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.. Check the dates.. latest items are Keelong/Danshui and Hualien ( not blogged about yet)

http://pjmikolsmbp.no-ip.org/PJMikols/Welcome.html

Dinner with the Big Dogs.

Big Dogs =( deans and Professors);
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Well As it goes on Nov 2 I was invited to dinner with the President of NCTU ( my university) Dean of EECE ( my department here), Department head of ECE ( Illinois). and about 15 other high up professors and such including alumni from Korea who were currently in town.

... Leading up to this I was extremely nervous as here I am.. Exchange student who grew up in Kansas and now I'm meeting the big guys from multiple universties who plan to make me a ambassador to get more students to come here in taiwan. ( IDK what the hard sale is "Easy semester..... Everything is cheap.... LOTS OF FUN.... Big Industry for future electronics".. but I am the 3rd student in 5 years to come. ). I somehow end up in the right spot at the right time.

I did manage to bring a Dress shirt and Tie over here so I definately got to put them to good use. I arrived relatively early and got a chance to talk with the president a bit. My favorite part is that Dean Shea (taking his class.. and working in his lab) was all proud and bragging on me to the president. Anyways, It was sure funny as everyone was speaking english except those short conversations between people. I managed to pick up quite a bit of the short talk like "That isn't good..move this guy over there... " It was the first time I've really seen people take a seating arrangement of a group very seriously, and I would say it was successful.

Total there were 18 people and we all sat at a HUGE table. I sat next to a professor from NCTU in the Photonics division. ( I wish I could take a class in it). Also I sat next to Beth, the International relations lady from UIUC ECE department. She was friendly and was really interested as why I came to Taiwan and how to promote this university for other ECE students to come to. ( thinking about giving them my GoCart video to show how much fun we can have... I may make a big mix of my trip into a video.. ). I told her how it really wasnt'difficult not knowing the language as a lot of the students know english anyways and there is a page in the course book directly for students looking for english classes. Besides, I walked her through the menu and showed her that I knew about 1/3 the characters.

As was traditional for the setting wine was poured for everyone and being me I took it easy sip here for politness and not to make a scene.This is probably one of my more expensive meals I've had in my life. Being polite I didn't even want to thnk of the price as We were in the biggest room in the restaruant, But in the last ýear I've started to have more and more expensive dinners, whether it be with important people , or close friends on the last week of an internship. Nice dinners.. are NICE. My favorite moment was when Dean Shea toasted with me, It is just really funny how everyone was so proud I was there and I understand, as the university partnership is only about 5 years old, they see me as progress in the exchange ( total NCTU to UIUC is 124.. total from UIUC to NCTU... 3).

Besides the food, It was really interesting having dinner with them and seeing how everyone gave out their business cards. Very nice to see this so I have an idea how this all goes in the future. I even remet some people that I had met in December. Talking with the gentleman , he said he met some students form UIUC in December, and I told him I was there, he then asked me if I was the one that ate the Fish head ( I couldn't remember... but i think my roomate did at the time.)

At some point I was talking with Beth and she invited me to dinner on Tuesday with them again. ( not the deans and all the professors), This time with Alumni of UIUC. As I only had 1 dress shirt I knew i would have to wash it, but when she was telling me who all was coming ( Basically.. CEOs or important people at a lot of companies in Taiwan/ Asia), I Definitely had to agree. I mean this is why I came to get my name out, meet people, and learn stuff. So Tonight I am off to dinner with them. Should be exciting.


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... Travels continued

THE FIRST PART OF THIS LONG POST IS BELOW this section, it is called "More Traveling"

As mentioned, waking up on Sunday morning was Amazingly restful.

==KeeLung==

we once again headed over to the Food court on the 2nd floor of the Train station.. this time with a bit more confidence of finding it. Sadly when we ordered it took FOREVER for all of us to get our food. I had been to the restaurant before and kinda new what to expect, and mine came right out, Sadly after... 20-30 minutes the next one came out.. then another 5-8 the next (So the first few of us were done by the time the last one got theirs.. ) So that Called for me to explore and find Coffee.. I walked up and was all ready to order in Chinese ( did well) then he asks me in perfect english ( obviously i stick out a bit) "what Size?"( KILLING IT MAN... I WAS TRYING). So i get myself coffee and Linda wanted tea as she was feeling a bit sick. I get back and find that Linda had gotten me a Cream puff ( So fresh.. so good... ) So I was on cloud 9.. Coffee... Cream-puff.. and 10+ hours of sleep.. ON A ROLL.

we thought a bus would make it out there but then we sent our "Southern Taiwanese" diplomat BIG G( 6' 5" dutch guy), to find out about the transportation. He found out that there was a Train and no Busses. ( Good with me, i like trains). So we jumped on the train ( by this time my coffee and creampuff were kicking in) and figured out what we were to do when we got there. Our first adventure was over to the "Fairy Caves".

