos from this summary, like eating at Chez Panisse, a random search for espresso beans, and sipping scotch at a whiskey bar in the Mission District...but I think you can see it was more than just a great time. Anyway, I would have fun visiting my family even in the most boring of places, but all this stuff is extra icing on an iced cake.

One more:


Roland is sooo cool.

Berkeley, Museum, Sonoma...

So anyway, after Memorial Day, we pretty much immediately flew out to California to link up with my family. A very brief two-post summary will now commence:


One of the first things we did was visit the California Academy of Sciences, a huge natural history museum. It has a wonderful assortment of things, including a huge aquarium, planetarium, a green roof, and a rainforest dome. Unfortunately, the dome was closed due to maintenance or something, but despite that, we still didn't have time to see everything.


Aquariums are always a favorite of mine. As well as obligatory silhouette photos.


Sea nettle from the aquarium. Among the other specimens hanging out there were various reptiles I've never seen before, an albino alligator (named Claude), a Pacific octopus, Alligator gars, and more fish than you can shake a reel at. So much fun.


The next, we did another always fun thing: wine tasting at the vineyards. Last time Cathy and I visited we went to Napa Valley but this time we went to Sonoma Valley. I gotta say, I liked Sonoma better since it was drastically more laid back, casual, and natural.


Seigo is not yet of age and so did not partake in any of the tastings, but he did enjoy running around the grape vines (this was at Wellington Vineyards).


Bartholomew Park vineyard. We ended up flying back with an armload of wine, some of which I'm enjoying immensely as I type this.


Eric and Rie actually live in Berkeley. A nice feature of their particular area was a weekly farmer's market just a short walk away from their house. We came to check out on one of the days.


It wasn't terribly big but there were more than enough tasty morsels to choose from and the local support is strong, which is great. We bought a variety of edibles that we snacked on for the rest of the week. Also, the weather was excellent everyday we were there - which wasn't all that surprising, but it was excellent.

Next post soon.

Wintry Dog Mix

I'm going to have to interrupt my line of food posts for now. We were in Michigan this past weekend to relax, celebrate my mom's birthday, and ring in the Chinese New Year with Nickbot where I drank entirely too much scotch while arguing the merits of having a knife over a handgun during a close quarters bear fight, much to the chagrin of our wives. Anyway, when I'm out there I tend to do a lot of wandering around and this time was no different. I've said it before and I'll say it again, winter wandering is great in a lot of ways, particularly because there is usually no one else around. It's a nice respite from the bustling city.

Walking the dogs with pops. At this point he was carrying about five pounds of dog crap in a couple bags.

A pair of cross-country skiers created paths which Kya tended to stick to. I think she thought they were mini-sidewalks or something.

Q running through snowfall as the snow falls. His ears provide lift.

Mich Again

Cathy and I went to visit my parents one last time before our wedding. Among other things, I helped fix a couple screen doors, removed a mud dauber wasp nest, went on a six mile trail run, found a yellow jacket hive in a Foreman grill, and ate some ribs, clams, dumplings, sushi, and dim sum.


Apparently this is a "Florida Room." Kinda like an outdoor room I guess? The Dad patched up the roof so for the first time in years we could actually hang out in it, talk, relax, drink some brews, etc.


Speaking of brews, my Dad strongly supports Michigan microbreweries. These days its all he buys so there's always an interesting selection every time I visit. This weekend he had some nice pale ales from the Michigan Brewing Company.


The gloaming from the back deck.


Ate breakfast out on the deck on Saturday morning. It was a fruit-filled morning.


Obligatory plant photo from the backyard. No idea what this is.


You know, I originally thought this was a yellow jacket but it's actually a European paper wasp. Related but distinctly different.

Speaking of yellow jackets though, here's a little story:

Years ago I went on a solo backpacking trip through Shawnee National Forest. One morning I accidentally stepped on a large nest of yellow jackets and was swarmed within seconds. Thankfully it was early morning, I had not taken my tent down, and I was nearby. I ran straight to my tent with a literal cloud of yellow jackets following me. Even after getting in my tent, I had to deal with the 10 or so that had followed me in.

In the end, I counted about 40 distinct areas I was stung and I was stung multiple times in most of those spots. For the next couple hours, I had trouble moving my left arm and leg (most stings were localized there) and pain resonated throughout my body for the remainder of the day. Despite this, I still think I was extremely lucky in an unlucky situation.

This was also the same trip I got bit by a 6-foot snake but that is a story for another day.

My India Pale Ale

What's awesome? This:


This beautiful mess is the wort for our homebrewed India Pale Ale.


One of two types of hops we added.


Danny (a future brother-in-law) measuring the starting gravity of our newborn IPA.

The best pale ale I ever had was a homebrew. It was a good beer in terms of initial taste but what made it great was that it finished without the usual lingering bitterness. Every sip was like the first sip. I can only hope our IPA turns out half as good - I'll let you know in a couple weeks.

Seigo

Eric sent me some pictures of the new addition to the family - his name is Seigo (say-go). Apparently it is a very auspicious name and it means "bright and aware." Here he is!


Seigo! I already love the name (and him of course).


Seigo and Eric.