NTU

I have been talking for weeks about NTU, NTNU. Ok, NTU stands for National Taiwan University. In Mandarin is something like Kuoli Taiwán Dashué, which is shortened to Taida. I think it is the largest university in Taiwan and, from what I've read, they have many campuses and lands, occupying a total of about 345 km².

The ASIAA is located in a building at the northernmost part of the main campus in Gongguan, which is the campus I walk through several days a week. The construction style around campus is mainly japanese, because it was founded during the japanese ruling, with isolated buildings, lots of plants, palm trees and flowers. There is not so much grass as in a typical american campus. As you can imagine, it is a very quiet place, if we do not take into account bycicles


It is divided by a wide avenue, lined with royal palm tress, which roughly cuts it through its half

and on which many bycicles, cars and small trucks go by quite relaxedly. It is a small tranquillity oasis in the middle of a busy city. There is a nice artificial lake near the building that hosts the ASIAA, where one can spend a while in quietness.

before going to the ASIAA


A new building is being finished next to it, where the ASIAA will move to if all goes according to plans. There are many sports fields nearby: baseball, tennis, basketball, football, athletics, and a big sports arena next to it.


The campus seemed confusing at first, but now, after walking so much in it, it is a very familiar landscape. And I have only seen the western half.

Travel Memories: 4. On long trips

When I flew to the US, I got used to trips that took between 14 or 18 hours in all, with the longest flight of about 8 hours. This time, the trip was closer to a full day, with the longest flight of about 11 hours. Now that I have done a few transcontinental flights, I look at them in a different way as I did at the beginning. They are not routine, because it's not like taking the subway for a few stops, but I think I have found what rhythm is good for me.

What you need the most is a lot of patience. There is no other choice. You'd better not think about how many hours lie in front of you. There will be the same, regardless of what you do, if all goes well, and, inevitably, there comes a time when you cannot imagine life outside the plane. So much, that it seems as if the flight is short. I am like that.

But I try to follow several routines when I begin a long flight. First, to have at my seat anything that I might need: a book, water?, pen and paper if I feel like writing (difficult). As soon as a I sit down, I take off my shoes and let my feet rest. The safety belt?. I keep it tied up so I don't have to worry about flight attendants, but I leave enough slack to be able to turn in my seat when I sleep. And what I find is more important to get used to the new timezone, I set my watch to the time of the place I am flying to. It is very effective to me, specially if I can sleep. And, obviously, some stretches once in a while, when I go the toilet or whenever I feel like it.

I also try to drink and eat anytime there is anything going by, and try to sleep as much as I can. It is difficult with all the noise the engines make or if the attendants don't stop offering coffe all night, but I think it is a family trait to board any means of transportation and begin sleeping. I am possibly the one who does it less, but there are some almost incredible stories at home of flash sleeping. It is worth trying to, because the trip feels shorter and, at least to me, it is easier to adapt to the new timezone. Of course, I am still of the opinion that I feel more jetlag in Barcelona than when travelling.

Sushi

Two months in Taiwan already; not bad. Coincidentally, but celebrations are found in chance, I had dinner in a sushi restaurant on Thursday, of the kind that have dishes turning around all the time. My first time, even if there are some in Barcelona. That's the way it is. To make you sick, but "everything turns in Japan". In company of a japanese girl, a japanese guy and an about-to-leave chinese postdoc. All the food tasted very good, maybe because it had been such a long time since the last time I had eaten in a japanese restaurant. What a difference in style with the taiwanese ones.

Afterwards, only with japanese, cake and coffee nearby. Enjoying the company a lot and realizing that, since a few days ago, I am feeling used to living in Taiwan.

Too bad the short available time, because I had the dreaded weekly meeting and infinite weariness waiting for me with a club. Fortunately, even in a rainy Friday, a little smiling Sun can shine over two rice dishes.

More about bikes

I wrote the other day about bikes in campus. I noticed that many of them have an interesting accessory

two small metallic pieces that are attached to the rear axle and stick a few centimeters out. They can be useful to put feet on them when people do stupid things with the bikes, or for somebody who is sitting at the back, and have short legs, to put their feet on.

