Saturday, July 21, 2007

Today is my last full day in Taiwan . . . Then it is to Vancouver to hang out at Clayton's until I find my own place to stay while I do my teaching degree at Simon Fraser University.

I am excited.

And I bought a new computer--having used the school's computers for the last three years!

Excitement galore!

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Spider Eats Fly -- World Watches With Bated Breath

That's right, the bug parade continues...




...with pictures of a spider eating a fly.




Exactly what everone wants to see.




Well, I'm into it, at least.




Such a fascinating phenomenon deserves more pictures...



The last one.




And a stick insect thrown in for good measure. If you are curious about how big this guy is, the portion visible in this picture is about 10 cm.

Okay, the next post will feature people doing stuff, and even a picture of me! --but doing nothing.

Friday, March 31, 2006


Back in Taiwan in with Alfreda.


Brian, Sue and I, as seen by a 4ft photographer.


Brian, making us all a some chow mein.


Thomas, about to find a target.

Friday, February 24, 2006

The Third Leg: Edmonton and Camrose

Seven months have passed since my trip back to Canada, and I fear I can put off the final installment pictures no longer.

Throughout the trip I’d been taking pictures of mundane things, buildings mostly, to show friends back in Taiwan. I’ve mostly kept these off the blog since they are in no way remarkable to anyone who has lived in North America. Still, for some reason I am today inclined to post a few which I took in the third leg of my journey.

On the bus from Grande Prairie to Edmonton, we stopped in a small town called Sangudo. I was, as I had been in Sexsmith, strangely drawn to the architecture of the village’s main street.







As I arrived in Edmonton--the city I call my "hometown" when pressed for an answer--I continued to take pictures of things I thought might interest my friends here, like the big boot:




And this street-sign inspired building which I don't think I ever really looked twice at when I was living in Edmonton:




I got off at the downtown bus terminal and headed over to city hall to take some more pictures since it would be a while before Kasia (my friend and host) was off work.




I was surprised to find the annual street performers festival in full swing. City Hall and Churchill Square were packed with people.




I was also surprised to see that the formerly grassy square had been paved over.




My gracious host Kasia who not only shared her home with me but also fed me fahitas, BC greens, and wine...




and took me out drinking with her bf. This is a picture of them from a wine tour they went on... in France, was it Kash?







I took a wrong turn somewhere and found my self in the monstrosity known locally as West Ed. I took some pictures of the attractions there which proved amazing to my students when I got back.




After Edmonton, it was to Camrose, where my big sis lives with my nephew Thomas.


thomas




Sue and Brian. I'll be cutting out of the end of the semester so that I can see my sis get married, with Dad in action again. (My parents are twins and my dad marries his kids... :P)




Thomas and me. Sue, if you ever want to take a break from child-rearing, I'll take him off your hands anytime. Consider the advantages!




At the end of my trip Sue and Thomas saw me off at the airport in Edmonton. Not so much later I would be in the Vancouver airport waiting for my flight and writing part of the first post. Now that I've finally put up these pictures (and failed to tell any kind of story) I'm already looking forward to July when I'll be back in Canada again to see Sue and Brian get married and do more visiting.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

The Second Leg: Grande Prairie and Sexsmith

My apologies for the long wait, but here are a selection of photos from the second leg of my great Canadian journey home.



My mom and dad picked me up from the bus stop in Hinton, shaving about 6 hours off my trip from Vancouver to Grande Praire (via Calgary!—quite out of the way, if you know your Western Canadian geography). Needless to say it was great to see them again after a two year absence.



Dad taking a nap in the car after having driven a few hours that day.






A common sight in the Canadian Rockies—moose on the highway. Dangerously common, in fact. A foreshadowing of things to come?



Oh, Canada. Quite a change from the Korean and Taiwanese landscapes of the past two years in my life.



Another highway landscape.



A train skirting a mountainside.



Gradually the mountains became foot hills and the foot hills became prairies and the prairies, grand prairies.



In the prairies towns are built around grain elevators. This is the latest small Albertan town that my parents have called home: Sexsmith. Where on earth did that name come from?











This is the trailer in Sexsmith where my parents are living while they wait for their house to be renovated after the fire that occurred the day after they bought it. For pictures and the rest of the story, see my dad’s blog, “Carpentering for the Carpenter”—linked on the right.



My bro and my pops, in my brother’s room in the trailer. He is attending the college in nearby Grande Prairie, so he is living with them.



Ron and I, and Ron's friend, Jeff.



Dad and his boys. Ron is showing off his bike, which would later cause us some trouble and contribute to a delayed and ultimately long trip back to his tree-planting camp.



A picture of a picture of the farm where my dad grew up.



Since there is nothing to do in Sexsmith, any going out entails going into Grande Prairie—the booming “gateway to the North”.



My mom and dad and I drinking coffee and chatting.









Dad finds some people he knows there and goes to chat with them.



My mom, working in the cosmetics department in Walmart.



My dad, having a burger on his way home after a day of building doors.



This bulletin board struck me as a culturally significant, and I snapped a few pictures to show people back in Taiwan.






My brother wanted to take me out to his tree-planting camp in the mountains so I could take a little helicopter ride with them and enjoy the scenery. He, Jeff and I played basketball at his college gym in the evening and then set out quite late on the drive to the camp. Shortly after falling asleep I was woken up by the screech of tires and a crash. I opened my eyes and saw this:



We had hit a moose.



It glanced off the front passenger side of the minivan…



…damaging it to a surprisingly limited degree.



The moose, however, wasn’t so lucky. It laid down in the ditch and huffed for a couple hours before dying. We waited on a fairly deserted road until someone came and gave Ron a lift to his camp where he could borrow a company truck and come back for us and our stuff.



After an all-too-short sleep, it was breakfast time, so we joined the line-up into the breakfast trailer.



These are the trucks that get filled with boxes of seedlings, then trudge up rough logging roads in the mountains.



But this is the transport that I was really looking forward too: the chopper. It was a lot smaller up close than I had imagined it would be in my mind.



Ron was kind enough to let me sit up front next to the pilot.



Flying a helicopter is complex. The pilot assured us that if we tried to pilot it based solely on assumptions and feeling, we would be dead within fifteen seconds.



The ride and the view was every bit as cool as I’d expected.



My brother, the foreman, watching over the transport of crew and materials.



The planters, bagging up.



Me at the cache.



Just below the cut block, there was a river, which I had seen from the helicopter, so I went down to explore.



Ron came with me and snapped a picture of me on the suspension bridge.



At the end of the day, we went back to the camp and mom and dad picked me up to take me back to Sexsmith. Of course, pictures had to be taken.



Mom and her two boys. It has been a long day for me, and I am visibly tired.



Ron, in the rain, showing my mom how the seedlings are packed in bundles, and the bundles into boxes.

After a few days in Sexmith and Grande Prairie, it was time to set out on the last leg: Edmonton to visit my friend Kasia and generally see the city that I call my "hometown" and Camrose where my sister lives with her boy, Thomas. But that story may be another while coming...

That's all for now folks!