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This is the smoker that I had made in Thailand a few months ago. Its going along nicely, cranking out just the right amount of smoke. Since the last time I used it, some improvements have been made at the resort, including this little covered patio.

This is 6KG of pork ribs that I smoked. Since Thai people don’t eat ribs like these, I had to ask the butcher to do a cut for me with the meat on the bones. At the resort, the Thai people were snickering while watching me cook on this strange machine, but they were duly impressed with the results.

I want to point out that this is true BBQ, and not grilling – which is what most people think is BBQ. The wood is in the firebox on the side and the meat is not directly over the heat source. The hot smoke cooks the food at a low temperature. These ribs were so juicy that my Thai hosts could not believe it. This is because nearly every other cooking method tends to dry out the meat.

While driving down the highway yesterday on this motorcycle,

someone decided to just pull to the side of the road, without signaling or even looking around to see if anyone was behind them approaching. Now, I could go on about how Asian people are the most tunnel-visioned people on Earth, who almost never look around to make sure the way is clear when they enter a new space, but I won’?t waste my time because it just won’?t do any good. Just bear in mind that when you are in Asia, no one will look before pulling out into traffic, changing lanes or stopping. Hell, if a couple will break out into a fight in a restaurant while standing right next to your table, completely oblivious to your presence, you can count on them not noticing your approach from behind or to the side.

I was going about 60 KPH and immediately jammed the brakes full on, locking up the wheels. I slammed into the moron at about 30 KPH and I went down like a sack of potatoes. I must be tougher than I thought because the only damage to my body was a slight case of road rash on my arm, and a bruised toe. The damage to the motorcycle amounted to $1,385 Thai baht.

This shot shows the scraped up mirror, which was not replaced.

My arm.

My bruised toe. Does this look broken to you? I don’?t think it is because I can walk OK. Funny but after wearing my sandals for a week, I decided to put on my shoes that morning. 2 hours later I was tasting payment. If I hadn’t been wearing the shoes my foot would have been badly injured.

This is what I am really upset about. My good Taiwanese shoes got scuffed up bad! I am pissed about that!

The Thai guy who caused the wreck was of course, very polite and picked the motorcycle up off of me while I laid on the pavement for a few minutes to assess my injuries. He was apologetic and all smiles, while I told him in English that he deserved a good ass whooping for that maneuver.

People tell me to look out for bird flu in Thailand. It’?s the motorcycle drivers that will get you!

Shot in Bangkok, this DJ is on FM radio and simulcasting on TV from the studio. He puts on a little show for the TV audience which consists of stupid dancing. You can also frequently see him making gestures towards the camera when on the telephone with callers (presumably female), apparently forgetting that the entire nation of Thailand can see what he is doing, as the show is syndicated on cable. This video was shot off of the television monitor, so I apologize for the black sync lines.

I can’t believe that its been four months since I posted the “Coming Soon” preview to this entry. It just goes to show you how fast time seems to be moving. Since that time I have been in Thailand twice and cancelled our trip to Singapore this week. I’ll be going back to Thailand next week but that’s another story altogether!

First, to recap the previous post and give you the details of the shots:

Hui-Chen and MJ at the Black Dragon River, on the China/Russia border in the far northeast. I was here last year and took a solitary photo, but this time Hui-Chen got to join me. The Heilongjiang is the area of China that recently suffered a chemical plant explosion and a coal mine explosion. We ate fish from this river that later carried a toxic chemical spill into the Russian Republic. Timing is everything!

Hui-Chen The China Factory Worker! We were working in an iron foundry, developing a new product. They gave us these factory clothes to put on over our street clothes for protection and I just couldn’t resist snapping this shot!

The beautiful Hui-Chen on Kowloon, with Hong Kong Island in the background. You see this kind of shot in the movies a lot, and now you know that its taken from Kowloon and not Hong Kong. “Kowloon” is a Cantonese pronunciation of “nine dragon” which is the actual name of the place.

Lovely Hui-Chen on the south side of Hong Kong Island. You seldom see this side in the movies, but here it is. Unfortunately there isn’t as much to see on this side. Its still cool though, and worth the trip up to the top of the mountain. The ride up is very scenic.

Now, for the new shots:

To get across from Kowloon to HK Island, one can take many of the inexpensive ferries across the harbor. They run very frequently.

Some of HK’s famous high-rise apartment buildings on the way to/from the airport to the city. When there isn’t much ground space, you have only one direction in which to build: UP! Consequently, HK engineers are very experienced in the design and construction of tall buildings. Some of the apartments make me dizzy looking at them.

This area has one of the largest shipping ports in the world. The number of containers is staggering.