There is a very common means of transportation on campus

and maybe even very romantic: the boy moves the bike and the girl protects them with an umbrella. You see them like this everywhere.

(Back from the Past) Lucky coffins

(from 14/5/2008)

Last Saturday, while some us, who had gone to the outing, were strolling along the Yehliu little market, I stopped in front of a stall that was selling little wooden figures, stones, etc. Very well presented. I saw some very curious little pieces that I coudn't identify. I thought they might be some strange seals or little boxes for keeping jewels. But when you are just looking around and, in fact, are only killing time before it's time to meet the rest of the group to take the bus, you don't really pay attention to things.

But then, Jinhua, one of the chinese postdocs, asked me if I had seen this

true, they were miniature coffins. What a strange thing, isn't it?. He told me that people have them at home, because in Mandarin coffin is pronounced similarly to "guan cai", that separately mean something like "public officer or to go up in status" and "wealth or getting rich" or something like that. Obviously, some think that they are good luck talismans. And make a business out of them.

There you have it, I already wrote one of these.

Coffee

Taiwan is not known by its coffee production. On the contrary, tea rules here. You find it everywhere, either oolong, black tea, etc, and also in many mixes, with milk, juices, with fruits, etc. All the teas I have tasted so far were generally good, and I am getting hooked to the black tea soft drink,

which works wonders on hot days. But I must admit that I am not a tea person and I need my coffee fix.

I still do not have any decent coffee-maker at home. I have not even discovered how the coffee I could use for it is written (I have not looked that much either), so I use the coffe shops like Starbucks and such that are close to campus. I don't do it every day, but almost always I come back from a talk at the ASIAA, I take a small detour and order a latte at Starbucks.

I must feed the beast.

The truth is that is one of the things I miss, to have a coffee after lunch. I have not seen any vending machines around campus and I still have to find out a near place where I can go quick (the nearest Starbucks is a 10-minute walk away), it's comfortable and not too expensive. Umm, how I remember those walks to have a coffee in Columbus in the afternoon. It didn't matter if it was cold or warm. It was the best excuse to sit for a little while in a bench, or on the grass, and enjoy the sun and the quietness of good weather, or even a nice talk. That's one of the things I doubt I will ever have here.

Bycicles

Many people asked me before I left if there were many bycicles in Taipei. I answered them that, according to the guides, very few. Well, the guides are a little bit wrong. The streets of Taipei don't have that China look of wide avenues with almost no cars and full of bikes. No, streets are full of cars, scooters, buses, scooters, trucks, scotters here, but there are also bycicles.

I would differentiate two populations: the ones who ride on Taida campus and the adventurous ones who throw themselves into fate's hands and ride on every street and avenue they can get into.

You can see loads of bikes in Taida campus, driving everywhere. There are some narrow lanes where it is a little bit exasperating to see how they try to squeeze through. But they don't speed generally and you can predict their trajectory to get out of their way. Except some stupid ones, most of the people go by really calmly. It's sad to see though, how badly many use the pedals or how low are their seats. It must be the heat. There is another thing I had never seen used so much. It doesn't matter if it rains or not, this is really useful


There are parking lots full of many bikes,

most of them very badly maintained, rusted, old. They rarely tie them to anything, except for locks between a wheel and the frame. I have not asked how many are stolen, but I woudn't be surprised if the number was very low.

Once we are out of campus, the spirit must become more intrepid. Cars, scooters, trucks drive fast and twisting across lanes. This does not stop a good amount of people to get into the road and keep on going.

They are usually close to the right hand side, but not all. Many are young and follow a good rhythm of pedalling, even if many do not seem to want to get tired, maybe because of the heat. But others are fairly old people, who go very slowly wherever they fancy, which can be anywhere, and may be hauling large bags.

It is unavoidable that you find bikers on the sidewalk. They are more civilized than motorbikes on the sidewalks, slower, but they call to my dark side sometimes. Maybe it's the East, but I am less and less upset by them as time goes by.

