At what point does a blog become just a website?... (and a rarely updated one at that!)

I’m not qualified to answer, but I do know that it’s the better part of a year since my last post here… but I’m driven back by a recent change in venue.  In October of 2015 we moved to Busan, Republic of Korea - South Korea, that is.  So I thought it was time to share…  

Our nearly 3 years in Taiwan were all great; it was very hard to leave behind a wonderful community of friends and the home we built there - to say nothing of all of the great roads to bicycle.  But, as with Taiwan, this was too good of an opportunity to pass up, so here we are.

We're fortunate that there are many great folks here too, and we know we have loads of fun new experiences and  challenges ahead - not the least of which is a new language to learn. 

My abilities in Mandarin were such that I could handle getting around via taxi and navigating basic dealings in stores etc, but even with that low level as the height of my learning, it’s still tough to be back to zero here! (though as with Taiwan, there are many people around who speak English, and because of the number of foreigners who live in our area, there is much listed in English, so it's pretty easy to navigate day to day without knowing Korean)

Mandarin has some steep hills to climb up front, the tonal component for one.  Then there’s the character set which is tremendously large and complicated making any reading or writing daunting. 

Korean has the advantage of using a pretty straightforward alphabet with letters/syllables and word structure vs the characters and character combinations of Chinese.  Even at my rudimentary level with the alphabet I can, at a very, very basic level read signs/menus here, and this is already way more connection to written language than I ever had in Taiwan.   So score one for Korean…

Where  Korean gets tough is grammar, syntax, word order, verb conjugation, and word endings based on with whom one is speaking.   Despite Mandarin’s aforementioned complexity, for basic communication of ideas/needs/questions, in form and grammar, it's pretty straightforward and consistent.  Learning Korean with all of the finer details gives me sympathy for those learning English as a second language - all of our twitchy exceptions to ‘rules’, different letter combinations that make the same sounds at times but not others,  noun pronoun verb shifts/conjugations and the complexity and inconsistencies often involved.  Fortunately I have a great teacher and so far it’s a fun challenge.

Busan is the second largest city in the ROK, located on the extreme Southeastern edge of the peninsula.   On a clear day you can see the Japanese island in the Korea Strait.  And the  Japanese city of Fukuoka on Kyushu is a very short trip away - reachable by high speed ferry in a few hours or a 35 minute or so flight.

You can find Busan to the lower right part of Korea helpfully indicated by the letters saying 'Busan'

We live in a part of Busan called Haeundae, known for its famous tourist beach.  I was here last summer for a visit when it looked like this.  I think people flock here from all over Korea to rent a little slice of paradise on the beach… summer might be a good time for us to go visit Seoul while everyone from there is here!

Compared to some photos I've seen, this one appears to be before the real crowds showed up. There is way too much sand and water visible!

We live in an enormous complex on the 65th story.

That's our building on the left.

Here is the complex from much farther away from the other side.  The crowded beach in the previous photo is located a few hundred meters behind my back from where I took this photo. Our building from this view is the middle of the three tallest ones in the right background of this group.   Biggest of the trio of buildings in our complex is over 80 stories tall.

These are photos taken from our living room and overlap/stitch together to show most all of the 180 degree view we have, focused on Jangsan, the mountain you see.   There is a great trail network all over the mountain.  We're fortunate to have a trail head very close to us - it’s a great spot to get back into running.  It’s hard for me to get too enthused about running on the road/sidewalks here or anywhere  - it causes nothing but pain to my knees and hips and back - because I have reached the point in my life where I complain about my knees, hips and back... don't get me started!  But trail running is a whole different story and way more fun to boot.

The beach you see to the right side of the last photo is Haeundae Beach shown previously with all the people and umbrellas and so forth.  The small rectangle you see in my photo mid beach is a temporary skating rink that just opened.

More to come, but here’s a little window into our world for now.

Sri Lanka travels

Sri Lanka

We saw some amazing things, fabulous animals, ruins and enjoyed meeting some great folks along the way, both innkeepers and travelers alike.   The first place we stayed was at the extreme southern end of the island, and the hotel was right on the beach - we could walk out at dawn and watch the sun rise over the water, and head back out at sunset and see it set again over the water… don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere that it was possible to do that from exactly the same spot.

It was really sobering to be in a place that the SE Asian Tsunami hit so hard.  And we were there on the 10th Anniversary of it.  While there were and are tons of videos on YouTube and on the news from the Tsunami, I couldn’t really bring myself to watch them way back when - it was all a bit too morbid for me in that most all of them showed many people swept to their death…. and even if I watched only the lead in, where they show people walking down to the retreating water’s edge, you knew that those same people were goners.   However, after we visited the town of Galle, and learned of the damage there to the train station/bus terminal etc, all of which still stand in the same spots, I had a point of reference that made me willing to watch.  Being able to see the water in connection to places that I’d walked, and buildings that I’d been in made it a more real and somehow less a matter of disaster voyeurism to me.   One of the videos I found was shot from the upper level of the bus terminal, and the force of the water and the level it reached is still not really possible to process as I watched.  It is remarkable to see that much has returned to the state it was prior to the Tsunami… awaiting the next one I guess, but hopefully with a more informed populace.  I suppose there will always be folks who want to wander down to see why the water is going away, but hopefully there will be more who are hauling ass in the other direction, away and up as fast as they can.

