Day: July 3, 2004

Taiwan travels

One of the neat features of working here currently is that the company sponsors a yearly outing for individual branches. It just so happens that B- is here with me for a couple of weeks and just in time to join me.

The branch where I’m stationed decided to go to Hsinchu (新竹). This weekend also happened to be the passing of Typhoon Mindulle which passed to the south of us. We in the North and Northeast was pretty lucky and was unscathed. The typhoon warnings didn’t deter the group and we set out via train (Taiwan Railway Administration FYI). The express took 1 hr and we headed over to the Howard Plaza Hotel Hsinchu. Hotel is nice, comparable to a Westin or Marriott – a 5 star business class hotel for Taiwan. Free broadband in the rooms. All and all, very nice accomodations.

Once we checked in we headed to Neiwan, another hour by train. It’s this remote village in the middle of the hills which is just a tourist place. Almost seems it was just created for that because it is so remote. Walked around, sampled the local eats, like sausages, stinky tofu, bubble tea, watermelon slushy and wrapped sticky rice. The weather was cool thanks to the typhoon. Came back and headed straight for buffet dinner.

B- and I are having a great time, it’s nice to see colleagues in a different light. Helping gain acceptance of me as a new person to the company and also as a overseas chinese. Good practicing my spoken Mandarin and starting to become more fluent conversationally. Not to bad for this dude who hated learning Mandarin as a kid and who didn’t speak it for many years as a form of rebellion against the folks.

Tomorrow, another breakfast buffet, visit to another place and then back to Taipei.

Happy Independence Day peeps.

=YC

July begins…

The month begins on an odd note. Saw the Mets v. Yankees game at Shea Friday night, game 1 of another 3. Mets win, 11 to 2. Would have had a lot more fun of it tonight had the rabid Yankee fans (apparently a known rowdy contingent from Yankee Stadium) made way too much raucous and tawdry vulgar chanting, inspiring some retaliating Mets fans to get equally stupid in their (not very creative or clever) chanting. I like a good baseball game, but despise stupidity. Seriously, Rabid Yankee Fan, is using the Dick Cheney expletive to describe the Mets any good, particularly when there are children sitting right behind you? (and if you really want to know what a “Dick Cheney expletive” is, feel free to ask; I can’t even take credit for it, Joe Klein of Time magazine came up with the term in his column this week). I would very much like not to sit behind rabid Yankee fans again if I can avoid it in the future.

Oh, and Mets win. Yeah. No guarantees on what can happen the next two games, but such is life. One step at a time, Mets fans, even if it means some steps backward (which happens way too much with the Mets). Let’s go Mets!

The news from NASA on Saturn sound exciting. So cool this year – Mars and Saturn.

Oh, and I finished reading another book on physics – “The Physics of Star Trek,” a nice, more-or-less-light by physicist Lawrence Krauss. I liked how he explained the time travel paradox – “Can I kill my grandmother before I am born?”; think of it this way – if you did kill Grandma before you were born, then you wouldn’t be born; and yet, you were the one who killed her; so, you had to have been born to even do that; and if you weren’t born to kill her, then she doesn’t die; and then you’re… born. So, for some reason and at some point in time, you exist but you simultaneously…don’t? Well, I can still get confused by the idea of the time paradox.

Anyway, I bought the paperback version of this book way back when, from a lovely secondhand book store in downtown Manhattan’s Nassau St. I recommend the book as a nice subway read. Slight quibble – Krauss’ book is slightly out-of-date, as string theory (as Brian Greene noted in his book) had made some progress (well, short of physical evidence anyway) since the publication of “The Physics of Star Trek.” Krauss also kept referring to Riker of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” as “Lt. Riker” before finally referring him by his correct rank (commander) – although, Krauss may have actually referred to Riker’s clone, who was stuck with the lieutenant rank, so my quibble there may be really silly nitpicking on my part.

Marlon Brando passed away, age 80. He immortalized Stanley Kowalski’s “Stella…” and is always going to be “The Godfather.” Which reminds me. Maybe I ought to watch the Godfather trilogy already? Hmm. Well, another thing to add on the to-do list, along with “really ought to read Harry Potter already.”

Have a nice Independence Weekend…