On the road into the city, you can see the “Golden Gate Bridge of Asia.” This shot was taken on the way back to the airport from HK.

This bridge is actually longer than the Golden Gate, and as you can see, has several sections. Its very beautiful in person and photos don’t do it justice.

Another shot of the bridge, taken out of the window of a double-decker bus on the highway, as we were leaving HK.

The view on the bridge, from the double-decker bus.

The entire time we were on the double-decker bus, I had to dodge this moron, who was blocking my view and preventing me from taking photographs because he was using his mobile camera phone. Why do people do that? Don’t they get it? He was actually shooting video with it. How the hell is he going to show it to anyone? I’m sorry to say but, things like this can really ruin a trip for me. His pal was yelling on his mobile phone the entire way. I think he was speaking Farci.

Hui-Chen snapped this shot of Nathan Road in Kowloon. Nearby is a really nice night market. Good prices and great food.

HK airport is one of the busiest in the world. Here you can see the food emporium on the upper level, and duty-free shopping on the lower level. They have just about anything and everything here.

This is a pan of HK taken from Kowloon. Its impressive!

This is Hegang, China, in the Heilongjiang (Black Dragon Province). The city is powered by coal and here you can see the coal dust and steam rising in the background. The streets are lit mostly by fluorescent lights on trees.

Walking around at night, we felt pretty safe. Just one year ago I was told that I could not go outside by myself. On this evening, Hui-Chen and I walked around and talked with some of the local people who assumed that I was Russian (since the border is nearby). Many people were incredulous to learn that I am an American, as they had never met one before.

This is Hui-Chen with a stone that was handled by the Black Dragon according to legend. This rock has some strange impressions that certainly look like claw marks! The Black Dragon has long white hair and a white beard. There is a representation of him in the Black Dragon temple near this rock. Many people were pointing to me that day and commenting. I wonder why….

Outside of the highly publicized industrial areas, China is mostly rural with a pretty low standard of living compared to the rest of the world. The Taiwanese people who were with me on this trip laughed out loud when they saw this truck. They spoke in English and told me that Taiwan had trucks like this 30 years ago. They didn’t want to embarrass our Chinese hosts so they did not say this in to me in Chinese. No matter what you’ve read folks, China is light-years behind Taiwan and the rest of the world.

Many people drive little cars like this one. Hey, its better than a motorcycle, and this qualifies the owner as “rich.” Many of these 3 wheelers are taxis.

Just when I post my story on Taipei 101, a leading Taiwanese scientist asserts that the World’s Tallest Building may actually be causing earthquakes. Amazing story!

This shot of Taipei 101 was taken from Dasi, and shows Bade in the very near foreground, Taoyuan City in the middle, and finally Taipei City surrounding the World’s Tallest Building.

Currently the world’s tallest building, on a clear day Taipei 101 can be seen from as far away as central Taiwan. There is a mountain near my home in Hukou from where Taipei 101 can be seen. This is comparable with what one can see from Taipei 101.

What I really want to show you is the inside of this marvel, and what the view looks like while you enjoy the fact that you are standing inside the World’s Tallest Building.

Just give up your ID card for awhile and you can get one of these audio players for free. Guided audio tours are available in 7 languages and I highly suggest that you get one; otherwise you probably will not know what the heck you are looking at. The ID card is just a deposit to make sure they get the player back. The inside observation deck is divided into numbered sections. All you have to do is playback the audio recording for that section and look out the window. Hui-Chen demonstrates how easy it is to follow along with the narrator.

Hui-Chen is standing in front of one of the windows on the indoor observation deck. As you can see for yourself, Taipei 101 is a very tall building. Its pretty weird to be standing inside a building and seeing aircraft flying below you, but truth be told, we were above the departure and approach altitude of Songshan airport.

The amount of detail that one can observe from this height is astounding. Even through the glass windows of the inside observation deck you can resolve some very good images using a good zoom lens.

The walls are not just straight and flat. There are corners and nooks from which to look. There is a bit of a green hue to everything though, due to the coloration of the windows. I am not going to discuss the bamboo theme.

Since living in Taiwan, I have become very sensitive to the movement of the firmament underneath my feet, whether Terra Firma herself, or some building. The entire time I was in Taipei 101′s indoor observation deck I felt it moving, although very subtly. Hui-Chen thought I was paranoid at first but later she admitted that on a few occasions she thought she felt it move too. Movement of this type is completely normal in such a structure (even desirable to some degree) but absolutely unavoidable, desired or not. The trick is to somehow stabilize the structure, allowing it to move necessarily, while limiting such movement to within specified parameters. The solution employed in the Taipei 101 design is a tuned mass dampener. If you’ve heretofore been unable to understand what that is, or how it works, please allow me to explain it very simply.