(Back from the Past) Yehliu Geopark

(from 13/5/2008)

One of the good things of being in a land so far from home is that you end up finding other people that is more or less in your same situation. Well, because I am the last to arrive, I am the one who feels more lost, but that's another story. And because of being so far, it is not strange that they begin organizing events. I think I arrived in the precise moment when ASIAA postdocs decided to start doing something and opened a wiki where everybody could propose things to do, give advice to newcomers, plan outings, etc. This last Saturday, we went to a little coast village northeast of Taipei: Yehliu.


This place is famous for the strange shapes that the sea has sculpted in the rocks of the park. So, walking next to the sea and crossing bridges like this

you can find things like

mushrooms

dragons

shoes

aliens?

turtles.

This park is known for the "queen's head",

which seems to be losing material every year and will eventually fall down. There is a watchman/woman stationed close to it all the time to stop people from touching the rock when they take pictures. It is a continuum of whistles

There was more than this. Before entering the park and doing some physical exercise (at least, I did, walking from one side to the other), we still had time to eat some seafood. Chinese-style, but everything was very good: shrimp, clams, taiwanese oysters, fish. It feels strange to eat it with chopsticks (I still think some food is not made for them), but it is part of the fun. Afterwards, we visited the local little market


It is always a gift to be able to stand next to sea and fill my lungs with the sea air. The wind was blowing hard and the surf was sticking everywhere. I can't remember how many times I had to clean my glasses.

Another interesting experience is also riding the bus on the winding mountain roads that surround Taipei. I was told that it is even worse in roads narrower than the ones we took, but because they drive with little regard of anything, you end up going from one side of the bus to the other. And you'd better watch out when the driver hits the brakes, if you don't want to shoot out like a rocket.

Travel Memories: 3. Go East

Flying is a perfect oportunity to test with your own eyes if the maps you know do not lie. And if you are over known places, you can identify that city or village, or "look, that is next to the railroad track", or "hey, that's my house", etc. Flying to faraway lands has an even more special charm, if one is able to see anything through the window apart from clouds. One can see, from up there for the first time, lands that one maybe followed a hundred times in a map. It is wonderful to observe how lands, fields, or crops change. Italy is not the same as England, how much snow there is on some mountains. Make out the coast off Marseille and realize how close I am to home. The first time I crossed the Atlantic and followed the coast from Halifax to Boston in the middle of winter. Or go in through Atlanta and contemplate some southern US states. To see the long line of the Pyrenees or the snowed show of the Alps. The sunset over the Dalmatian coast. I like this exercise.

When we took off from Frankfurt, almost two months ago, it marked the time I was flying more to the east of Berlin. Those are lands that popped out in many readings, documentaries, news, soccer games. I do not know why, but I always get the idea that I will see something extraordinary the first time I fly over a place. On second thought, I will, but it may not be distinguishable from anywhere else. In any case, I didn't had much time because we were going fast towards dusk and night: to see the white Carpathian mountains, is that Cracow?, ah, those lights must be Kiev. And in the morning, flying over southern China, very strange mountains, following a railroad track... Many things to see, without the possibility of identifying them, even if the plane screen tells you where you are.

Of course, sometimes, the only thing to be seen are clouds and clouds as far as the eye can reach, hundreds or thousands of kilometers away. A white sea, apparently as smooth as an ice rink, that covers the magnificient Sun to everybody underneath.

Street names

The way streets are named in Taipei is also peculiar. First, big avenues are divided into sections every certain distance, maybe about 500 meters. Just to facilitate things, the street numbering begins anew at each section. So, it's important not to be confused (which is what almost happened to me the first time I was given my apartment's address). Most of these avenues are called, at least in the area where I am living, roads, or lù in Chinese. Then, there are the streets, which are narrower (jie) and do not have sections, I believe, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.

Now the fun begins. Roads and streets have their own names, but even narrower streets, which go perpendicular to the wide streets, are named lanes (xiàng in Chinese) and their name is the door number at the place where they begin in the main street. For instance, in the picture

it is lane 82, Wan Sheng St. The next alley can very well be lane 130, depending where it is found. Moreover, there can be even alleys that branch off lanes. Ah, but that's still too easy. The address can be found at the same street that has its own name or, as it is my case, the door might be found in a small unnamed alley at the back of the building, but because the building is facing the wide street, it bears the number of the main street. Be careful, don't look for the door along the main street, because you will never find it. I have also seen sometimes that the address has extra numbers to indicate that the entrance is in the back street of the side street... A lane may certainly begin in one street, and carry its name, and finish at a different one, and then you have all the possible combinations.