==Temples==

We arrive at the cave temple and wander through. Not to say it was not impressive, but once you've seen 5 temples.. you seen enough. What was Fun about this temple in particular is that there was a offshoot of a small natural cave ( Small... I BEARLY FIT crouching and hopping through). making it down to the end of a cave was adventurous and i'm sure the other taiwanese visitors were laughing at us big Europeans and Americans fitting through the tunnels.

another interesting thing I saw at this temple is that there was what appeared to be a monk studying. Most other temples just has person to watch and make sure all teh candles are lit. I'll start to take note of which temples do and don't as some are Taoist and other Buddist... ( I'm proably missing some).

after surviving the cave, we walked up what seemed to be hundreds of stairs ( like 50-60 meters vertical.. -ish)and got some great pictures of the harbor. as this is the east coast right on the Pacific Ocean there are a lot of shipping and recieving at this port. But still nice area. At the top there was another temple ( go figure). This one seemed a bit run down but my favorite part of this was a few kids I was talking to. They were 6-8 maybe and i was able to speah a little with them, Tell them I'm american ( not that it's hard to tell I'm different) and that I speak only a little english)... then i motioned to get a picture with them and they were so cute as the just RAN AWAY.. when they came back.. they wanted to see my camera ( feeling they wanted to steal it so i tried to trick them into a picture or few... theives don't like pictures.. ) anyways, they were cute and I kept my camera away.

==to the island==

There is an island which one of the local buses takes you to. It is nice, but it is not obvious that there is a park when you get off the bus. have to walk about 3/4 km to get there. After arriving at the park area the sun was beginning to set and it really had some beautiful pictures of the mountains to the north of us and the ocean breaking against the rocks. ... And when i say breaking against the rocks it was BIG. there were probably about 5-8 foot waves ( probably from the typhoon that bearly missed the island).

This entire area was very beautiful as there were small areas to walk out on and caves into the rocks and such that had small temples in them. Luis ( my roomate) and I got the bright idea to walk off the other side of the small inlet off the ocean. To get to the other side there was a bath across the water( foot or 2 above water) but the real problem was the path starts about 8 feet into the shallow water. I pulled a log over and walked across it onto the path and my Luis followed. not so bad... kinda nice to see that we were going to make it across. we get some pictures then realize that the waves coming in were actually raising the water... soo.. some of the waves would go over the path wer were on.

The path went quite a ways and wrapped around the bend to a different cool area ( with little cubby hole hidouts and such.) while walking over there( in my usual leisurely way) the waives started to pick up and pants got QUITE wet.. "If i'm going to get wet... i'm gonna get a video of it". well.. after the water hit we started running...

While we were wet we climbed up some rocks and got some Marvelous pictures of the area. I need to grab some of them from Luis but it was definately one of the mroe beautiful places I've seen in my life. ( and NO ONE WAS THERE).

Pictures, pictures, pictures.. then we decided to go back and join the others so they don't worry to much about us... sadly the waves had continued to get bigger. Luis takes the caution and puts on his jacket ( over his camera and phone)... I'm pretty reckless and get my camera out to video it again..

the way back we now are able to recognize when the waves are coming in.. and tried to beat it... fortunately I made it without too much water (minus my feet)... Luis wasn't so lucky.. the wave was huge and covered him completely. "here it COMES... wow, made it " i said, then luis in the background " OHHH NOOOO" in his Panamanian accent. he was Soaked. soo, sadly we made it back and got some more pictures but we both were quite wet the rest of the day. My shoes didn't take the wetness so well and really started to smell. the best part of it all is the story of survival and when the rest of the group sees us " oh.. their sweating... a lot.. WAIT.. did you go swimming in the ocean?".

the "sidewalk" into the ocean

==Dinner and travels==

.. made it back to town... smellily ( word?) and tired and grabbed dinner at a night market. some interesting food. Shrimp filled fried bread, Sushi, .. I had a corn dog because it smelled really good and I have no regets ( though Linda was pretty ashamed to know me). It was a really good corn dog whose breading was sweeter than in the US... besides that just travled back to taipei to grab a bus back to school.

