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Photos by MJ Klein

I’ve been attending Chinese classes at NCTU in Hsinchu.  Recently some of my classmates asked me if I would mind taking them to a place for some good Thai food.  They picked the right person to ask!  A group (which shall remain anonymous in order to protect their academic career) went with me in my car, another in a taxi following, and 2 other friends met us there.  It was an evening to remember!

This was the scene at (what used to be called) “The Blue Sky” (more on this in another article).  Against the wall from L to R is Michael Cannon and Michael Turton.

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Photos by MJ Klein

By the looks of things, this will probably be the last article on the recent makeover in our neighborhood.  If anything else happens I’ll write another article about it and amend it to the series for your convenience.

The way these cars are parked illustrates how much easier it is to park your car for lunch at our local food outlets.  Notice the road has been patched and all traces of the transformers that were in the road have now been cleared.  This was done over the weekend but rain in our area prevented me from going out and getting photos.

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Photos by MJ Klein

It’s hard to believe that November is already 1/2 gone – but it is!  This week was nearly all home style food and very little take-out.  So let’s get right into it.

First up, more steak!  Costco had a special on their ribeye steaks this week so we got a freezer full!  Here are 2 of them on the new gas grill.  If you would like to see what they looked like all nice and cooked, please continue reading!

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Photos by MJ Klein

When Hui-chen and I got back from Kaohsiung on Monday afternoon, I noticed a new set of transformers on the new pad.  The old transformers were still there, so the decision was made to replace them.

By Tuesday, the old transformers were gone.

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Photos by MJ Klein

This weekend, Hui-chen and I were in Kaohsiung for a few days.  I had the opportunity to ride the new KRT system and I noticed something that had escaped me before.  I didn’t cover this in our 2 articles about the KRT during it’s testing period, either.  I was surprised that I missed something as fundamental as this issue.

I’m going to present 3 photos taken previously.  I would like you to click on them and take a look at the large sizes for each one.

This is a photo of one of the maps in a station.  Typical of station maps, it has numbered designations for stations, as well as the station name, both in English and Chinese.

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Photos by MJ Klein

It’s hard to believe that we are week 44 into our year of 2009, but it’s true!  This week was interesting because I was visiting in Taichung and Kaohsiung.  So, let’s get into the food!

This week I had several grilled steak lunches at home.  I never get tired of them, especially those thick, flavorful ribeye steaks from Costco!

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Photos by MJ Klein

Today, I went on another ride with my friend Michael Turton.  We rode the same circuit as we did last time, but this time I had my Nikon with me (it was in the shop last time) and I got some nice photos of the second section of the ride.  I also shot some video with the Gopro Helmet Hero but I’ll have to edit that footage later and then update this article with a link.

My first photo stop was on a bridge with this view.  Wow!

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Photos by MJ Klein

This morning, the road crew was back, hard a work to fix up the road.  I took a few shots from my 4th floor balcony and then went down to the road later to check things out.

In our first shot of the day, we see the asphalt truck (yellow) in the center of the frame, waiting for the little blue mini-dozer to course-grade the asphalt.   The asphalt truck laid down some asphalt and the smaller mini-dozer is smoothing it out (grading) before the actual paving machine comes by.

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Photo by MJ Klein

This article isn’t so much about the ride today as it is about my riding in general.

The other day I learned about a site from Todd, called Bikemap.net.  This site allows one to create bicycle routes (either by plotting them on a map or by uploading GPS file data) and then create ride logs using those created routes.  One of the best things about Bike Maps is that you can search for routes to ride and share your routes with others too.  One of my main complaints is that I often can’t figure out where I should ride to, so I end up going back to places I’ve already been, over and over.  Bike Maps allows me to search for and find routes for areas and distances.  The best part of Bike Maps is that I can download a GPS data file of the route and upload it to my GPS so I can get turn-by-turn navigation on the GPS while riding.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

Today I rode to downtown Hukou, which is something that I try to do every week at least once, for exercise.  I normally park across the street from the train station and eat lunch.  In fact, today’s photo was actually taken last week, but it was the same exact route and I parked in exactly the same spot as I did today, while eating.  Today was no different than any other day that I do this, and normally I don’t bore people with that weekly ride into town, unless something really interesting happens.

This is my Bike Map ride log for today: http://www.bikemap.net/route/339387 I’m going to continue to use Bike Maps and log my rides so you can see where my trike has taken me.

Thanks for reading!  We’re looking forward to your comments and ratings below.

Photos by MJ Klein

More work has been done on the main road in our neighborhood.

This is a shot from across the street from Shao-hui’s restaurant.  This shot shows the step-down transformers on the old pad at the (now demolished) traffic island, and the new pad to where they will be moved soon (yellow and black stripes).

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