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Photos by MJ Klein

Let me tell you how this happened.  My wife asked me to drive her to Nantou, to a famous temple, which of course, I did.  While we were there, we visited her cousin, who owns a dental clinic there.  Since I have been suffering from a new medical problem that has cropped up, my wife’s cousin was very interested in examining me.  This visit has turned into several visits for followups.  So, without any previous planning, we found ourselves in Nantou on several occasions, and here is what we did on those occasions, broken into segments.  We’d never been to Puli before, so that’s where we decided to go.

Before I forget, clicking on any photo will take you to the Flickr page where you may view or d/l larger sizes.  The vast majority of these photographs are geotagged, as is the article itself.

This is our room on the first night of our stay.  Phoenix just loves traveling (like her parents) and she was very excited to look around the room.

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Photo by MJ Klein

It’s June!  I haven’t even posted anything for May.  That doesn’t mean that nothing has been happening of course. But things are rather routine, which is probably a good thing.  My Sigma lens has stopped working and I need to send it back to the factory for rebuilding.  My 6 year old computer finally got so slow that I broke down and got a new one.  We’re planning a trip back to the USA, and of course we’ll be writing all about that.  Phoenix is growing up so fast.  She is learning new words every day and she’s getting so tall.  That’s about all that’s going on at the moment.  Here’s what the new computer looks like:

This is a 27″ AIO (All In One), running Windows 8.1, Core i7, 16g RAM, 128G SSD, 1TB HDD, Nvidia GEFORCE graphics, Blu-Ray optical drive, USB 3.0, 10 point touchscreen and MSi Military Class II components. This machine boots in 8 seconds and is so fast that I can accidentally delete something before I even realize it’s gone! Built-in SD card reader makes it especially convenient for editing photos in Adobe Lightroom (shown on the screen). This is a special version made for Taiwan with a digital TV tuner and THX audio. Oh, I forgot to add that the screen is non-glare.

This machine has exceeded my expectations and I highly recommend this model and company.

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Photos by MJ Klein

We took Phoenix to the beach here in Taiwan, for the first time.

We had bought her some new toys for playing with sand, and we wanted to show her how to use them.  Once we filled up the wheelbarrow and showed her how to dig in the sand, she started enjoying herself.

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Photos by MJ Klein

Sorry for the light posting of late.  There is a lot going on that I can’t tell you about just yet, but there are some good things in the works that will be coming up soon.  In the meantime, I’d like to share some recent photos of Phoenix, who is growing up so fast!  Enjoy!

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Our friend Craig Ferguson has released a new eBook.  From his website:

Travel Photography Essentials is an eBook designed to get you up and running with travel photography. From beginner level right through to enthusiast this 98 page book was created in response to many requests for such a resource. Within the pages are sections covering basic settings, composition and techniques as well as advice regarding pre-departure preparations. The bulk of the eBook though is taken up with subject oriented advice. Covering a range of common travel photography scenarios including people, landscapes and nature, festivals, city life and more. Rounding things out is a look at image management including basic workflow, monitor calibration and what to do if you think your photographs are good enough to sell.

Travel Photography Essentials eBook is priced at only $15.

As a launch special, from now until February 28 2014, if you use the code travel33 you can get $5 off the purchase price of Travel Photography Essentials.

Here is the link to his site where you can order the eBook: Travel Photography Essentials

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Long-time readers of this blog know that I occasionally go to Taoyuan to hang out with my friends Mr. Lee and Mr. Sun, aka Lee and Paul.  Unfortunately, Mr. Lee passed away several years ago.  Wednesday night I got a call from Paul’s wife, which has never happened before.  My worst fears were realized: Mr. Sun passed away a few days ago, from liver failure.  We had a lot of good times in the past, and like Mr. Lee, he will be missed.  Goodbye my friend.

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Geotagged Photos by MJ Klein, including DUTCH OVEN COOKING PHOTOS!

I left you in the last installment with a shot of this fire pit, and after talking with the campground owner I decided to build a fire in this pit and cook here.  When I rolled down the window as the owner approached our van, he froze and gave me the “foreigner stare” until I spoke Chinese to him.  He said that no Westerner has ever been to this campsite before.  Can’t say that anymore!

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Geotagged photos by MJ Klein

Recently, my wife has developed an interest in camping.  I try to encourage her to experience new things and cultivate new interests, so, we took our camping gear that we’ve acquired over time (at my suggestion) and went camping with her sister (shown here holding Phoenix), Hui-lien.  This is a shot of our tent setup, and our VW van next to it.  Notice the gravel surface.

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Video by MJ Klein

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Dashcam Video

Hui-chen suggested that I post this video.  We were at Costco on Sunday and it was jammed full of people.  Parking spaces were scarce, so naturally when I saw someone leaving, I stopped my car and put on my turn signal to indicate that I wanted the space.  That is an internationally recognized practice.  So, what do you do if a car comes along and the driver refuses to acknowledge your presence and tries to park in the space you want?  This is exactly what happened.  Let me give you a rundown of the video:

As the video starts, I’m driving in the parking lot.  As I slow to a stop, you can see a man on the left side of the screen (near the support column) getting into his van.  I instantly recognized this as a parking opportunity, so I stop and put on my left turn signal.  At 17:07:55 you see his lights blink as he turns off his car alarm.  By this point I’m waiting with my left turn signal on.At 17:08:16 another car passes me on the left, and goes on to park up ahead.  At 17:08:30 another car passes me on the left, sees the van about to leave and pulls up ahead to wait for it.  At around 17:08:40 he’s still stopped, so I honk my horn to indicate my presence and therefore my desire for that parking space, me having been there before he came along.  So, how does he respond?  By pulling further ahead and discharging his wife to walk over and “hold” the space for him.  The van backs out and I pull in.  The wife, standing there, looks at me incredulously.  I roll down the window and she sees my face, and says “sorry” in English.  Believe it or not, her husband ran over in a rage and started berating me for parking there when his wife was holding the space for him!  Then the husband went off on a tirade, telling me that I had been waiting for another space and I was on the left side of the aisle (he denied passing me on the left to get to where he was).  This guy and his wife were apparently totally obvilious to the fact that they passed me with my turn signal on!  They even threatened to post their dashcam video on Facebook and Youtube.   I’ve already posted my to Youtube and now the blog, so I hope to see their video soon, which will only show the fact that they are wrong!

But, You Be The Judge

Here is the video:

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