==

all in all it was a fantastic weekend with a lot of fun group moments ( lots of random song quotes and singing)... the arrive at home followed by the stripping of wet clothes may have been the perfect end.

More Traveling

So on Friday, Oct. 23 we decided that there was a typhoon coming and that it was probably not a good idea to head south ( because it was sitting RIGHT between taiwan and the Philippines). So we headed NORTH ( ish) to Taipei. We visited a lot and a lot of this post will be described and narrated by photos( once again).

( just a side note, Once my computer is back ( or once I get a Sudo Server figured out, all the pictures from me and my Travel mates can be viewed at : http://pjmikolsmbp.no-ip.org/

I have set up a nice Website interface and can easily scroll through the photos and such. If i had a server set up I would probably post my blog there)... BUT as i didn't think about setting up a Cheap server in Illinois before i left ( and the fact that it would take a while to upload A LOT of pictures and movies... i'll survive))

OK So saturday morning we get on the Bus to Taipei at ~ 10 Am.. Naturally i get to bed ~3 so I am DEAD tired, But i also knew that the bus ride to taipei is ~70 minutes so I took advantage and slept. After arriving we check into the Hostel " Happy Family 2". Cheap place ~ 12 USD$... yeah.. Cheap.

Our first adventure is off to find food. We know we have to some how get under a road via subway sidewalks and get up on the other side to the food court. ( as I hadn't been to the hostel before i assumed our leader knew where he was going.. so we went down about 3 stories into a dead end parking garage... it sure is nice to be follower and be able to complain). We finally make it to a tunnel where I knew the way to the food ( Ha, of course i scope out the food) So i lead the way to food. We ate ... and it was GOOD. As the food court is a HUGE one in the train/ bus/ High Speed Rail/ Subway terminals we took the subway to our First museum of the day..

==228==

(What kind of a name is that?).. well it made sense after a while. 228 marks February 28 (OHHHHHhhhh) when there was a big Political revolt in 1947. It was interesting because Taiwan had been under control of China/ Japan until about then and everyone took a big uprising into politics to take over.

One thing that really caught me by surprise is how there were murders of people for no apparent reason. There is a memorial room where names of a bunch of people from different regions were all posted. No one knows the exact number of deaths because of the great break in communications and documentation, but an estimate of 1992 is that roughly 20,000 people were killed affecting a large portion of Taiwan ( affects go until today. There are still living survivors.)

there was a beautiful monument at the center of the park

Then we walked around to another meuseum in the same park ( comment... both were 10 NT.. which is equivialent to about 0.30$USD... so we had a cheap morning). it was the National Taiwan Museum. this museum had artifacts and maps al the way back to the 15 and 1600s when deutch cartographers where mapping the world( quite something to see how they looked.)

There were tribal artifacts and everything from the Birds , aquatic life.. and even a seasonal Darwin exhibit ( I didn't know that Darwin could be Seasonal). There were interesting aspects of how Taiwan is an island that probably broke off from the mainland China. Which means that a long time ago there was a definite split of how the ecosystems evolved. This was very interesting to see how some slight differences had survived. ( DARN MOSQUITOS HERE ARE BIG).

Pictures from Inside and out: ( found a few cool animals .. THE SQUIRRELS ARE BEASTLY HUGE HERE)

==Dan Shui==

Then We had a bright idea.. Not too much rain.. lets go to Dan Shui ( I've been here before when I came to Taiwan, but Now that i'd been there i was all for it. )

To get to Dan Shui is Really easy... take a metro to the end of the line ( OH.. BTW, Dan Shui means Clear Water ( when translated)... So you know it is a beautiful place.

The dutch guys are History majors ( It sure is nice to take History people along with you because they are REALLY excited to see historical things). .. OK the dutch guys wanted to see the dutch fort at dan Shui. Soo, we walked along the coast for a ways then cut up some back alleys into the city and found the place...

Walking a long the coast was SURE exciting. Like all places in Taiwan, each place has their own delicacy and specialty. In dan Shui.. They have Fish balls, "iron eggs", and some Fancy Ice Cream. The Fish balls I had last time I was in town so I skipped. the Ice-cream... was... Insane (Picture may fallow later, it's on my roommates camera)I ordered a Large.. I mean for USD 0.60 How big can it bet?

