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Photos by MJ Klein

This is the last article in our 2008 US Trip series.  I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this series as much as we’ve enjoying sharing it with you.

In Part Two we showed you the famous Kansai airport in Osaka Japan.  Now, on the return flight we’re going to show you a little of what Detroit’s airport is like.

This is of course, my lovely wife Hui-chen standing on one of the moving walkways.  Detroit is a large airport and it’s a good thing they have these moving walkways, otherwise we would have been completely wiped out getting from one terminal to the other to catch our connecting flight!  We took the same exact route back as we did getting to North Carolina from Taiwan, just in reverse order of course.

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Photos by MJ Klein

For years I’ve been reading about this mysterious place in northern Taiwan, where there are abandoned homes that resemble UFOs.  I’ve always wanted to go there and check it out, and thanks to our good friend Andres, we were able to do so recently.

This Google Earth image shows an overview of the complex.

This is the first view of the pods from the road.  Yes, those are chickens that some people are keeping inside the fence.

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Photos by MJ Klein & Hui-chen

Yeah, I got bent, but not in the typical sense where I go drinking with my friends.  This time my getting “bent” refers to my purchase of a recumbent tricycle.

MJ with Walter, the designer of the recumbent tricycle model shown here – The Artifice

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Photo by MJ Klein

I love to ride bicycles.  The problem is that I am too big for conventional type bikes.  I own a Giant mountain bike, and while where is nothing wrong with the design of the bicycle, I am in quite a bit of pain and discomfort after about 15 minutes on it.  Therefore, I cant ride it for very long.  Plus because I can’t ride for very long, I don’t ride it very often either because it’s not worth the effort to take it out for 15 minutes.  This means that I haven’t been enjoying bicycle riding as much as I would like to because basically I hate riding my diamond frame.  The design just doesn’t make any sense for me.  I want something different.  Something comfortable and something that I can put a lot of distance on and not cause problems that outweigh the health benefits of riding.

My friend Kevin Kao makes recumbent bicycles.  In simple terms, this design allows the rider to recline and pedal with the feet forward (and usually) pedal with the feet roughly at the same height as the hips.  The seat on a recumbent bicycle is actually a seat (as opposed to a saddle on a diamond frame) and is designed to support the riders weight.  The riding positing of the recumbent allows the rider to lay back, in a manner of speaking.  There is no pressure on the handlebars (my main problem) and one doesn’t have to ride hunched over with the neck craning up in order to see ahead (another of my problems).

I’m also too large for nearly all recumbent designs.  Actually, I’m too heavy, I should say.  But, there is one design that I can ride, and it’s an absolutely blast!  Here it is:

This is a recumbent tricycle of a design known as a “tadpole” which refers to 2 wheels up front.

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Hui-chen and I went up to Taipei on Sunday evening to meet up with some bloggers at an informal gathering hosted by Byron, of Textura Design, and Bike Hugger.  It was a nice group of tech types with talk about blogging, politics and of course, technology.  There are other accounts of the event worth reading, and with some great photos:

Darren Melrose Great photos!

IslaFormosa Apparently there was sausage?  I didn’t see any sausage!  I love sausage! Nevermind, smartass (see comments).

Textura Design Thanks for hosting this event Byron!

Taipei Blogger Party Video Thanks Mark!

Taipei Mixer

Now, I have to tell about a funny thing that happened.  There was a giveaway of some cool stuff (technically, called “scwhag).  Byron asked if he could use my hat to put cards into for the drawing.  I had no objection of course (except that my hat was a bit sweaty!).  But I suggested to Byron that I should disqualify myself from the drawings because my hat was being used, and if I were to win the top prize, well, it could be considered a conflict of interest.  Of course, I was joking and Byron laughed it off saying it didn’t matter.

I won the top prize….

Here is the video, embedded for your convenience:

Thanks to Byron and his colleagues for having us!

See you at Blogtoberfest on October 25th!

Photos by MJ Klein

Hui-chen and I were in Nantou and we basically stumbled upon the 921 Memorial Park in Mingjian. Actually it’s not exactly named that, but that is precisely what it is – a park dedicated to the memory of the 921 earthquake. 2,416 lives were lost in the 7.3 magnitude quake that occurred at 01:47 local time. That’s after midnight, folks. I’ve been in quite a few earthquakes, and some of them big enough to be frightening but can you imagine being awakened by a huge earthquake in the middle of the night? Surely the high numbers of people lost were due to the fact that they were home in bed when their building collapsed.

The 921 earthquake has special meaning for me. I first traveled to Taiwan in April of 2000. I visited some sites in Taichung, at the northern end of the fault line and personally saw the destruction and also some of the repair efforts underway. I will never forget looking at a landslide while someone told me that there were several hundred people still unaccounted for, and they were presumed to be buried under the landslide.

This photo is of what is called (in English) the Tilting Electric Tower. It’s a fitting memorial to the earthquake and demonstrates the extend of the damage. This tower is the centerpiece of the park, and I took a short walking tour of the park with the specific goal of reporting on it. So please join me as I take you thorough the park and we get a closer look at it’s features. But first, I want to show you some historical photos I took in 2000.

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Photos by MJ Klein

I was exactly one year ago today that I took this famous photograph:

I think it’s safe for me to say that I do not accept the results of the official investigation: “pilot error.” In every photograph where the position of the rudder is able to be determined, it is in the same position: “left.”

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We are currently experimenting with video comments with the Seesmic plug-in. If you have a cam and a microphone you can leave a video comment on our articles without first having to upload a video to one of the video server sites such as You Tube. Look for the link at the bottom that says “Or add a Video Comment.” Please note that selecting this option will open a small window that make take a little time to load. If you are not registered with Seesmic, you may do so on the fly and immediately begin recording your video comment. Be sure and let us know what you think.

Hat tip to Mark Forman.

Photos by MJ Klein

In Part I, we took a look at the beautiful waters of Wulai, and the downtown tourist and shopping area.  History buffs will know that Wulai has it’s own narrow-gauge rail system, known at the Log Cart.  Please click on the above photo to open a larger size for reading.

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Hui-chen and I were in Kaohsiung very recently, where we learned that the new KRT is open now.  The entire Red Line is operational, and the best part is – this month it’s totally free!