Taiwan is definitely not up there on the list of architectural destinations, largely overshadowed by the money-burning frenzy that is the Chinese real estate market and the always-fresh-always-funky world of Japanese contemporary design.  I’ve had the lucky opportunity to work for an excellent architect in Taipei (LWM Architects) and I know that there has been a number of great architectural minds working diligently to improve the design environment in Taiwan for the last couple of decades.  the Lanyan Museum, by 姚仁喜 (Yao Ren Xi, Artech Inc.) is one of the newest examples of Taiwan asserting an architectural personality.  there are faint echoes of I. M. Pei still in the work but the building’s design language clearly responds to the landscape around it, instead of being a purely intellectual geometric exercise.  the interior is logically laid out yet provides a compelling promenade, and even the quality of the construction is meticulous (which is typically so hard to find in Asia these days).  there are some exceedingly bizarre moments (like an unwrapped structural member that emerges randomly from a wall, warty fireproofing and all) which stand out because everything else seems to be so well sorted.

there is one photo I am posting separately from the rest, because it’s disturbing to me.  not the architectural part of it; I love that the design language remains cohesive even when applied to a functional element such as a modern portico.  what disturbs me is the appalling amount of junk that has been forcibly inserted into the space (and yes, into, even though this is the outside, it’s clearly a room per the design).  this drives me nuts, to have such an exciting and dramatic element mutilated by the addition of flanking potted plants.  the architect has done EVERYTHING in his power to keep the space as perfect as possible.  the umbrella hanging racks are contemporary in design.  the irritating emergency text and how-to-use-an-umbrella-rack instructions have been rotated so that they fit with the seams in the metal panels.  and then to have this happen?

I know its mean to demand that people lose employment but if I could, I would get the person whose idea this was fired. perhaps jail time?  fight SOPA, fight PIPA, and when we’re done with that, come back and fight this madness, the ruination of our global architectural legacy.

with that bitter taste in my mouth at the very end of an otherwise thrilling architectural excursion, I sought to cleanse my palate … with 葱油饼.  oh yes, scallion pancakes.  that doughy delight, that chinese fried good of champions.  my favorite round object ever.

but we weren’t done with the food, not by a long shot.  first came lunch, then came snacks, then came fruit, then came a trip to the 基隆廟口夜市, the Keelung Temple Night Market, a true classic when it comes to the Chinese art of making, selling, and eating food on an open street.

we spent the next day driving around Yilan county, basically from one end to the other, then back, then back again.  why?  because it’s not every day that you can get into the 福山植物園, the Fushan Botanical Gardens.  this entire facility used to be closed off to anyone without an academic permit, but now is available for public entry after a protracted stay on a wait list.  it wasn’t exactly the kind of weather that gets you amped up about looking at trees for an afternoon, especially after already spending a day looking at trees while getting rained on.  but I’m not going to be the debbie downer.  and neither was the 5D Mark II, which had spent the evening recovering from a waterlogged joystick (only letting me choose the center focus point – which is fine – or the lower left diagonal focus point – which is almost entirely useless) and was looking to get back in action.

one thing that consistently amazes me is how much interest the older generation of chinese/taiwanese take in plants.  they seem to know almost nothing about animals, but they can name all sorts of plants in chinese that I would only be able to describe as “tree” or “larger tree” in english.  you’d think they’d grown up in some parallel universe where Animal Planet had been replaced by Plant Planet on TV.  and I don’t think it’s an age thing.  I highly doubt that I’ll be able to waltz into a botanical garden at the age of 50 and start spouting the genus and species (heck, even the common names) of its deciduous denizens.  but that’s what older asian folks are into.  while we’re questioning useless things like whether a lion would beat a tiger in a fight (the answer is no, so you can stop wondering, and yes, I am serious), they can hold hour-long discussions on which herb has roots that you can steep in teas and how long you need to dry them for first.

I don’t know what they teach in U.S. Army survival training, but my feeling is they should hire a couple of asian grandmas to instruct those courses.  you’d come out of it being able to eat pretty much your entire environment, no matter where you crash land.

the awesome impressionistic piece of wood above comes from what is probably the most intriguing tree I’ve ever seen.  it looks more like some form of feral hydra rather than an inanimate plant:

I was worried the entire trip that I was going to regret not bringing a tripod, or at least a monopod.  and while I sort of did regret it, I’m also glad I didn’t have to carry around 8 pounds or so everywhere we went.  so I guess I don’t really regret it.  it just meant that, when I wanted to get long exposure shots like the shot of the creek above, I had to practice being very very still.  exposure time for the shot above?  2.5 seconds.