So our kids in us got the best us ... Big G got all anxious and used his as a "dagger".. and my was the "Saber".. fortunately I started eating mine right after we got pictures ( and some of the Taiwanese took Goofy pictures of us... yes, they love foreigners)Big G lost control and his dagger fell to the ground in Epic Fail.. because catching the ice cream in a hand is worse than letting it fall.. he was sad.

continuing down the way we found a Beautiful sunset over the ocean. One thing that really amazes me about sunsets here is that they Go SOO quick. Perhaps it is because I rarely watch sunsets in KS and IL, but even still, in CA I watched a few over the ocean during the summer and they seemed to go slow. Here it is up.. then Down about 10 minutes later.

After the sunset we wandered out way into the Dutch/Japanese/other fort. As it was now getting dark quick we got free entrance and got some quick pictures. SOO many photos looked good on our cameras but really turned out fuzzy when looked at on computers. Sadness. It sure was funny to walk through and see some Flat Panel displays in there... ( gotta pop a joke how these Definitely were authentic to the Era).

Walking back to the Metro station from the Fort we wanted dinner, so the first time someoneon complained that i wasn't looking for a spot, I took 10 more steps Turned and said THERE.. we are eating THERE. It turned out Good, we got some breaded things, Rice noodles, and other things. I think it was the first time much of the group had eaten in a shop like that because we just walked in to the back, sat down at a table, then came up front and ordered some food. It was nice to just look at the menu and eventually get down to saying 1 of everything. and 2 of that. As I now know how to speak money amounts, the "lou Ban" (shop owner)said to me "二白三十塊“ and you hand him 230 NT.. and it's all good.

after dinner we continue down our trail back to the station and see the Market on the way. I finally talked to my first Caucasian person on a random street. Obviously we all know that they arEn't locals, but it just doesn't commonly happen to talk to them. It was a nice couple from California Mid 40s who travel there every 6 months or so to teach a class in Taipei.. Nice to talk to them for a short time...

==After Dinner Sat.==

Then we made it back on the metro and my Roommate Luis had a brilliant Idea.. LETS GO TO A FARRIS WHEEL.. that takes 17 minutes to make 1 revolution.. that is based 6 Stories HIGH...

... All of us were pretty nonchalant and decided YEAH.. lets do it.

unfortunately while looking at the map we couldn't find how to get there via metro so we had to take a Taxi ( hard to Do..) We finally managed then figured out THE METRO DOES GO THERE ( even though we made a short detour to the wrong park at first. ( got some COOL pictures of a bridge and People doing night fishing out there).

So the Ferris wheel was pretty high up. I don't think the rest of the group really appreciated the engineering that goes into something like that.. it really was fantastic. as we went at night there were not to man great pictures as the cabin was always moving and such. But we got some. I would like to go during day sometime.

Back at the Hostel a few of us crashed immediately and were tired, a few of us chilled out, watch a movie with one of the residents. ( Watching movies on TV are awesome because it really gets you to look at your Chinese subtitles and see what you know.)As 4/4 people all knew english well, we all threw phrases off each other asking what certain characters were/ ment. it was nice.

after a long day.. we crashed... and slept on Mattresses that were AMAZING( OK so our school mattresses are about 1 inch of stuffing. so I make up for it with some really comfy pillows. )But having a good mattress again was fantastic. The shortest that anyone slept was 10 hours.

... as this is such a long post... I will break for Comments, Rest is below...

Computer Troubles.

OK, so my blog has lacked a bit of detail in the last few weeks, especially with all the exciting things that have happened. So Here is a brief to hold you over till I can get enough computer time to actually get stuff typed up.

About a week ago I was being a good kid and doing my usual Computer maintenance(Cocktail/ Onyx), Putting up a website on my computer(Pictures/ trip to taiwan)... Try to make stuff more secure ( private/ Public key RSA). Somewhere in the mix of all this My screen goes black momentarily and the Video freezes on my computer. OK No big deal I do the one finger fix ( Hold down the power button) and all seems ok. The next day i get a Few Kernel Panics ( Grey screen on the mac.. Equivalent to the BSOD( Blue screen of Death for you windows People)).

OK, so i've been doing a lot, No Biggie??

