Photos + Videos

My Videos:

• Baby birds in a nest in Sichuan, China
• Green turtle in a Taiwan aquarium
• Panda in Sichuan, China
• Baby Panda in Sichuan, China
  

My Photos:
Photo of butterfly at a private (paid) garden in Taichung:


Photos of A-Li Shan Mountain in Taiwan, taken on the morning (sunrise) of 10/7, the weekend of the full moon festival. We woke up at 3AM and took an old-fashioned coal burning locomotive up the mountain for about 20 minutes (we were already quite high already), in the darkness to a specific viewing area. I may have lost about 1% of my life due to waiting in line inhaling the smoke for about 40 minutes:

(above right : note the full moon still in view during the day, around 6AM)

A roadside puddle teeming with tadpoles, on the way up Alishan. You can see a few that are actually already morphing into frogs, especially in 2nd picture.

Photos from Sichuan's JiuZhaiGou (yea, that's how they roll in China):



Hualien, Taiwan
Went to this mega-zoo -slash- farm -slash- botanical garden, and Taroko Gorge. You rent golf carts at the zoo, because it's so large. Note the warning sign, which has the fines listed for various types of reckless driving. The ostriches were not healthy, judging from their tails being featherless. That said, they had the largest, and most amazing collection of birds I have ever seen... actually, they probably had one of the widest selection of animals as well... monkeys, cows, goats, poultry...

All you need to know is that his last name is "Bauer":

Doraemon (Ding Dong) racing:

World Trade Center re-construction (L), WTC Cross, March 2004 (R)

BMW cab in Taiwan. Competition's pretty high here, so if you don't have a decent cab, you lose to others. Customers have all the power. This BMer is unusual, though I've seen a few Benz's also; most of the time, I like to take the Asian equivalent of the Nissan Maxima, a Camry, or a minivan (the Wish). It's my opinion that the older the cab, the better/faster the driver, but it also means the dirtier and smellier the interior. Cab driving skills in general have declined, as Taiwan has cameras at most intersections which automatically issue traffic tickets. These guys drive about 15mph sometimes (even at 3AM when there are no cars on the road), which drives me crazy.

Related, the difference between taking a yellow cab and a car service (Benz, Lexus) is only a few hundred NTD (New Taiwan Dollars), which is like $10USD difference at most (FX 1 USD = 32-33 NTD), and a total of $30-40USD for a 1.5 hr ride. Also, for airport pickups, only cabs which have a special license can wait there; they have a lottery every few years for this right. The other option, which is still quite convenient is the numerous airport buses (the big touring types with the big faux-leather seats) which costs about $5USD one way.