yes, it did take me 4 tries to nail it … but still, I think I’m allowed to swagger a bit.

dinner … oh, dinner.  the beginning of a love/hate relationship with food for the rest of this trip.  we simply ran up against a wall of food and even with reinforcements having arrived (Zhen Zhen having plucked Randy out of the airport lost-and-found), we were out of our depth.

utterly defeated/gorged, we took a brief walk across the world’s shortest ocean-crossing suspension bridge before heading to the hotel and mineral baths.

it’s interesting how the things that interest you change as you grow up (or get older, depending on how you like to look at things).  I used to like going back to Taiwan just because I knew it would be a week or two of food, food, and more food.  other than one trip around the island with my dad way back when, I’ve never really left Taipei.  I always figured, given that it’s almost exactly the same size as my home state of Maryland, how much could there really be to it?  but just as I’ve come to appreciate that there’s actually lots to do in the little Old Line State, I’ve also realized that Taiwan is full of diversity in its environment.  we repacked our suitcases the minute we arrived in Taipei, heading out [not so] bright and [very] early the morning after we arrived … sans Randy, who was unceremoniously dumped in Tokyo for no particular reason by United Airlines to spend a night in minibar purgatory.

sidebar: you know how people always say asians look alike?  I always assumed that it was a purely physiological phenomenon based on reduced feature variability in the genetic pool.  but apparently its psychologically ingrained in us as well.  half of us showed up in purple jackets and the other half in black jackets with no conscious intent to coordinate whatsoever.  creepy, right?

traveling with my family is always a bit maddening since no one wants to take responsibility for knowing what we are doing or when we are going or why we are doing it at all.  traveling with Tina’s family is quite a bit better, since they’re usually able to answer these questions.  so the agenda was: stomp around in the rain, see some big trees, and eat and sleep.

not just any big trees.  these junipers and cypress can grow to 50 meters tall (~160 feet) and live as long as 3,000 years. those kinds of stats make NBA players jealous.  me, I just felt like I’d landed on Pandora.  the chinese name for these massive treefolk is 神木, roughly translated as Divine Tree.  they’re also known as 巨木, which translates literally as Ginormous Tree.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt this small in my entire life.  I thought of the scene in Gladiator where Juba exclaims “I did not know men could build such things” when looking up at the Colosseum for the first time.  in our day and age, when man-made monstrosities are the norm, the comparison is reversed.  I did not know nature could make such things.  (incidentally, nature wins, as the Colosseum topped out at 48 meters)

seeing a massive tree like that fallen over just makes me wish I could have been there to see it happen.  and to hear it.  the cacophony must have been incredible.

walking about in the peaceful chill of dusk was something that I realized I hadn’t done in a long time.  now that winter is good and truly here, I should have plenty of opportunities to do it.

sleeping in a hotel room with an escape sling?  that, I realized, I hadn’t done … ever.  I’m glad there were no emergencies that night, because I am sure I would not have known how to operate the escape sling.

just wanted to wish everyone out there a happy new year.  for me, 2011 went the way of the dodo in a flurry of plane, train, and automobile rides as Tina and I wound our way around Taiwan.  the blogging has been neglected for a while because of general craziness at work, but it’s something I do enjoy doing and intend to keep up.  in truth, the thing I like the most about running the blog is knowing why you come here: the food photos.  you like looking, and I like making you drool at work (although this does backfire sometimes, with me being the one that gets hungry).  so here’s a teaser of what’s to come:

it’s been a long, long while since I’ve been to a Terps football game, so I was pretty excited to snag some tickets just above the 25-yard line for this weekend’s showdown against neighboring UVA.  we had a decent first half with some exciting catches, outside runs, and forced turnovers, but ultimately several blown opportunities near the red zone came back to bite Maryland in the rear when UVA kept pounding it in through the second half.  personally, I still had a great time, especially since this year was going to be a painful rebuilding year no matter what.

one other thing I gotta say, props to the UM dance team.  it must have been like, under 40 degrees in the shade side where we were sitting, and they still gutted it out for the entire first half.

in the middle of a long week … still some backlog to post up, including some Solar Decathlon action (go Maryland!), but not quite enough time to really hunker down and work on it.  so here’s another boobie photo from Galapagos.  I felt like the other boobie shots from the Day 9 post were a little over-saturated, especially in the yellow range, so I toned it down a bit for this one.  and now … back to work.

definitely one of those mondays where you need something relaxing to look at.  on the bright side, at the end of today will be … yep, Monday Night Football, with the redskins playing the cowboys in Dallas.  how’s that for motivation to get your work done before 8 PM?