You end up having a long address, only with the street name.

(Back from the Past) Light switches and other things

(From 14/05/2008)

Moving from one country to another means that many things that we usually take for granted change in a very radical way. I have been always fascinated how light switches, toilets, doors, keys, showers, things so usual change. And how I find myself puzzled sometimes, not knowing what to do with them.

As soon as I arrived to Taiwan, I found that many things are made in the american way. Not only the electricy voltage or socket shapes, but things like water taps, paper rolls, etc. Easy, I thought.

One thing that surprised me were the light switches that have a small light on when they are turned off

a very good idea, but I can't count how many times I was wrong thinking it was the other way around.

On the other hand, I cannot fathom why so many doors are closed turning the key to the left. I had found some in Columbus (I think the door to my old office worked like this), but they are more common here. Inevitably, there is some style mixing. The door of my office has two keys: one goes to one side, the other to the opposite. It is probably good for memory.

Fenchihu

Friday, after lunch and after contemplating, with a Starbucks latte in my hand, how the clouds completely covered the mountain that dominates the view from the Alishan station, which rather seems an enormous wall just there, we boarded the train that would take us to the next stage of the outing: Fenchihu, located halfway on the way down.

If Alishan has its own charm, Fenchihu's look is that of a typical Taiwan village, with the agglomeration of houses, corrugated plates and shops. Apart from discovering a nice little cafè, we also made a couple of nice little tours. One was to see the forests of bamboo and coniferous trees that are typical of the place. The bamboo tree forest is really impressive, and I am afraid that pictures fall way short.


Looking at all those bamboo trees —which according to our guide, grow very fast: they are very tall in just 40 days&mdash extending up to the sky, it seemed as if we had entered some kind of very tall and transparent gothic cathedral. I was overcome by a feeling of lightness difficult to describe. It was probably due to the crossing of so many straight thin lines that grow so high.


The transition to the coniferous trees forest is absolutely sudden; it is probably made on purpose. We also saw an area with square trunk bamboo trees the next morning. Really strange.

We went to see fireflys that night. They were similar to the ones I had seen in Columbus, but with a pulsating light. They looked like airplanes in the sky. And not much more, some beers with the japanese contingent afterwards. The next morning, we made a little tour through another pine-tree forest, with giant rocks covered with moss, plants that grew at middle height from the trunk of tress

and other oddities, but rain, that had spared us for a day and half, started with a vengeance and it was time to run for cover, return to the hotel and wait for the midday train that would take us back to Chiayi. It did not stop raining during the next seven or eight hours. Typical.

Trees

Walking down Jhushan, we took the road that begins next to the railroad station and follows the railroad track, where it is easy to climb down if you want to. It wasn't 6am yet, but it seemed to me that it was much later —I was confused most of the day with the time of the day&mdash, and everything was wrapped in the serenity and coolness of a sunny morning. At some point, we took a shortcut and walked straight through the forest, following a stone path.

Japanese used these forests to obtain a lot of wood. That's why they cut down century-old trees, very thick, the remains of which, roots and lower parts of the trunks, we could see while we were walking down, still there after 60 or 70 years. The size of some was really impressive. It seems that japanese planted three trees for each one they cut down. That maintained the forest, at the cost of losing the ancient trees, which seem to be venerated by taiwanese.



The descent went on and we could see all kinds of impossible shapes

or piling-ups of trees that grew on top of trees that grew on top of ancient trees. It's what they call three generation trees.

Everything is very clean and organized, even if I could find some trash in hidden places. We finally reached an esplanade at the end, where there were a primary school and a buddhist temple


We kept on walking downhill, following a stream, crossing a hanging bridge, now finding more three-generation trees,

until we arrived a side of the mountain full of giant red cedar trees. The tallest, and oldest maybe, is called the sacred tree. It is this one

with a calculated age of about 2300 years, 45 meters high and a circumference of about 12m (I think). Close to it, there is another one, 1000 years old, and then twenty or thirty more, all more than 600 years old. It was like being inside a fairy tale or in one of Tolkien's stories.

