Spending the day in Shinchiku

台北の南西７０ｋｍにある新竹は、「新竹風」といわれるように風が強く、「風の城」という異名がある。東門城を中心に放射状に道が延びるごぢんまりとした町だが、郊外にある新竹サイエンスパークは、ハイテクアイランド台湾を牽引するシリコンバレーとして世界的に有名。

（地球の歩き方台湾）

I took the train up north this morning to Hsinchu 新竹 (the train station of which dates back to 1908)...

...to meet up with my friend Thoth. Thoth moved to Hsinchu three months ago, and he clearly enjoys living there, as you can tell from looking at his blog, The Montreal Writers' Storm Sewer. After being ridden around and shown some of the sights, I can understand why he likes it there. Outside of T'aipei 台北, Hsinchu is probably the most foreigner-friendly city in Taiwan, due to the presence of the Hsinchu Science Park 新竹科學工業園區. Here are a few images from today's guided tour of the Windy City, courtesy to Thoth:

First up is a video I made from the back of Thoth's scooter, riding through the streets and into the foothills of Hsinchu. Filming stopped when my hand became too tired from holding up the camera.

Here is Thoth outside his comfortable three-bedroom home. It's located in a quiet area in the hills above the city, with several inviting-looking dirt roads behind his street just begging to be explored:

Going back into town, we had lunch at a small cafe located across the street from National Tsing Hua University 國立清華大學. The menu was in English, and the dishes were American, ranging from grilled cheese sandwiches to Philly Cheesesteaks. I tucked into the first Tuna melt sandwich I'd had in god knows how long. There sure aren't any places like this where I live:

After lunch, Thoth showed me around the campus, which looks very much like any large American or Canadian university. Here I am looking appropriately philosophical outside the Casa de Socrates cafe on campus:

Next stop on the tour was the Hsinchu Science Park. With its Western-style apartments and large lakefront park, one could easily forget that they are in Taiwan (which was probably the designers' intention). The artificial lake had to be the first one I've seen in Taiwan not to include food vendors and Taoist temples. If only I were a highly-skilled professional living in Taiwan on an expat package...:

It was at this point the rain started coming down, so we eventually made our back to the train station area so I could catch my train back to Fengyuan 豐原, but not before doing a little walking around. Here is the East Gate, Hsinchu's landmark, dating from 1829 (though restored in 1999). It's all the remains of the old city walls:

As someone is who tired of the hassles of having to live in a small provincial Taiwanese city, I can see why Thoth likes being in Hsinchu. My wife has a cousin and a friend who both work in the Science Park. Hmmm, I wonder...

And the beat goes on

It's been a week now since work was canceled last Friday due to the approach of Typhoon Morakot. The aftermath of the disaster in the south, and the ongoing rescue efforts, are still a leading story on CNN broadcasts, as well as on the BBC website; the president continues to be arrogantly aloof from the suffering of the people; and the government was forced to swallow its misplaced pride, and announce its acceptance of assistance from other countries, after a strong public outcry against the initial refusal. Today's Japan Today has a Kyōdō News 共同通信社 update on the situation in the disaster zone ("Up to 600 dead in mudslide-devastated village in Taiwan"):

"As many as 600 people were killed in the landslide that buried or swept away Hsiaolin Village 小林 in the wake of Typhoon Morakot, rescuers here said, as Taiwan appealed to the international community for aid and criticism mounted over the island’s handling of one of the worst storms in its history. Officially, the island-wide death toll from the storm has reached 108, but uncertainty abounds over the actual figure, as some villages were wiped out by floods and landslides, with many victims buried or torn to pieces, said Lu Cheng Tsung, commander of a search-and-rescue unit based near Hsiaolin. 'What we’re finding is an arm here, a leg there, sometimes a head, washed up on the riverbanks,' Lu said, putting the death toll in Hsiaolin alone at '500 to 600.' By all accounts, the village—once a postcard-perfect enclave of concrete villas—was the worst hit community. Indeed, all that remains are two battered houses and stray dogs, which paced anxiously on Thursday over the mud, streams and boulders that lie on top of what rescuers said were hundreds of bodies. The figure for the dead, they said, is a ballpark estimate."

The king is dead?

