And here's the cave I mentioned. A woman called Chi-Oang used to preach to whoever would listen in this cave while 2 guards would stand guard in case the Japanese authorities came along.

We were lucky enough to be put up for free in a Church in the town of Taroko, by a very friendly and interesting Minister there. The story of how the church started is quite amazing involving secret meetings in caves to avoid the Japanese authorities. Currently there are over 300 mountain churches scattered throughout Taiwan serving the 12 or so indigenous tribes that live here. Oh, the photo is simply light reflected off coloured windows in the church.

And here's the beginning of the 'tunnel of nine turns' which is the most spectacular part of the absolutely huge gorge. I'm not sure if the natural scenery or the fact that there is a decent road to see it by is more impressive. Taiwan has some amazing engineering and has put roads in places that other countries wouldn't even attempt.

This is the beginning of the famous Taroko Gorge which is one of the most amazing natural sites I've ever seen.

Bamboo rice is made by putting raw rice and other ingredients in a piece of bamboo, and then boiling the whole thing. To open it up you hit it hard on the ground to split the bamboo open on one side. Tasty and pretty exotic, I guess.

There are some really scenic spots on the way.

Flower soup at Tienshan, close to the end of out journey. It's actually quite tasty.

Rain, rain, rain. Credit to Isabelle for the idea.

Too much mist to see anything but a silhoette.

The blossoms are out, which I guess means it's spring.

Hungry? Maybe you were until you saw this. Yes, it's for real and yes, it's on offer to be eaten at this dodgy restaurant along the way. It was about the size of a cat, although it had large incisors like a rat. Any ideas what it could be?

This was about the last bit of good weather we had. Great view of some spectacular mountians though...

After seeng a friend's pictures of Taiwan's central mountain range, I decided that I was going to see it myself by scooter. So 2 friends of mine set off on a trip from Taichung in the West to Hualien in the east across Taiwan's formidible mountian range. All was good until the weather turned sour on us! We then put our scooters and ourselves on a train from Hualien back to Taichung. So here are some photos of my adventure. Pity about the mist...

This is the same tree a few posts back, but with a long exposure zoom applied to it. Kindof appropriate given the amount of fireworks that are being set off across Taiwan at the moment!

The world's largest butterfly?

And here's another cool one I discovered. This is the long exposure focus trick. You focus correctly then defocus while the shutter is open. You get this jet effect happening as points of light fade larger and larger.

Have I ever mentioned that many Taiwanese people like christmas lights? Well, they do and they're all over the city.

trex

Taichung's Science museum is a great place to get away from the concrete jungle.

Emmie requested this photo (by the way, check out her blog http://emmieintaiwan.blogspot.com for amazing photos), so here it is. I'm singing on the left and John Q is singing with me. In the background is the Kareoke video. He, he, it was fun, but I'm kind of glad it's over now!

What?

Instructions for connecting to the Internet at a nearby hotel, apparantly.

Congratulations to Rob and Dorienne for getting engaged!

My apologies to all those who have been visiting my blog for a while. I'm sure you must be bored with night pictures. I guess it's just due to the fact that I'm only free at night after work and that I think things look so much more interesting after the sun goes down. Anyway, about this photo. Taichung has some really attractive parts and one of them is near a large department store where someone has lined all the trees and the entire one side of the road with Christmas lights. It looks fantastic.

And here are two of my photogenic friends doing a cowboy dance at the banquet.

English translations in Taiwan can be so funny sometimes. This was one of the prizes given away at the banquet. I mean, I understand what it means, but it sounds like something a psychologist should buy from this wording.

Once again, my company had it's yearly banquet extravaganza, complete with lots of hype, money and entertainment.

Help! I have to sing a Taiwanese song in front of about 1000 people on Sunday at my Company's annual banquet extravaganza! The fact that it's meant to be a comedy act isn't much comfort though because the only Taiwanese I know is 'Tee-abo' which means 'I don't understand'. Taiwanese is kind of like a dialect of Mandarin Chinese. So basically the characters are the same, but most of the words are pronounced differently. The little Mandarin I do know doesn't help me one bit. At the moment it's just learning 3 minutes of random sounds. I'm doomed!

My apartment complex management has strung up flashing lights and shiny stuff all over the garden for the Christmas, New Year and Chinese New Year season. This is me.

Taiwanese people love expensive things, and watches are a current hot item. Here's a bad photo of a new watch shop that just opened close to my workplace. There must be at least 1000 watches inside, all of the Rolex/Patek Phillipe/IWC/Handmade-and-ridiculously-expensive type. The capital to stock this shop must have been enormous. I hope they have a good alarm system!

Riding in Dakeng the other day, I encountered this shrine, underneath a tree. Actually these kinds of shrines are really common outside the city. Typically, one can see incense and fruit offered to the idol in the shrine.