Posts from ‘Friends’
Things from May 2014
May has been a pretty crazy month. Besides the things that have been happening at work, a lot of things are happening in my personal life as well. To deal with that I’ve resorted to being more active. The Bridge to Nowhere hike has always been a goal for me to do one day. That day finally came when a friend suggested we go. I thought it was a pretty good idea but completely underestimated the length of 10 miles. Let’s just say getting there wasn’t an easy task. At the end tho, it was all worth it. The scenery is gorgeous, and nothing beats hanging out by a cool stream during a hot day in the company of good friends.
On the homey side of things, I finally had time to clean up my apartment, moved my workstation away from my bed, and did a little bit more stuff cleansing. I feel the key to living a balanced life is to be comfortable in your own living environment. For the longest time, I’ve had the workstation right next to my bed. It created a problem where as soon as I get up, get home and before bed, I’m almost always on the computer. This new layout makes it a little less accessible and separates work from rest, which I feel for me is becoming a much more important issue at this point in my life. With that finally settled, I’ve also had time to cook a little bit, do some work on my personal project.
This weekend I’m proud to say that I spend both days being active. Even though now I am physically tired, I feel a lot more relaxed mentally and much more content. Also, slack-lining is no joke, I am still hurting from yesterday.
Went to Anza Borrego Desert over the weekend. It was really REALLY hot. We wanted to do some hiking and started our trip camped out in culp valley. The next day we drove down into the desert and checked out “the slot”. The .8 mile hike while short was awesome because of the constant shade and crazy scenery.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. Its partially due to internet being blocked at work, but also because I’ve been pretty busy and lazy. I’ve build up quite a bit of photos of everyone though, and wanted to post them just so I won’t forget later on. It’s been a fun and kind of crazy year so far. A lot has happened and I’m constantly feeling like I don’t have enough time for anything. Though I do feel its a good thing to be busy than to be bored all the time. Hopefully this trend continues and this will be the most exciting and interesting year so far.
I also recently road-tripped to San Francisco and had the pleasure of going to Point Bonita Lighthouse.
And since this is turning into a photo dump, might as well post this too =D (fashion shoot at my place, thanks Stanley for always bringing over really hot girls).
O and …. Bloodmoon!
I told Audrey I would go visit her in Taiwan last year when I went on my China trip, but that never happened because ultimately we didn’t really have time. Then I said I would come visit in may but work ended up being super busy. I finally found time in the winter to take a week off to travel. This is the third time I’ve been to Taiwan, for such a small island there sure are lots of things to see.
I hopped on the late afternoon flight. Getting there took about 16 hours. On the flight I entertained myself with the inflight movies and my sketch book. It was a relatively quiet flight with almost no passengers. At around 10hrs in I felt an immense loneliness up in the air at 30,000 ft. When I looked out the window, it was pitch black, just an empty void. Luckily soon after, when I looked down again, we were flying over Japan.
As soon as I landed in Taipei, I proceeded to pass out. Next day we started our journey to Taroko National Park. To get there we have to take a 2 hour train ride to Hualien. The ride is scenic through the lush mountains and country side. As we got closer to Hualien we passed by the Pacific Ocean.
Hualien is a small ocean side city on the east side of the island. As soon as we arrived, we rented ourselves two scooters. The most common mode of transportation in Taiwan.
Having a scooter definitely opened up a degree of freedom that I didn’t have before. This was something I wanted to do last trip but never had a chance to.
We rode up through the main road in Taroko past the hotel that I stayed at last time, in an effort to catch the sunset above the clouds. Unfortunately we ran out of daylight and had to turn back.
Our hotel was a conversion from a old church. It wasn’t the most luxurious accommodations but it was cheap and clean and the view from the top of the building was fantastic.
The next day we circled back to Hualien but through some of the surrounding country side to check out the local farms. We found this abandoned house alongside a river.
This is the Hualien River, it runs north to south along the east coast of Taiwan.
We finally made it back to Hualien and picked up some tofu soup before boarding the train back to Taipei.
Markets in Taiwan are always packed but especially so during the weekends. You can find delicious foods and fresh produce as well as some everyday house hold items.
I spent the next day walking around Taipei. I took the MRT to Beitou, famous for their hot springs.
We spent the evening wandering around Shilin Night Market
Next day we headed once again. This time by car. We were headed for Nantou county in the central Taiwan.
We visited the township of Puli, a paper mill and the village of Taomi, and also the 921 Earthquake museum. We spent some time in the surrounding village of the earthquake museum which was abandoned after the disaster. Then we headed towards the mountains.
While in the mountains we came across a lot of Tea farms and Bamboo forests.
Nantou Lotus Forest was definitely a magical place, but unfortunately when we hiked up to the area, we discovered that it was dry season.
Leaving Jhushan we returned to Taipei, but not before stopping in a small provincial town to get something to eat.
annnnnnd, holiday cake.
Many thanks to Audrey and Zhong Han for taking a week to show me around your lovely island, I will definitely be back again!
Spent the weekend in beautiful San Diego with awesome weather, delicious food and good friends. Besides the usual cesspool of dirty jokes about ass raping and pedos and porn (we’re all nit wits stuck at a level just below 3rd grade, and thanks Dony even tho you were absent), we spent the time talking about marriage and kids, and work (some). OH GOOD OL’ DAYS, I wish I were young again, but hanging out with these wonderful people certainly makes me feel so.
Congrats to my friends Yin and Abby for getting hitched! Let the partaying begin!
As the party got on, the night quickly descended into happy drunken blur.
Soon I lost the ability to take straight photos.
There were lots of high-fiving, and funky dancing.
The newly married Mr Yin taking a break on the outside patio
but not for long
As the night came to an end, we all happily migrated to the after party upstairs, where I became too inebriated to hold my camera.