Flora Expo!

Taipei is host to this year's International Flora Expo. It's been going on since November 2010, and features garden displays (mazes, scented walls, living sculptures), indoor garden displays, floral arrangements, horticulture, performances etc. etc.

I decided last week that it was high time that I check it out, so I trekked to the expo site and saw the sights. It was pretty cool, but even though I went on a overcast Monday afternoon it was quite busy so I was slightly overwhelmed by the crowds. I saw lot's of lovely displays, including some very impressive bonsai trees (one was over 500 years old!), a drum performance, a succulent display and international garden display.There was loads more, but I have a hunch that as exciting as it was for me, if I went on this post would be a bit of a snoozer.


Okay Canada, we get it. All I'm saying is, is that the best we could do? Canada is made up of so many other wonderful cultures that are equally worth celebrating. This was a garden display, and those look like fiber glass salmon carcasses. At least cover them with plants or something. Sheesh. Where are the maple trees?

The USA's garden display was very good - you have to admit, when it comes to international competitions they've got game.
Bhutan's garden - now I don't know much about Bhutan but I'm assuming their GDP is a fraction of Canada's, and I would dare say this is a nicer display.

Thailand's display was the bomb, they had living sculptures, tropical flowers, little temples and walking paths. Yes, that is a giant elephant made out of plants.
This was in the Taiwan garden, and it's a giant bamboo "igloo" for lack of a better word. It was a huge dome structure woven out of strips of bamboo, with a fluid, curving entrance. I want one to camp out in, it was so beautiful and sculptural. Google "bamboo dome" and you'll see lot's of pictures.

hey guys!

I haven't been posting - I was feeling a bit sick the past couple days, so I was taking it easy. Sorry.

We're coming home soon, and I think we're ready. It's been GREAT not working, let's be real - but I miss Vancouver life. I'm excited to get back to some blooms and sunshine (fingers crossed) and bike rides. And in not-too-long the farmers markets will start up and we'll be munching on yummy fruit and veg. Basically, I miss y'all and I'm looking forward to seeing your faces in real life, not just on skype. Huzzah!

I think these cups speak for themselves:

"The life should waste on the fine things" Tell me more, wise cup...

"Coffee Time - Taste a cup of street that delicious coffee lets you place oneself in the foreign country up" - I wanted this to be a haiku so, so badly.

hidden corners.

tweet, tweet. I'm not sure what's going on here.

Before the nazis the swastika was a lucky symbol used in Buddhism. That said, I'm not sure how the orange spray paint artist wants you to interpret his/her colour accents.

I like this, it was quite big, but I only took a few patches.

Did somebody say cheeeeeeeeeese?

This is exactly how I look when I am forced to wake up early.

Oh my dog + cats!

I love dogs. I have dog-dar and can spot them in my vicinity like a sixth sense. There are lots of dogs in Taipei, I see people walking them or in stores or on balconies. These dogs clearly belong to people or are with people and they are domesticated dogs who act like dogs in Vancouver.

Then there are these other dogs that I keep seeing, and these dogs are just hanging out. Some have collars, some don't. There are no people nearby looking after them, these dogs are just chilling solo, and don't care who knows it. Crossing the street when they please, peeing on whatever they like, these dogs are basically having the time of their lives. And what I find most interesting about these dogs is that they are not mangy or aggressive, and people here seem pretty cool with these dogs just lounging around. It's kind of like the neighbourhood cats you see around Mount Pleasant, you know the ones? The "outside" cats that leave in the morning and come back at night, no questions asked.

I've been trying to take pictures of these dogs when I can, scrambling for my camera whenever they breeze by me in the street like they've got some poker game to go to. Here are my favourites.

Oh and for you cat lovers, I also have a couple of them captured (on film, har, har.)



I think this guy was with the people in the background, but I'm not sure. He was just having an afternoon snooze.

Cats lounging on a rooftop fan, but this is normal cat behaviour, right? While I was taking this picture a black dog walked past me, looking at me like "forget it, I've tried. If I'm not eating them, no one is".

Night time dog, perhaps he has a human friend that will come and sit on that chair and visit with him. Perhaps not.

What is it with dogs lying down at the top of the stairs? Could you BE any more underfoot, dog? This one was hanging out at the entrance to the metro, surveying the area and not-fussed by pedestrians - even ones putting cameras in his face.

Meow. Meow. Meow. Get off the road puss in boots.

Quality Mellow.

Stressed out at work? Deadlines? Running late? Life can be stressful. Chill out, Lipton's got you covered. Introducing "Quality Mellow" flavoured iced tea.