Chien-ming Wang's 王建民 miserable injury-riddled season (1-6, 9.64 ERA) is over, and there is some speculation as to whether or not he'll still be playing for the New York Yankees in 2010. One Taiwanese pitcher, however, is continuing to find success in Japan's Central League セントラル・リーグ. "Dragons' Chen wins 4th straight" says the Daily Yomiuri ザ・デイリー読売:

"Chen Wei-yin 陳偉殷 allowed a run in seven innings to win his fourth straight start as the Chūnichi Dragons 中日ドラゴンズ beat the host Hanshin Tigers 阪神タイガース 3-1 at Kyocera Dome Ōsaka 京セラドーム大阪 on Tuesday. Chen (6-2) didn't allow a run until Ryō Asai 浅井良 scored after leading off the seventh with a pinch-hit triple. He allowed five hits, issued four walks and struck out one. 'Even when I put runners on base, I was able to just focus on the next batter,' said the 24-year-old lefty from Taiwan. The Dragons scored twice in the third against Yūya Andō 安藤優也 (6-8) on back-to-back one-out doubles by Hirokazu Ibata 井端弘和 and Masahiro Araki 荒木雅博 and a single by Masahiko Morino 森野雅彦. Lee Byung Kyu 이병규 doubled and scored in the fourth on an in infield single by Chen."

It would be nice to be able to see Japanese games featuring local talent on Taiwanese TV, but the general public seems only interested in Wang.

Today being my one free weekday afternoon, it was off to the Tak'eng area in the early afternoon (in spite of the threatening skies) to get in some thankfully rain-free walking. On the last leg of the ride to the parking area at the start of the hiking trails, I made another one of those stupid, dangerous one-handed filming-while-riding videos:

I wasn't able to ride into the parking lot due to the accumulated mud on the ground, but with the exception of some damaged fruit orchards and several small landslides, that was about the extent of the impact on this section of Tak'eng from last weekend's horrific Typhoon Morakot. Perhaps because people were expecting there to be a lot of devastation, the trails were wonderfully empty most of the time I was out there. Instead, I had plenty of spiders, lizards and butterflies to keep me company, and in one instance, this walking stick insect:

One thing I did while out on my walkabout was to check out the Taoist temple 觀 I had come across a couple of weeks ago. The following is a 12-minute video that was rejected by YouTube for being too long. It ain't exactly gripping stuff, but it does give you a general idea of what Taiwanese temples look like, as well as a taste of the great outdoors, Takeng style. And if you're into wildlife, there's a lizard at the one-minute mark, and a huge, beautiful butterfly around 8 minutes and 45 seconds into the show:

Checking out a Taoist Temple

After the typhoon

For the first time in days, the sun came out this morning (though it rained again in the afternoon). If you've been following the news on such international outlets as CNN and BBC, you are no doubt aware that Typhoon Morakot has come and gone, and left behind it a wide swath of destruction. The film of the hotel falling into the river is bound to become a mainstay on cable TV disaster documentaries for years to come. Our area, Fengyuan in central Taiwan, got off lightly this time. It was extremely windy here on Friday, and the rain was constant and heavy all day on Saturday and Sunday, but unlike some recent typhoons, there was no flooding and very little damage. The same can't be said for much of the rest of Taiwan, especially the south, which was battered by Morakot. This Associated Press article ("400 unaccounted for in Taiwan mudslide") carried in today's Japan Today sums up the misery caused by the storm:

"A mudslide touched off by a deadly typhoon buried a remote mountain village, leaving at least 400 people unaccounted for Monday, and military rescue helicopters, unable to land because of the slippery ground, dropped food to desperate survivors. Typhoon Morakot slammed Taiwan over the weekend with as much as two meters (80 inches) of rain, inflicting the worst flooding the island has seen in at least a half-century. The storm submerged large swaths of farmland in chocolate-brown muck and swamped city streets before crossing the 180-kilometer(112-mile)-wide Taiwan Strait 台灣海峽 and hitting China...A disaster appeared to be unfolding around the isolated southern village of Hsiaolin 小林, which was hit by a mudslide Sunday at about 6 a.m. local time-while many people were still asleep-and was cut off by land from the outside world...400 people were unaccounted for in the village...100 people had been rescued or otherwise avoided the brunt of the disaster...Under leaden gray skies, military helicopters hovered over the community, dropping food and looking for survivors. They were unable to land because of the slippery terrain. Hsiaolin was cut off after flood waters destroyed a bridge about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) away. A back road wending its way northward toward the mountain community of Alishan 阿里山 was also believed to be cut off, and with rain still falling in the area, the prospects for an early resumption of overland travel were poor. Elsewhere in Taiwan, an additional 54 people were listed as missing. Authorities put the confirmed death toll in Taiwan at 14, but that seemed certain to rise. The typhoon’s path took it almost directly over the capital of T'aipei 台北, but its most destructive effects were in the heavily agricultural south and along the island’s densely foliated mountain spine. Hsiaolin is on Taiwan’s southwestern coast. In rural P'ingtung County 屏東縣, the rains turned rich swaths of farmland so sodden that it was difficult to distinguish them from the open sea. In the P'ingtung community of Santimen 三地門, troops maneuvered armored personnel carriers through flooded streets, plucking whole families from water-logged buildings and ferrying them to safety. In T'aitung 台東, in the southeastern lowlands, a raging flood toppled a five-story hotel."

