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Photos by MJ Klein

Today I spent some time burning out the Dutch ovens for this weekend.  We are attending the Geocaching Woodstock event in Taipei on June 30.  We will camp out overnight and I’m going to cook in the Dutch Ovens, so I needed to burn them out from the last time I used them.  This is what the event is all about:

Intents:1. Cachers who live in middle and southern Taiwan area always come to north and hunt so hurriedly in a day. Mr.X would provide them a chance to stay longer for hunting more. (also welcome other cachers and their family)2. Cachers can bring their family to experience what’s camping in a safe and convenient place.3. Exchange travel bugs & geocoins4. Meet other cachers and say hello.

(GC11ZH Annual Event II: Taipei Woodstock (2007) by Mr. and Mrs. X ; rjt

Here are the Dutch ovens being burned out:

While I was up on the top floor I decided to go up on the roof and check out our layout and then move one of the tables.

This is our roof and one of the 2 tables with umbrellas (one table does not have the umbrella up right now).

I drilled holes in the umbrella frame and installed shackles so I could attach the hold-down rigging to them.

Then I made rigging with regular wooden tension blocks and snap hooks as one would do with tent rigging, to hold the umbrellas in place.

Today I decided to move the picnic style table and to attach the hold-down rigging to the table itself (the base is 15KG so it’s not going anywhere).

This is the table in it’s new position with the rigging attached to the table itself.  Except for the spigot at the right close to the right seat, its a great place utilizing wasted space.  There is a great view of the road from this table now.

View of the other table.  I’m going to move it next time.  The reddish building in the background is the one that 5371 disappeared behind….

We have 4 torches that are filled with anti-mosquito oil.  They look great at night.

Lastly, I want to show you this cool grill table (notice that I did not say “BBQ table!”) that fits around the grill.  The height is adjustable too.  Pretty convenient.

technorati tags:Taiwan, Hukou, table, dutch, oven, umbrella

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Photos by MJ Klein Cross Posted to Bushman’s Asian Food
Up in the mountains at the factory where we do much of our work, Hui-chen and I were invited by Tony Lin to attend a lunch hosted by the elementary school across the road from the factory. The lunch was a party for the 9 graduating student (it’s a small village). We were delighted to attend and enjoy the Hakka style dishes.

Tony (red shirt) is enjoying the food while the school principal eyes the camera.

(more…)

As I had stated in previous posts, recently I had been photographing and videotaping various military exercises. Here is a short video of some helicopters in my neighborhood, including a fly-over by a CH-47:

technorati tags:Taiwan, military, helicopter, CH-47

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Hui-chen and I haven’t been back to Thailand since January. There is too much going on here with our business, and quite frankly with the demonstrations going on there we don’t feel comfortable going back for awhile. Recently I rendered another video from the last time we were in Thailand. We have fond memories of our last visit to Thailand, including this morning when we got up early to find “Auntie” roasting some sticky rice cakes. Auntie is talking in Thai, Hui-chen and I are talking mostly in English and some Chinese too.

This is called “A Cold Thai Morning” (for some reason the sound cuts out momentarily).

technorati tags:Thailand, Khonkaen, video, cooking

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Photos by MJ Klein

We went to Kaoshiang again on the THSR.  While we are big fans of the THR, we must point out:

The cars are dirty!  They must be washed if not for the obvious reason of that it looks embarrasing, but also dirt presents a lot of drag that must be overcome by the train’s motors.

We noticed that many of Taiwan’s waterways are reaching the overflow point.

No wonder, with heavy rains so bad that it forced the train to slow down in some areas.

Check out this shot taken in March.

Compare the water level with this shot taken on June 10.

And lastly, what do you do with those children who just won’t stop staring at you?

You blog them, of course.

technorati tags:Taiwan, HSR, flood, rain

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I ran across this blog today:

Try Thai Food!

The owners Joy and her husband, post Thai recipies to the blog, with videos on You Tube.

Here is a sample recipie:

Sunday, June 10, 2007 ????????? Yum Hoi Crank (Cockle Spicy and Sour Salad) ????????? Yum Hoi Crank (Cockle Spicy and Sour Salad) Prepare: 1 cup cockle (cook and take just the meat) 1/2 cup lemongrass (slice) 1/3 cup mint 4 cloves garlic 5 chili peppers (red and green) 2 tbsp. lemon juice 3 tbsp. fish sauce 2 tbsp. chili paste for Tom Yum 2 tbsp. sliced red onion 1/2 sliced sour mango 3 fried dried chili peppers Cooking Instructions: 1. Ground garlic and chili peppers altogether. 2. In a big bowl, mix cockle, lemongrass, mango, garlic, peppers, lemon juice, fish sauce, and chili paste for Tom Yum. Add sliced red onion and sliced sour mango then mix well. 3. Chili paste for Tom Yum will make it a little bit sweet and sour from mango to go very well with the salad so when you add lemon juice, add some small amount and taste until it is right. 4. Dress the salad with fried dried chili peppers and mint. You may add roasted peanut if you like. I and my friends from university went to the Isaan restaurant by victory monument in Bangkok. We had Yum Hoi Crank (Cockle Spicy and Sour Salad) which is a Bangkok style salad because they add chili paste for Tom Yum in it. It had a sweet taste more than spicy and sour taste. Well, I can say it was not spicy at all. Maybe, we’re from Isaan region so we can taste the difference. I loved that they add a lot of fresh lemongrass and I enjoyed eating the whole thing. I still ate it when everybody stopped…just want to finish the last piece…. haha :p Anyway, I got the lemongrass piece stuck in my throat. Make sure you slice it thinly and take only the young part. Joy \(^v^)/ Labels: Sour and Spicy posted by : ) at 4:31 PM 0 Comments