In the video below you may be able to hear me making mention of showing this to creationists - it would be great for when they talk about how impossible it is to imagine aquatic creatures ever making the transition to land.... and I'm not talking about the crabs or shellfish here either... they're a bit hard to see, but look closely, you'll see fish, or extremely fish-like creatures very happily parked out of the water on the rocks between waves.

Dambulla Cave Buddhas

Dambulla Caves reclining Buddha

Early advertisement for a Breast Augmentation clinic located in the Sigiriya complex.

Behold some of our most majestic animals....in a garbage dump.  That was dispiriting.

Couldn't get a measuring tape on him, but this had to have been at least a 2 foot wingspan on this bat.

Bats in repose.

Chameleon

Fun with filters at sunset.

Guesthouse snake.  He was not amused by me taking photos.  I stopped.

Morning light over the tea plantations.

A really, really nice home away from home.

The view from the porch of home away from home.

This guy apparently shows up along this road around the same spot around the same time every day, given the vendor who was there selling corn on the cob for people to feed to him.  Not sure who trained who to be there, but this is right by the roadside.  Note the elephant electric fence in the lower right of the photo.

One of our regular canine escorts, dogs that live at the Imagine Guesthouse would jump up whenever they saw us heading for the beach to join in on our walks.  It was good fun having them along.  The beach at the hotel wasn't particularly great for swimming, but was incredibly peaceful and, as yet, mostly undeveloped, though probably not for long.

This guy was wandering across the lawn at the hotel.  Probably over a meter in the length total, and not at all the biggest one of this type of lizard that we saw on the trip, but one of the best photographs of any of them, so imagine this guy with a head the size of his belly, that was the next biggest one we saw, then imagine one with a head the size of the next belly up, and that's about the size of the biggest one we saw.

Sunrise

And sunset, from virtually the same spot as sunrise photo....

Beautiful Kingisher type bird.

Mostly un-restored Buddha from the Polonaruwa ruins complex.

Reclining Buddha

Seated Buddha near reclining Buddha above.

Yup, that's a real cobra, not sure if he's still got fangs, but I didn't want to check.

Too many feral dogs everywhere.

A super stupa in the Poloanaruwa ruins.

Sigiriya from afar.

The stairs to the top of Sigiriya/Lion Rock...the rest of the brick
 Lion is lost to the years and elements, but the feet were carved of stone so they survived.

The safari we went on was pretty dispiriting, it was like being stuck in traffic while you could watch the wilds around you being degraded as the muddy roads, and animal sightings caused the drivers to bash their own new roads through the brush.  Woudn't have gone if we'd had a clue what we were in for.

I know it's hard to imagine, but I stayed quiet.

Another view of Lion Rock paws and the start of the climb to the top.

Didn't see any, but didn't want to given the location.

A water monitor lizard, much bigger than the photo above.

Not the train mayhem you see in photos/video from India, but we were on some packed trains, and the nice ones are still pretty rustic.  The third class cars are usually packed.  It was fun to be able to stand in the open car door as the train lurched along the track, since I imagine that's a federal offense in the US at this point, I definitely took the opportunity whilst in Sri Lanka.

What a difference a year makes!

In November of 2013 I had a post crowing about how swell I did in a big, gnarly race up a giant mountain in the Taiwan KOM Challenge.   In the interest of fairness and accuracy, I feel it necessary to report on the 2014 edition of the race - I abandoned.  Let the excuses commence:  Though I’d had a great performance in a stage race in The Philippines a few weeks prior, my fitness fell apart immediately following that race.  So it was a triple whammy of that lack of fitness, the continuing lack of lung capacity from the cold that put the kibosh on said fitness, and the cold, heavy rain that lashed us from before the start.  While I actually had a very positive mental attitude on the start line, that quickly went to hell!  The air wasn’t too cold down at sea level, but the rain was cold and pouring down.  And as this race does nothing but climb into colder temps with elevation, it went from bad to worse.  This road up has a particularly demoralizing feature - a descent of a few kilometers in length and quite a few hundred meters of elevation, about 2/3 of the way up or so.   It’s a rather cruel twist after you’ve been working so hard to gain that elevation, you have to give some back.  And knowing how much colder I was going to get on the descent, and how badly I was shivering while still going up, I got off the bike and very fortunately into a van out of the rain a few kilometers before the descent.  Not how I’d planned for the day to go and definitely not one of my finer moments on a bike, but memorable to be sure.  

Field Guide to the Flat Snakes of Central Taiwan

Riding the roads across the middle of Taiwan has given me a great opportunity to see a wide variety of the local wildlife.  I pass plenty of birds, toads, lizards, giant snails, the occasional monkey, but no animal as common as the various species of flat snakes one sees nearly everywhere.  Fascinating in their variety, I’ve thrown myself into a bit of herpetological research, and I’d love to share a larger project I’m working on…. The Field Guide to the Flat Snakes of Central Taiwan.