Life is back to normal in our area. All I can say is that I'm thankful neither my family nor friends suffered as the result of the typhoon (with the exception of one friend who has been stranded at the airport for several days trying to get on a flight back home to Canada). There will probably be more typhoons to come before the season is over, but hopefully none of them will cause anything approaching the death and damage brought down on Taiwan by Morakot.

https://youtu.be/0QPO3fXxpa0

Typhoon Morakot

Today (Friday) was an unexpected (and unwelcome) day off thanks to the appearance of Typhoon Morakot. While Taiwan's reservoirs certainly need the water the typhoon will dump in them, typhoon days usually mean staying cooped up at home in a sweaty environment, as windows have to be shut due to the rain and wind. In our area, the winds starting picking up yesterday evening, and have remained strong ever since. In fact, while I was out getting a newspaper from a local convenience store this morning, a woman had to hold on tight to her small son to prevent him from being blown away (two men came to their assistance, moving them to a covered sidewalk). Fortunately, except for a lot of potted plants that have been blown over, there has been very little damage in the neighborhood (so far). During a "lull", I went up to the rooftop of our apartment building and took this video. Despite the relative calmness while I was up there, I still had to hold on tightly to both the camera and my glasses!

Taichū (gesundheit)

Usually I take advantage of my one free weekday afternoon to do some walking in the Tak'eng area, but today I decided to take a break from the outdoors and be a tourist instead, spending a couple of hours walking around downtown T'aichung 台中. Parking my scooter behind Taichung Station 台中車站, I first paid a visit to Stock 20, an area of old railway warehouses that have been converted into an art center. The current installation, Urban Bodies: A collection of art works by Taiwanese and Foreign artistes, was mildly interesting, but admission was free, and it's great to see otherwise-obsolete buildings being put to good use. The old city center in Taichung is declining rapidly despite numerous attempts over the years to revive it (look what's become of Chikuang Street), but there are several excellent examples of Japanese-era architecture still standing, the most obvious of which is the train station, dating from 1917:

Another old building of interest is the former City Hall, then later Bureau of Transportation and Tourism, and now an exhibition hall/gallery, built in 1920. Like Stock 20, it's free to get in, and while the The Eastern Fauvism: Wang Erh-Chang 王爾昌 Commemorate Exhibition was far from a waste of time (the three high school girls there spent a lot of time admiring the nudes), it was the building itself that provided the greatest interest. Kudos to the authorities for not tearing the structure down, and replacing it with a modern monstrosity:

Across the street is Taichung's current City Hall, a newer building from 1924. There have been plans for a number of years to move the seat of government to newer digs away from the downtown area - after all, what self-respecting modern administration can effectively govern from an 85-year old edifice featuring white stone walls, mansard roof and ionic columns? - but for now it's refreshing to see a fine old building not only preserved, but still carrying out its original function. More kudos (see, Cowardly Anonymous Therapy Patient, I don't hate everything about Taiwan!):

Walking away from City Hall, the skies opened up and the rain started to fall. Here's what it looked like while I was walking through Herbal Medicine Street - check out the woman's improvised rain boots:

I was intending on walking over to Taichung Park, but the rain convinced me to save that for the next time I feel like playing tourist.

オリオンビール

A student of mine recently returned to Taiwan from a short trip to Okinawa 沖縄, and presented me with two cans of Orion Beer, a brewery based in Nago 名護 that controls over half of the Okinawan beer market. I've loved Orion ever since I discovered it on my trip to Miyako-jima 宮古島 back in the early Nineties. It isn't easy to find outside of Okinawa, but now I have two cans getting cold in my fridge, and life is pretty good at the moment. Thank you Vivian!

https://www.wishbeer.com/en/pale-lager/4025-orion-draft-beer-can-350ml-50-4962656158312.html

Oh, what the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation could learn from the オリオンビール株式会社 when it comes to producing the nectar of the gods in subtropical climates!