Try Thai Food!

Of course the fomatting on this snippet sucks. So, check out the blog and see for yourself.

technorati tags:Thai, food

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Photos by MJ Klein
Hui-chen and I traveled to Tainan recently to visit our good friend Mr. Charles Yapp. We also met up with blogger/photographer extraordinarie, Michael Turton.

We’ve taken the HSR quite a few times before, but never to the Tainan station. I’m an experience junkie and thus we have some new photos to show you of the Tainan station. If I ever get around to it, I believe that I have some of the earliest video footage of the HSR and I should upload that somewhere…. but hey, it takes time!

So, let’s get to the photos!

Passengers exiting the platform level, going down the escalator.

Shot of the gates to the platform.

The bottom of the escalator inside the station.

There must be a Mos Burger in every station! Hsinchu and Tainan have them (if memory serves, so does Kaohsiung).

Ticket windows and self-service machines. The station is open and very airy. By the way, if you use the self-service machines to buy tickets and pay cash, all your change will be in coins. We got NT$400 back in NT$50 coins. My pocket was hanging heavy with eight 50s.

Shot of the escalator coming down into the main station.

Remember back when Dan Bloom discovered the fact that the tickets do not make any reference to the Taiwan HSR? Well, the tickets still don’t say HSR or have the symbol on them, but, you can still commemorate your ride on the Taiwan HSR!

I bought this HSR pen from the Hsinchu station 7-11, which carries a supply of the HSR merchandise. The pen cost NT$400 and actually, its a damn good pen. Also, in True Taiwanese Fashion TM, it has a neck lanyard so you can wear it like a mobile phone around your neck.

But wait, when I went to the counter to pay for it, the cashier told me that I get a free gift. Thinking it was something stupid like their current promotion Hello Kitty (grow up, people!) I was pleasantly surprised to have been handed this little item:

The casher casually told me that I could collect all the station stamps in this booklet.

What? The stations have stamps? Yes, they certainly do! Take a look at this scan of my little booklet:

In the upper left is the name of each station printed on a blank page, except for a circle on the right upper side. Supposedly you are only supposed to use one stamp and put it in the circle. However, Hsinchu had 4 different stamps so naturally I had to put each one in my book. I’m such a moron though that I put the lower right hand stamp upside down (yeah, I did look at the stamp before I placed it - I’m a weenie, ok?). I had to ask where the station stamps were located, and I was told that they were at the information counter. They were just sitting there, out in the open. I suppose you could stamp your used ticket, or anything else if you wanted to.
So, the whole ride down to Tainan I was thinking that I could get 2 stations in this single ride, and how I’d missed opportunities in the past, etc. (why do I torture myself over nothing?). When I got to Tainan, I went straight to the information desk and presented my little booklet.

However, at Tainan, they keep their stamps hidden and the person working the desk stamps your book. Humph…. I guess they want to make sure that all the stamps are correctly oriented, i.e. right side up.
guess they want to make sure that all the stamps are correctly oriented, i.e. right side up.

technorati tags:Taiwan, Tainan, HSR, pen, booklet, merchandise

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Dear Readers:

As you recall, recently I’ve been suffering from a medical problem that has taken me away from both photography and blogging. As it turns out, my condition is not serious, although before that determination was made I had to visit the Hukou ER about 01:00 in the morning recently. I sincerely apologize to everyone because I know that the story about my own experience isn’t satisfactory. I still owe you the report on the military investigation. That will be forthcoming soon, I promise. What I haven’t revealed up to this point is that there was also a civilian investigation which took place at my home and in a professional photographic and video investigation laboratory (very much like CSI). I cannot tell you who was involved, but I will share some of the findings of these independent investigators.

Until that time, please continue to read and comment - Hui-chen and I love to hear from all of you. I will post some of the other articles that I put off during the time that 5371 was a hot news item.

Meanwhile, check out the 5371 set on flickr.com. There are a whole lot more photos there now.

Thanks so much everyone.

MJ Klein

technorati tags:Taiwan, 5371, update, apology

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