My friend the black screen came back and it continued to freak out... NOT GOOD. I figured while it was not working I might as well try and SSH ( remotely login to my computer via command line and see if it responds) it spoke to me OK.. and restarted just fine so i figured it was just the graphics.

as it continued to increase in frequency of about 10x in 2 days I really started to get concerned. I did another Cocktail clean up of my computer and it seemed to work for about 20 hours. Then i got fed up and made the ultimate threat. " I"LL TAKE YOU TO THE APPLE STORE".. ( I think it's smarter than i because it knows there is no APPLE STORE in Taiwan). So it continued and I took it into the "apple certified reseller". One of the times the screen was flashing and i happened to take a video of it, so i took it into the store and they saw the video and knew what the problem was. FORTUNATELY, the lady there spoke english very well and didn't have to many problems communicating my issues. The saw I had warranty on it still ( after some hand gestures) and shipped it off to Taipei. This was Yesterday ( tuesday afternoon). I asked how long is estimated for repair and she said 2 weeks. I didn't believer her but Imagine a ECE student from ILLINOIS without a computer... It's like being naked in the Amazon...

To top it all off.. after I took it in i realized the video that demonstrated the problem is on my Username on the computer ( behind passwords)... and if the Apple Tech guy wants to boot up to try and do anything to my computer.. he will need a password because I have implemented ways to block out the ordinary hackers... I sure hope they are smarter than I think they are so they break into my computer.

.. If you REALLY want to follow my computer status... here is the website they gave me :

http://www.growing.tw/customer/lookupr.php?no=23306

I will be trying to get some updates about my trip to Dan Shui, KeeLung, and Taipei in.. kinda depends if i can get the pictures and time on computers. they may be separate posts.

Note: video screen flashing ... IS BAD

To the Mountains-Neiwan

NEIWAN

On Saturday "the Gang" headed out to Neiwan. We got started early because Linda's cousin was coming down for the day. She arrived about 9:45. SO, we headed out. The sad story is that the Train from Downtown to the Neiwan was under construction so we had to find the bus. Finding the bus was it's own fiasco, but after Ya-Ru( Linda's cousin from Taipei) arrived she happily helped us find it ( it's nice to have someone that can communicated).

After getting on the bus.. to the train.. to neiwan.. ( long trip). On the Train, I sat next to some really nice Taiwanese people. It started when they took a picture of me( With out me looking... Kinda strange). It's funny how much I didn't realize that people really do look at us Foreigners. It's even worse when your walking around with Jeroen G who is 6' 5" or so. All the people see him and walk up and say " Gao" ( aka Tall). It's really funny.

walking through the markets we got to try unique foods to the region. It is really interesting to go places and see new stuff that you really don't know.

After walking through the market we found a GoCart( Who know they would have Go Carts in the mountains in the middle of no where. ) I made a Video of the Go Carts... and it was sure fun.. Take a look.

I've Decided to leave my Full Resolution Video for the blog. SOO, it is Hosted on my computer. ( which may not always be connected... Check Back later if the video is not available).

Large:

Neiwan_GoCart[640x48..>

Medium:

Neiwan_GoCart[480x36..>

If nothing else, a old version is on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/user/Turifiorito#p/a

After the Go Carts we made it over and walked to the Hot Spring Spa.. thing. Found some awesomely big fish ( 14+ Inches)

.. And Flying Kids...

.. and this was just cute at the local Temple...

made it back down the mountain safe ( took a nap). Ya-ru hadn't seen Linda's campus and room yet, so we made it back to Campus ... etc. We needed something to do that night so we Ran out and saw "surrogate".. Movie is good enough.

STORMS!!

well, it's difficult to catch pictures of wind... and earthquakes

soo... the typhoon is coming ( sorta) I don't really believe it's going to head this way.. but we sure have had some strong winds.( about 30 with gusts to 60MPH). As this weekend was the Moon Festival ( described to me to be like Thanksgiving... big family get together) so the campus was empty. So as we all were hanging out on a Saturday night ( with heavy winds).. we get an Earthquake. it was centered a few hundred miles away but we still got a nice shake. We got another earthquake on Sunday night when we were watching a movie.

It is strange to be sitting and the couch just starts to shake... you kinda look around at the other people who are kinda tired and not sure if it was an earthquake or just the guy behind them kicking the couch.

It sure is nice that the typhoon system brought rain which has cooled down the temperature (FINALLY!!). With all the hype of the typhoon, it was important to stock up on food soo, I stopped out picked up some Ramen ( it's a lot better over here), and fruit. the Fruit over here is amazing, ... Dragon fruit... Guava... Water apples... ALL IS GOOD. Soo now i've got food everywhere... No complaints.