Taiwan - Longshan Temple

Taiwan - Dahu Park and Bailusi Shan Hiking Trail

Chinese-style arched bridge

Tai Chi in the morning.

Small Temple at the back of Dahu Park.

While walking around Dahu Park I found a interesting looking hiking trail leading into the hills.

Along the trail there were these huge spiders. Really frickin huge, he was probably about 5 or 6 inches across. I would see one and stop to take a photo, then walk a little farther and find one that was even bigger.

The view from near the top of the hill.

Coming back down the hill I slipped on some wet rocks and ended up with this cool souvenir of my trip.

Taiwan - Taipei Zoo

Taipei has a really nice zoo. They do a pretty good job of making the animal enclosures look natural, with lots of room for the animals to move around.

Taiwan - Creative Wiring

Taiwan - Summer Rock Sumit

Another concert, more rain. Three of the bands that played at the Summer Sonic Music Festival in Tokyo played at a smaller music festival at the Taipei County Stadium in Taiwan. And like all the Japanese concerts I went to in the last month, it was poring rain.

The Taiwanese fans looked like they were really enjoying the concert, but they were also much less crazy then at a American or Japanese concert, no crowd-surfing or mosh-pits.

Umbrellas were not allowed in the stadium,
so everyone was leaving their umbrellas in big piles.

The fans ready to rock.

I told them that I was in the band.

Linkin Park

Rockin out to Linkin Park.

Linkin Park

Taiwan - Scooters

One of the things that I was constantly amazed by in the Taiwan was the number of people on scooters. They were everywhere, zipping around and between cars, riding down sidewalks or crowded alleys. And often they were surprisingly overloaded.

At stop lights the scooters fill in all the space between the cars.

The whole family out for a ride; mom, dad, and two kids.

I love the dog, just sitting there like it's completely normal, which I guess it is.

She has so much stuff covering her face that I wonder if she can actually see.

Four in the rain.

He needs to remember not to go zipping between two cars.

I like that the kid in back is strapped to the mom.

This just seems like such a bad idea.

Even the police are on scooters.

Taiwan - I'm in Taipei

I'm in Taipei Taiwan for a week, but getting here turned out to be a pretty crazy series of events.

I woke up early from having a strange dream where I was flying in the Space Shuttle, which wasn't so strange, the strange part was that as we were blasting off, there was some kind of problem and one of the rocket exploded, but the Space Shuttle was able to detach from the rockets and was not too damaged in the explosion. It was a pretty crazy flight but the shuttle was able to land safely. This is not the kind of dream you want to be having the night before you're about to get on an international flight. I was really hoping that I had not developed any kind of supernatural psychic abilities.

Once I was out of bed and getting ready, I was taking a shower when there was a 6.6 mag earthquake about 160 km south of Tokyo. At first I thought that I had just slipped in the shower, but I quickly realized that my whole shower was moving and shaking. I jumped out of the shower and was trying to decide what to do, should I run naked and screaming out of my apartment, down twelve stories and into the street? But before I had a chance to do much the shaking calmed down and stopped.

The Tokyo international airport is is about 60km outside of Tokyo, so to get there you can take a bus or there is a special Narita Express train that goes there. Since I live about a 5 minute walk from Tokyo Station, I decided I was going to take the Narita Express train. I walked to Tokyo Station with my bags and bought my train ticket. As I'm walking to the train platform, I realize that I've forgotten my glasses and all of my bathroom stuff. Since I was pretty early for the train I decide to run back to my apartment to get my stuff. It was a little before 7:00 in the morning, but it was already really hot and humid, so by the time I run to my apartment and back to the train station I'm dripping sweat and my shirt was soaking wet. Even worse was that I got hung up trying to reenter the train station because I had already used the ticket once and unfortunately the time it took to get that sorted out caused me to just miss my train. Lucky the Narita Express runs pretty regularly and the next one was in half an hour, unlucky it turned out to be a longer train ride then I thought it was going to be and I got to the airport about an hour before flight was to take off. Somehow I got checked in, through screening, through immigration and to the gate, which was at the way far end of the terminal, just as the plane was starting to board.

But, so far everything has been going fairly smoothly once I actually arrived in Taipei.

Japan - Summer Sonic Music Festival 2009

This last weekend was the Summer Sonic Music Festival. Like Fuji Rock, it's a three day music festival with many great bands playing on a bunch of different stages. The Summer Sonic Festival takes place just outside of Tokyo in Chiba at the Makuhari Messe Convention Center and Chiba Marine Baseball Stadium, plus several stages around the area. To get to the festival was about a 30 minute train ride from Tokyo Station, so it's a more convenient festival to get to. Like any other big event in Japan there were an amazing number of people and sometimes long lines, but not as bad as the lines at Fuji Rock.

Unfortunately my memory card in my camera died and I lost the photos I had taken on the first two days. But here's some shots from the last day.

Poring rain in the afternoon at the Marine Stadium.
In the evenings for the bigger bands this stadium was packed to bursting.

At one of the side stages the Japanese crowd was going nuts over a Japanese Beyonce

The Makuhari Messe Convention Hall is monstrous, this is just a tiny area of it.
Inside were vender booths several small stages and three large stages.

Limp Bizkit back together

Flaming Lips

Bonus! Strippers at the Jose Cuervo Booth

Not much privacy in the bathrooms at the Marine Stadium

Japan - Tama Zoo - Butterflies

Butterflies at the insectarium at the Tama Zoo.