From here, after seeing the remains of the previous sacred tree, which had to be cut down after dying, we went back to Alishan and then to Fenchihu. It was a morning of beautiful forests and nature. What a diference with the cities!.

(Back from the Past) Apartment

(From 9/5/2008)

Now it is done. One thing less!. I got the keys to the apartment I found on Wednesday this afternoon. Of course, after paying one month rent and two-month diposit, this is not free. All in all, it would not be too much money in Barcelona —when I rented my apartment in Madrid, I had to pay 4 or 5 times more money for the rent, guarantee and bank comissions— but just having arrived to a foreign country, it has meant a couple of nervous days before I could be sure that I would have enought money (thanks to the help from the ASIAA front office).

The flat seems like a mansion, from what I have seen, but it is almost completely furnished. I only had to buy a mattress. I could even look for a roommate if I wanted to get some profit from the extra room. The best thing about it is that it is less than a 15-minute walk from work, near the MRT, and with many buses just there. Now I must begin the fascinating adventure of exploring the neighborhood to see what kind of shops there are and how to do some shopping.

What is fun and a little worrying at the same time is signing a lease agreement, in which I cannot understand anything. I have been lucky that a secretary from the ASIAA has been helping me in searching for an apartment and becoming my personal negotiator. Yes, she was explaining what was in the documents, but the truth is that I have to trust her o it would be even worse, wouldn't it?. Another curious fact: it was my birthday when I signed my lease in Madrid, and today it is my father's birthday, It looks as if it was planned, haha.

Two images I took from GoogleEarth showing the location of the apartment (Casa means home):



Impressive. Today, it was a day of Sun and heat. It was getting cloudy in the afternoon, and a fast shower fell right now. They really did tell me that I should carry an umbrella all the time.

Sunrise at Jhushan

So, we woke up very early on Friday morning. Around three in the morning, because, at around 4:10, the train that would take us to Jhushan was leaving. Jushan is a place famous for the sunrise over peak Yushan, one of the highest mountains in Taiwan, at almost 4000m. Don't you think we were alone, the train was probably completely full, because seeing that sunrise is one of the attractions in Alishan.

We could not see much of the outside during the trip, because the windows were all steamed, even if with the little light of that time and inside a forest there was not much to see

We arrived after 20 minutes in the train, and people started running up the stairs to get out of the station, go by two square-like places along the road, with balconies looking to the East, and with several stalls selling food and/or gifts, to finally reach the top of the hill, where there was another balcony with a spectacular view of the valley below. There was not anybody selling anything here, because to get to the top there were only stairs, but there were two small pavilions or kiosks (I wouldn't know how to describe them) that put the chinese touch


The Sun was supposed to rise behind the mountains at 5:20 and, meanwhile, people didn't stop taking pictures and more pictures. I can't say I was surrounded by a deafening silence, but I could have wished I was deaf, with one guy using a megaphone and explaining who-knows-what, because he only spoke Chinese, and everybody talking and shouting. It looked as if I was in a market


Little by little, the sky was lightning up. I guess the question is why the big expectation. Personally, I have been always attracted to a nice sunrise and I still have some places from where I would like to see it. Being born in a land where it is difficult to see the sunset at sea, the sunrise for me, with those very red suns just behind the horizon, is one of the more beautiful things that can be seen. The Sun was not red in Jhushan, too high in the sky and, consequently, hurt the eyes much more. But it was still the first Sun and the best thing to do was to close my eyes, raise my face to the Sun and enjoy how the sunrays were slowly warming me up.

Fortunately, once the Sun was completely up, people started running down the stairs, as if a pack of demons was chasing them, to get to the train that was supposed to leave half an hour after the sunrise. So, silence arrived little by little, while the Sun kept warming me up. The question is what is the point to go to the trouble of climbing up the hill, see the Sun and then rush out of there. But they are like that here.



As the train left the station, we began our walk down the path that would take us from Jhushan to Alishan crossing the thick forests in-between. But that's something for another moment.