A few things

Kris is on a regiment of drops and pills, and the drops need to be refrigerated plus the doctor told him to not strain himself (blood/eye pressure reasons), so we've been close to home and we're both a bit giggly with all of the home time. It's not all bad, and I've been getting some solid Z's. Here are a few highlights:

- We've been drinking tea like it's going out of style. Right now we're on "Oriental Delight", we polished off the green and we're still working on the "health boost". We've got the kettle standing by at a moments notice.

- Kris has been craving Indian food, and luckily there is a place nearby that does really tasty take-out so I can pop out and get it. I've become such a regular there, and I think the fact that the chef and I have developed a flirtation bordering on smoldering doesn't help... or does it? I kid, it's an ongoing joke because he waves and smiles at me, and I wave and smile back and then he winks at me and I turn red.

- I finished my book "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck. I'm not sure if I liked it, but I didn't not like it - does that make sense? I was engaged by the story and characters, but parts of her portrayal of China bothered me. I'm now reading "Everything is Illuminated" By Jonathan Safron Foer.

- My love of podcasts goes on. I've been mainlining "Stuff you should know" mixed in with "This American Life" and "RadioLab" as they come. I usually put it on and go for a walk, discovering little alleys and corners in the city. It's funny, as I listen to podcasts with topics as varied as Volcanos, the Mafia, Braille, Serial Killers, etc. the images I'm seeing become intertwined with what I'm hearing. One of the podcast listeners mentioned the same thing in a letter and now I can't help but think certain memories will be forever linked with volcanos, in a bizarre way.

- It's cold here again. I'm back on jeans and sweaters. The mini heat wave is over.

- I need a hair cut and there are lots of trendy looking salons in the neighbourhood, but I'm just not sure I can do it. I'm pretty easy going with my hair, but there's something about not being able to communicate with the person wielding scissors next to your head that is a bit of a turn off for me.

- As you know, I am a breakfast fan. I love breakfast. I've found that the traditional eggs 'n' bacon is a bit hard to find here, but we've got two spots that serve a pretty good spread. The only difference is that today breakfast was preceded by a corn soup, and the hash browns were french fries.

That's all for now, I've got to put the water on. Love and Pancakes y'all.

Japan.

The coverage here has been heavy since it's so close, and I've been watching BBC Asia Pacific pretty steadily over the past few days. It is heartbreaking and very scary.

Some pretty staggering pictures can be found here:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/03/japan_earthquake_aftermath.html

and here:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/03/massive_earthquake_hits_japan.html

Sights!

Kris is feeling a bit better today, so we went out for a walk and we ended up in Liberty Square. I think today was some sort of holiday because there was a big gathering with flags and cheering and yellow head bands. It was either to commemorate the passing of Dr. Sun Yat Sen (although cheering would be a bit rude, no?) or it was Kuan Kung's Birthday. I have no idea who Kuan is, I googled all of that, including the name of the park we were in.

Liberty Square is huge and you enter it by going through these huge white gates - on either side are two giant halls and at the end is a statue of a Chiang Kai-shek. He is a former president of Tiawan, close bud of Dr. SYS and he tried to take back mainland China. There are mixed feelings about him in Tiawan, some love him and other hate him. Again, I wikipedia'ed all of this.

It felt good to be out and about again.

Everyone who we saw getting their picture taken in front of this shrine looked really solemn, so I figured I should do the same.


The big square from down-low.

Looking up at the gates, it is massive. The picture doesn't really do it justice.

Here is is again from a different perspective. I think every city should have a public square where people can gather.

Further reading

Here is an article from the CBC that explains Kris' surgery better than I am able to - in this case it's Italian doctors, but the procedure is the same (I think):

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2010/06/23/stem-cell-eye.html

and if you really want to understand, the New England Journal of Medicine article is here:

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0905955

toilet talk

The toilet here has a heated seat, and this might be TMI (too much information) but it is awesome. Asia toilets: 1, North American toilets: 0

As you can tell, I don't have a lot to report - it's been raining and we've been taking it easy.

Adventures in Dining!

I mentioned in the Pinglin post that we had an interesting dining experience - I'm finally getting around to telling you guys about it.

Okay, so it was hot then and we'd been riding bikes in the sun all day - plus we accidentally bought this "ion water" a.k.a "sugar water" a.k.a "gross" instead of regular water so we were really looking forward to a nice lunch. We rode our bikes into town and stopped by this open air diner by the river, the food out front looked fresh and we were salivating.

