Tried to post this on Monday but the interweb had stopped in the morning.
I’m still on holiday but will probably be totally free of technology over the coming days as we travel around parts of Taiwan. This is a little of what we have done so far.
Just back from Taichung where we went for dinner with a and Yilan, where we saw the latern festival. Tomorrow morning going to Hualien for three days.
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| Taiwan in 2009 |
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It’s Bike Week in the UK and locally we had a little Bike Fest, well the local council did. We ended up in the paper talking about how we use our bikes.
You can read the whole article in this pdf.
Also got another call from a different part of Transport for London – this time the people doing the imove campaign and have ended up in their business partner magazine – oh and they gave me a free A-Z.
At work I also started off the IBM team for the London Cycle to Work Challenge that is going on all this month. So far we have about 21 people signed up and Bedfont have been offering free breakfast to anyone that cycles in. So far we have done 928 miles.
Due to a situation at the weekend we were forced to make a decision on the name of our new baby. It’s about time as we were procrastinating and she could have been called baby.
In the end we got down to a short list of three and after one or two other “signs” we made the selection. We never had this trouble with Phoebe… we just picked it and agreed.
We named her Zoe Maia (pronounced MY-ah). I hope she likes it as we all do. Zoe means life and was the name of several Byzantine empresses. Maia is the godness of spring and the month of May is named after her. In Greek mythology, she was the eldest of the Pleiades, the most beautiful and shyest. She is also the goddess of fields. In a cave of Cyllene, Maia became by Zeus the mother of the god Hermes.
I can now take back all the books to the library and delete all the knowledge of name meanings from my brain hard drive.
The journalist that came to interview us last week sent us a few photos he took.
Not sure when this will appear in the local newspaper as I just sent back the last change this morning, but may be sometime in April – I think he said he was commissioned to do a series on transport in the Sutton area for SmarterTravelSutton.
Quick round up of things we have done this week, not much detail as I can’t really be that bothered at the moment.
After the Pingsi Latern festival where we saw the deputy President launch a huge lantern after much struggling on the tiny trains that take you up the mountain. We got to the transfer station and found massive lines of people trying to get train tickets and then on to the platform, but the gate was locked shut and some guy from the train service was whacking it with a spade to try and open it – in typical Taiwanese fashion everyone thought this was a great photo opportunity and grewas taking pictures of the growing crowd and a deranged guy waving a spade around.
When the train finally arrived (40mins late) the rush to get on the train was crushing and we then spent to next 40 mins standing in a over heating carriage as more people attempted to get on the train at the subsequent stops. Was a relief to get to our destination and tuck into some lovely noodles.
The festival was the usual mixture of mild danger and great spectacle as huge clouds of lanterns took of into the sky and fireworks went off all around us. This is unsurprisingly the busiest time of the year for the Taiwanese fire service. Anywa, we got our lantern and wrote our wildest wishes and prayers on it before letting it go into the night sky with thousands of others.
The rest of the week was somewhat quieter. Trips to Sun-Yat Sen memorial hall for the lantern show there – these are the colourful kind of lanterns that stay firmly routed to the ground but depict scenes and made by students, some of which are truly amazing.
That night we also went to Raohe Street night market for a feast of street food. Then the following day to Yingee to look at the ceramics and then back to Longsha6n Temple for a lovely foot massage ($400nts for 40 mins – about 7 pounds UK).
Also this week we went for a lovely sunday lunch at a seafood place that Ping’s sister took us to. We have sashimi, crab, more crab, some fried fish, miso soup and prawns. Was incredibly nice and fresh, in fact all the fish is live as with most seafood resturants in Taiwan, you just select which ones you want to eat from the glass tanks outside.
Today (Wednesday) we are to get a 3D scan on the baby at the hospital where Ping’s sister works but that isn’t until 6pm so we may go to Dansui earlier as it is on the same MRT line. A-ma has just taken Phoebe out to the park with Ling-Ling and Ping has gone for a little walk around the market, so I’m off to read a book for a while.
Before I do though, here is a lovely picture of our Ice Monster dessert from the other night. The thumbnail opens up to a larger picture.
Chinese new year is almost at an end. For the first week here I kept away from the computer, mainly because it is nice to get a rest from something that you use everyday – but also there is a lot going on here.
Although we have had our share of rain it hasn’t put a dampener on the fireworks that go well on into the night and again the next morning at 6am. One day we knew it was going to be quite bad we went to the cinema, something we haven’t done for ages and saw “Alvin and the Chipmunks” which I think I liked more than Phoebe who thought the whole, sitting in the dark stuff, was a bit odd, as well as the talking animals 6 feet high on the screen.
One thing we all really liked was an afternoon at some hot springs in the mountains. There is something nice about sitting in 40oC water while it is about 10oC out of the pool and raining. The view of the mountains also helped.
Other days we have mostly been going to temples to burn incense, in Longshan and Sansia temples, we also went to Fo Guang Shan temple where we were given ginger tea, sweets and dried cheese!
Oh and I also bought a new camera, Olympus FE-280, for taking snaps.
Time for breakfast now.
I found somewhere in London that sells the Bakfiets Cargobike. Velorution.biz are doing business at Great Titchfield St and selling these ones for £1150.
There are some better photos on the workcycles site.
I’d love to have a test ride for a couple of days with one of these, see how they handle. You can get a couple of kids in the box which also has restraints – the long box can take three kids.
It also runs a dynamo light and has a rear rack for other odds and sods – not sure about the rain cover, doesn’t quite go with the retro look somehow but I guess it keeps the little ones dry.
Not something I would ride to work on though 
)
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Spent nearly all day at the hospital yesterday with Phoebe being ill. She was sick over me on Saturday and it continued on Sunday, although at times she seemed to be better. Monday morning brought more of the same.
As we had to go to the hospital anyway and couldn’t get through to the doctor to make an appointment we went into A&E.
This morning Phoebe is up and running around like a mad’en but not eating too much breakfast, so she is getting better.
Apparently there is a wave of sickness going around Sutton right now (gastroenteritis) which is washing machines to work over time.
Some how I have managed to avoid this plague even with the afore mentioned covering.
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Ping went to a friends house the other day and saw a copy of our local free magazine, Sutton Scene… we are on the cover! The picture was taken at this years Move it at the manor event.
It is a shame about Phoebe, she is usually really happy but for whatever reason the photographer managed to take the most miserable picture of her I have ever seen.
There is a larger version of this.. if you dare.
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