by the way, the wallpaper image I posted today should expand out to full size (1920 x 960) if you click on it, in case you’re interested in having a HD-sized panorama for your monitor.

this is a (short) tale of one city, many barbeque joints, and a mission.  to eat as much barbeque as possible (sort of, we were actually down south for work).  when we asked folks from Birmingham what their favorite local BBQ joint was, we ended up with a surprisingly small answer set: Full Moon, and Jim ’n Nick’s.  I really would have liked to have my 5DII with me but I didn’t feel like lugging it around for a business daytrip, and so I wound up shooting with Tina’s little SD1300 IS compact camera.  so believe me when I say, it’s even better than it looks in the photos.

Birmingham is a oddly-sized city that teeters somewhere on the edge between a large town and small city.  it appears loose and sprawling when seen from a map, but on the ground driving it never takes you more than 10 minutes to get to wherever you are going.  there’s a fair number of very picturesque and well-designed churches, and a fantastic public library, but the buildings that Scott and I were paying attention to the whole time were the brick boxes with signs proclaiming “BBQ” out front.

we tackled Jim ‘n Nick’s at lunchtime.  the sandwiches may not look huge but they fill you up, and of course you can’t argue with the sides … spot-on mac’n'cheese and collard greens.  I really want to try their ribs the next time as I really like their sauce.  the coconut pie is how I imagine my grandmother would make it if my grandma were from the South, instead of from the Far East.

Full Moon is definitely the sort of place you feel right at home at.  it’s friendly and cozy and you can tell they love them some ribs and some football down here.  Scott and I didn’t have a chance to dine in since we had a (on time this time around thank god) flight to catch, so I just snagged a rib sandwich and some of their divine chocolate cookies to go.

at the airport, Scott had to ward off a hasty ploy by airport security to confiscate his BBQ once they saw Full Moon written on the bag.  you know you’ve got something special in your takeout when that happens.  I proceeded to dine in high fashion en route to DC, which earned me the ire of probably the first five rows of passengers on our Southwest flight.  next time around, I’ll have to flip-flop what I order at the two locations so I can better compare.  that, and I have to bring down the 5D Mark II and take some photos that do the food justice.

this was our last day in the Galapagos Islands and I was a little concerned that we hadn’t yet gotten the chance to see the iconic blue-footed boobies.  well, as with pretty much everything on this trip, I needn’t have worried.  our last stop was at North Seymour Island, a place whose trees and soil happen to be extremely enticing to both frigatebirds and boobies for use as nesting sites.

frigatebirds are known as the pirates of the air, because they have a tendency to steal food (or steal the young to eat as food) from boobies and other seafaring birds.  oddly enough, there seems to be no real animosity between the species despite this overt criminal activity, and the two species nest side-by-side on North Seymour.

while we were on the island, we saw lots of mating and dating.  frigatebirds have evolved these ludicrous red sacs on their front chest that they puff up and keep puffed for 6 to 7 hours at a time, and click their beaks rapidly.  oddly enough, they haven’t evolved the oily layer on their wings that would permit them to fly with wet feathers.  between getting action and being practical, you can see where male priorities lie.

the boobies are adorable in their mating habits, preening and pruning and performing little goofy dances to attract a partner.  the way they strut about is equal parts comical and endearing.

there were also plenty of other species running about, and I finally got a good shot of a female lava lizard before we finished the hike.

having to leave was tough.  I didn’t take any parting shots of the Galapagos because it seemed far too anticlimactic.  I’d have to say it was one of (if not the best) vacations I’ve ever had the opportunity to take … but then again, that’s what you expect for a honeymoon, right?  I’d love it if everyone I knew had the opportunity to visit the Galapagos someday, there really is no place on earth quite like it.  I also hope that Ecuador continues to maintain this stunning ecosystem and win the war against invasive species and human interference; something that continued tourism both helps and hinders.

thought I’d post an oversized square format photo today.  this is one of the shots from the trip that I didn’t realize I’d gotten until I came back and downloaded everything onto the computer.  I’m still excited every time I bring up Silver Efex Pro because it does an incredibly good job of capturing the feel of b+w film using your digital shots.  it will never be exactly the same, but it’s a more-than-good-enough compromise.

in case you’re wondering, there’s no post-processing applied here to get the hazed-out effect on the adult male frigatebird mid-descent.  I’m not entirely sure what it is at all that caused the look, but it makes the image far more intriguing.  the wary look of the frigatebird below is also captivating to me.