Taiwan Mountain Biking

I've slowly started exploring the trails around Taipei and have make a few trips up into the higher elevations of the Central Mountain Range. These trails were never designed for bikes, so riding them has presented both challenges and opportunity for adventure. Essentially, this is mountain biking in its rawest, original form.

City Bikes

When I'm bored I walk around and take pictures of the bikes in Taipei in their various states of disrepair.

People on the Move

30 minutes on a street corner

Chinese New Year Fireworks Festival: Neihu, Taipei

4 hours of total fireworks free-for-all to celebrate the end of Chinese New Year.

Home Sweet Home

Our household effects shipment finally arrived after 2 months at sea, and while still at the mercy of some generic government issue furniture and unsightly couch upholstery the house is starting to come together. Or at least it feels less like a white hotel room and more like a place to call home.

Welcome to Taipei!

“Welcome to Taipei!” was the title of the email I received last spring with information regarding my Taipei move.  Despite going through all the paperwork, consultations, training, planning, packing etc, actually moving to Taipei hardly seemed real until Lee, his mom, Sharron, and Sherman dropped me off at the airport.  It certainly did not seem real that Lee would actually move with me until I hugged him at Taipei International Airport. 

I think it’s still a little surreal.  A friend who has lived here a few years told us the other night that she was jealous of us being just arrived, with everything still new and exciting.  It is exciting.  Things are different, interesting and, obviously, a little overwhelming!  It's clearly a massive change from Wyoming or Vermont.  But there are other things are more familiar – the place that serves western brunch, English in the metro, excellent coffee.  We’re getting more and more comfortable and are excited not only for all the things new and different, but also for all of those things more familiar – a job, a car, maybe a dog!? 

The language barrier is just that, a pretty solid barrier.  Taking two months off to vacation in Wyoming, Africa and the Pacific Northwest didn’t exactly help my Mandarin.  But, my day-to-day skills are improving and Lee is also making progress!  He has, on many occasions, ordered coffee, he can accurately identify the Chinese characters for "exit," and now knows three Chinese words - hello, thank you, and cheers (i.e. finish your glass)!  Good progress.

Nignt Markets

We've been off to a slow start with updates, mostly because I've been trying to find the best format for a simple-to-use text and photo gallery capable template; mostly to no avail. So for now it's embedded Flickr sets until someone suggests a better idea.