So far, and luckily, we've been given menus with pictures or a well-worn English menu. This time, not so lucky. Most restaurant have these little checklists that you fill out and give to the server - which is awesome, but only if you can read the lists. Not wanting to leave only to grow more hungry and face the same problem we decided to just use the impressions that the pen made on the last order and get whatever the person(s) before us got. I handed her the list, smiling, and she looked at it, then at me, and giggled. I knew that we were in for a bit of a treat.

The menu. I just copied the indents exactly, sincerely hoping I wasn't ordering for a family of five.

First dish. I have no idea what this was, but it was good. I think it was tofu based, possibly infused with pork? Honestly, no idea.


Crispy fishies. Little 2" tiny fishes fried with green onions. Once I got over the fact I was eating whole fishes they were okay. I just kept thinking of all the omega 3 acids I was taking in. If you've ever been to BaoBei in Vancouver they have a similar item on the menu, so I had seen this particular delicacy before. I probably will never eat this ever again.

At this point, I was really hoping for a vegetable, but I think we had ordered from the appetizer/fried menu. This was a fried tofu dish, served with salty sauce. Nothing interesting to report.

When this came, I was like "more effing fried tofu?" but it was actually turnip-cake, which was surprisingly good, but sadly, still fried.

We also got this basil scrambled egg thing, and it was okay. All in all it was good - just not the refreshing meal we were looking for to fuel more bike riding.

Kris update!

The surgery went smoothly, and Kris is in healing mode. He's on a regiment of drops and pills to aide the recovery process. The sight in his eye will get better and better over the course of a month, so we'll keep you posted on progress.

Kris update!

Kris goes in for surgery on Monday (tomorrow), and apparently it is going to be three hours. We're going to set him up with some podcasts, so hopefully he can listen to them while he's in there.

The doctor said his cells were growing exceedingly well. If you've met Kris, or played any Plotnikoff yard games against him, you'll know he likes to be the best. That is at a cellular level, apparently.

Macau, caw caw!

Casino Lisboa is shaped like a giant pineapple. It is ridiculous.

There's another, older, non-pinapple shaped Casino Lisboa that is all 60's retro. This is a small, small piece of it. It's neon and bulbous and golden and tacky and is easily the coolest casino of them all.

A little park that was sort of walled in by the buildings surrounding it, and they had all been covered in graffitti, it was a really colourful place, like being in a story book.


Incense burning outside a temple.

There are footpaths like this one all over the place, and you're supposed to take off your shoes and walk on them as a sort of self-reflexology. I didn't do this one, but I've done others and it is equal parts painful and nice feeling.


Okay. So there's Mainland China, there's Hong Kong, and Macau. Oh, and Taiwan (a republic of China). They each have their own rules and currency and are considered "special administrative areas" of China. Basically it has to do with money and colonization. That's as far as my knowledge extends.

Apparently, Macau is the "Vegas" of China, since you can gamble here. It was an hour turbo-ferry ride from Hong Kong. They have some pretty gawdy casinos - but they are tacky in the way where it's so bad it's good. But walk a little further, and the Portuguese influence and architecture becomes prominent. Cobble stone streets, churches and brightly painted colonial buildings. Next to all of this, of course, are incensed temples and hawkers selling noodles and meats.

Hong Kong Part 3!

Looking up. The sky against the buildings made such interesting shapes, but looking through the rest of my pictures I don't think I quite captured it.

Very often translations go so wrong. This one is so, so right. Can you bear to tread such fragrant grass? No, I cannot bear it. It would be a crime against nature and poetry.

I think that these are Pomellos for sale at the wet market. There were all sorts of tasty and scary grocery stuffs for sale here. It was an interesting contrast - the market was so raw, yet it was only a few blocks from the glass high
rises with all the smoking, stressing bankers outside intent on their cell phones.

Have you ever met such suave graffiti? I almost gave him my phone number.

Hong Kong part 2!

The view from the peak! There are 7 million people in HK, and the a view looking down at all of the skyscrapers is only equal the view from the base of them, looking up.

There's me and Kris at the top. The tram (built in 1888) was broken while we were there, so major bummer. But we chose the perfect day to go up, because it was clear and breezy - the next couple days was smog-city.


One frame of the skyline from Kowloon bay, the city is striking from this viewpoint. Electric!

This is the view from our guest house, looking down, we were on the 13th floor. The building houses 4000 people, and there appeared to be only two rickety elevators for the whole place. One served even numbered floors, the other odds. As a result, the elevators were constantly packed and you were pressed up against no less than 6 other people at any given time. It was pretty funny and awkward. This neighbourhood has a bizarre mix of people - many of whom were trying to sell us fake Rolex watches.