I’m pretty proud of my work and I’ve learned a great deal about the various species, their names, how to identify and what not.   So forgive me if I skip common names in favor of the formal taxonomic names.  Speaking of which, I was astonished to learn that in some cases binomial nomenclature for genus species names also includes punctuation marks… who knew?

This is a fine example of an Ocrapae Carmium!

A particularly lovely specimen of a Whydai Lieheeria?

A juvenile male  Nota Baskingspot.  He'll flatten out nicely when he gets a bit older.

Updated....again! on 11/17 with bonus campaign poster

As you might notice, I'm not the most prolific blogger out there.  The reasons for this are twofold:

1.  I'm lame
2.  See reason #1

Loads going on 'round these parts, you might have seen on the news.....  In the interest of not making this a wholly political blog I'll let the Hong Kong protests and their portents for Taiwan's future go unremarked beyond this.  If you are interested in learning more about what's been going on and why, I'd suggest seeking out The Guardian or the Taipei Times' coverage.

A few random things to share:

Here's a video put together by my cycling team, CCT,  (that's us in the kit that incorporates most all possible colors),  from a race back in April on the east coast of Taiwan.  It'll give you a small window into it all.

There are big elections coming up here in November.  This is good for a number of different constituencies:

1. Printers - there are posters, banners and billboards everywhere - plenty of business if you're a printer

2. Owners of trucks with loudspeakers - they are everywhere playing recordings of the candidates or jingles, or other 'vote for me' kinda stuff.  The best ones have a platform where the candidate rides exhorting passer by to vote for them via said loudspeaker 

3. Bicyclists - as a result of impending elections, there is road re-paving going on everywhere.  I think the incumbents see this as a way to show that they are on the case.  Whatever the reason, I'm not complaining, swanky new pavement is better than what was there.

But just the other day I noticed a trend amongst some campaign posters incorporating 'Little Guys'.. there are several posts earlier in this blog showcasing my fondness for various business and government 'Little Guys' (if that reference confuses), but I was really surprised to see that candidates would create and add personalized 'Little Guy' caricatures on their posters.  A few of my favorites:

Ok, so I can at least wrap my head around the caricatures of the candidates above, but this one just baffles me..."If elected I vow to vote like the cartoon bear on my shoulder advises"?  "If you, too, have a cartoon bear on your shoulder, vote for me"... I like it, but I'm lost here....

Updated:  Just saw this poster this morning and had to add it here...I guess this makes total sense, who better to run for office than running shoes... totally got the whole 'experience thing' locked down. 

I really liked this sign at the trailhead of a path that Shirl, Bo and I hiked a few months back. It really helped drive home the need to watch where you put your feet!  Bonus was on this trail we got to see a giant wasp and giant spider duking it out.  The spider lost and was lunch.  It was our own Mutual of Omaha's 'Wild Kingdom' moment.  While they were fearsome and large, they were still just insects, but even so,  I'm guessing ol' Marlin Perkins would have still been inside the Range Rover with the windows rolled up a good, safe distance away, while Jim was up close and personal with it all.

Lest you think that other bike path photo I've posted here was a fluke, they're clearly on the case to create more stellar bike path/tree interactions... this is a brand new path and tree along a route that I regularly ride so I can confirm that this was all just installed as you see in the photo.  This was obviously planned and executed without anyone stopping to say... "Hey wait a minute...."  It's no big deal at present as the path ends about 150 feet farther up, behind the car parked on the path in the background is a construction fence.  But eventually it will connect up to a longer path.  The time until it is all open will give this tree a chance to grow and really end the path properly.

And last and certainly not least, the following:

Kinda cute for a sort of burly business like freight handling/delivery, but I dig it.  I like the idea of a genetically modified, trunkless elephant koala bear (thanks Mitch!)  cartoon hurrying to get my shipment delivered to me so this works (provided he's not too drugged up/surly from Eucalyptus leaves).   Well done trunkless elephant, err, koala delivery service...

But this one just confuses me every time I see their trucks.   All I can think of is the meeting with the designer when they were working on this new mascot/logo.  I imagine that the first iteration was a bit more 'butch' of a panda, you know stout, steadfast, more interested in working hard to get your package to you than in lazing about eating bamboo shoots etc... and then an executive from the delivery company takes a total left turn in the discussion and says "Yeah, that's ok, but can you redo it to have the Panda mince about a bit, and while you're at it, let's have him dressed like Richard Simmons too, ok?"....cause that's the only way I can imagine that they get to this as their logo.   (And I should state, for the record, that I fully support the rights of pandas to dress and move about in whatever ways they choose, and also, of course, to marry whom ever they happen to love regardless of the gender pairings involved - wow, the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution Equal Protection Clause imagine that!..  It's fun to watch supposed Constitutional literalists writhe, prevaricate, and out and out bullshit to try to get around it when it comes to their opposition to same sex marriage.... d'oh! Political stuff, I couldn't help it!)   I'm just fascinated imagining how this company ended up with this to adorn their trucks, that's all.....