Thanks to the engineers at Nikon, we can see that the tuned mass dampener itself is nothing more than a huge ball of metal suspended by 4 groups of cables. This ball is suspended in mid-air within the building’s central core. Its literally a space near the top of the building, right in the central axis. Imagine how difficult it would be to move this sucker. You could push with all of your might and it wouldn’t budge. Newtonian principles dictate that this huge ball will tend to stay right where it is and will not move unless acted upon it by external forces. Even when acted upon by such external forces, this ball will certainly resist movement. It would take a great deal of force to move such a great weight.

Now, given the fact that the ball doesn’t want to move, let’s now consider that the ball is connected to the structure of the building through giant dampeners – in other words, super shock absorbers. As the building moves (because of forces upon it such as high winds or earthquakes) the building will push against this ball that is suspended within its central core. The building itself will move and the shock absorbers push against this huge ball. The energy of the building movement will be transferred to the ball through the compression of the shock absorbers in the same way that the energy from bumps in the road is transferred to the frame of your car through the shock absorbers. The result is a more stable ride, no matter if you are sitting in a seat in your car, or standing hundreds of meters above the ground in a building. Its a very ingenious design. I suggest that you do some research on it yourself to learn more.

What I did not know about Taipei 101 is that it also has an outdoor observation deck! You walk up 2 flights from the indoor observation deck on the 89th floor to the 91st floor, 390 meters high!

The outdoor observation deck is protected from high winds by a set of stainless steel baffles which surround the circular deck, tangentially. You can look directly out through the baffles which are virtually parallel at any point. In this view we are seeing the baffles mostly side-on so it looks like a ring of steel.

Looking up we see the last few floors of this wonder of engineering, and then the radio mast.

It doesn’t get any higher for us folks, unless we have specific business that takes us up into the last 10 floors or so. Needless to say, this is high enough, thank you!

I hope you have enjoyed my view of Taipei 101. I welcome your questions and comments.

I’ve talked about our friend Mr. Gan, who runs the local tea shop here in Hukou before. A few evenings ago Hui-Chen and I were in his shop once again, and this time I bought a very unusual teapot from him. Here is the story:

The teapot was made in Japan more than 20 years ago by a master craftsman that Mr. Gan knew personally. This teapot was made as an experiment to discover whether or not a pot could be successfully made using an interesting method of combining different colored clay materials together to get the resulting swirled look shown in the accompanying photographs. The answer of course is “yes” and that the master was successful. The interesting aspect is that the master only made one teapot like this, and only a handful of others that appear similar with the swirled pattern look but different in design. Why there aren’t many like this certainly is a mystery to me, since it looks so attractive. Mr. Gan held onto this teapot for 20 years without selling it, and he only agreed to sell it to me because (he says) I am one of the few people who can appreciate what it really is. Let’s take a look at this amazing piece!

This is the teapot! As I said, its Japanese and the design is totally Japanese, with the grip-type handle oriented 90 degrees from the spout. This teapot is absolutely beautiful when seen by eye and no photograph can do it justice!

The cover design seemingly violates the known criteria for a superior design, however the top fits so securely that when you cover the vent hole with your finger and blow into the spout while holding down the cover, you will discover that the teapot is nearly airtight. This is a normal criteria when choosing a teapot. The lid has a very small interior rim, but this cover is designed to fit inside the pot rim, not on top as with Chinese designs. When pouring, one puts their finger on the cover and holds the handle. This pot pours like a dream.

Also, see how wide mouthed this pot is? No spilling any tea while filling this pot!

Notice the bottom of the pot where you can clearly see how the materials were mixed. Mr. Gan says that only top quality clays were used, and he has some pieces of broken unsuccessful previous attempts (he keeps such pieces for material studies). I examined the broken pieces of this material and he is right – it is of the highest quality clay you can find in Japan for teapot construction.

Here is a closeup of the back of the teapot, showing the stunning swirling effect. Like I said, it looks so much better in person than in any photograph! You can just imagine how pleasant it looks.

Here is another shot showing how it looks from the “working side” – the side that you pour it from.

The opposite side of the teapot is just as beautiful. I love how the spout and handles have contrasting swirls. This is a very beautiful piece of art, and it also happens to make very excellent oolong tea!

The small imperfections in the execution and finish only add to its value. This is a one-off piece, hand made by a master craftsman.

My only fear is that this beautiful pot will somehow get damaged. I don’t dare put it on any shelf or display as I have had things fall off shelves from earthquakes. I leave it in the safest place I can think of: right on the tea service where it is protected.

So, what do you think of my new teapot?