Steamed-up glasses

I didn't remember, but I had another night of observation today. I have been at it for a few hours, now it's 4am, seeing things happen, but I am not "alone at the helm" yet. It won't be long for that. So, I will see another sunrise and all that again, because there are a little less than 3 hours left. We found something on Tuesday and it looks like there is something there today as well —a deuterated molecule, my first time; how exciting!

A little while ago, I went downstairs to the shop in the corner, in front of the university, to buy something to eat. As I went outside my building, I saw an almost full moon, beautiful, over the elevated highway that is next to the campus (romantic, eh?) and I realized that tonight is probably the best night I have seen in Taipei so far. With a full moon, we know we can't have it all.

So, I went to the shop, surrounded by quietness and silence, only broken by the sound of frogs (I should write about that some day). Something unexpected happened to me there. It's not unusual that, in winter, when it's very cold and I go into a closed and warm place, like a bar, my glasses are instantly steamed-up and it takes a while before I can see well again. It's like a switch: outside, ok; inside, white curtain. Tonight, it happened what happened last Monday: I walk out of a refrigerated place, and, ban, glasses all steamed-up when they meet the warm air outside. I'd never expected that. Some people are right: the air conditioning is too high!

Trip to Alishan

I went on another outing these last days, from Thursday to Saturday of last week. This time, it was a trip organized by the ASIAA. It looks like they do the so-called ASIAA outing once a year. I was surprised that it spanned a couple of working days too, but I never asked. It must be some perk of the job. I did not intend to go initially, when they sent the e-mails to join sometime in the month of May; but when the registration period was extended, and people insisted that I should go because it was a very beautiful place, I signed up. I cannot say they were wrong.

The trip was to the Alishan region, located in Chiayi county, in the southern third of the island. Alishan, which means Ali's mountain, is in the middle of the more mountainous part of Taiwan and I was told that it is considered one of the most beautiful places in the whole island. It is a touristical little village —they talked about it as if it was something really exceptional, but it cannot really compare to similar places in Europe—, that it is invaded by people for the blossoming of the cherry trees sometime in March or April.

So, at 8:30am on Thursday, we took the train to Chiayi (a good oportunity to see new places, I had not seen yet the west coast, and to try to decode the characters of the station names). We arrived there about three hours later, and we took one of the main attractions of the region shortly afterwards: the forest train, narrow gauge, that climbs from the about 30m over sea level of Chiayi up to the almost 2200m of Alishan, following a 71 km trail, that should take about 3.5 hours, but that it was an hour longer for us, because due to the rain, the wheels of the train kept on slipping and the train had to stop every so often —usually in difficult places, like in the middle of a bridge or next to a cliff.


The route is truly beautiful, in spite of the almost constant rain that followed us all the way and the clouds that now covered, then not, the high mountains in front of us.

The railroad track begins in an area of rice fields and tropical trees, but the landscape changes little by little until, at the top, the trees are conifer trees and the temperature bcomes really comfortable: 13-15ºC (even if some people were cold).


As you can imagine, the railroad track turns and twists hundreds of times through the thick forests along the way.

There are also about fifty tunnels, and a very weird route design. At some point, at an intermediate height, the track follows a series of figures of eight, that look impossible in a map

It was planned by the japanese, at the beginning of the XX century to carry the wood obtained from the nearby forests, which they exploited extensively. With time, the train became a touristical attraction. It was severely damaged in the big 1999 earthquake and it was closed for several years. It works now, but many people were joking, because it often derails, three times in the last two months apparently.

We arrived to the hotel in Alishan at about 6:30pm, in time for dinner (they have dinner early here). After a visit to the small market in the main square —which is amost everything that there is, apart from the hotel area— we went to sleep very early, because we had to wake up very early too.

(Back from the Past) Lunchbox

(From 12/05/2008)

(or dinnerbox, if it needs be)
Since I arrived to Taiwan, I have been tasting new dishes or old dishes made in a different way or shown differently. A very typical way of having lunch, or even dinner, is to buy a lunchbox. Here you can see one I had during my first week


As the picture shows, there is a rice base (or noodles), pork or beef or chicken meat, or fish, mixed vegetables and/or tofu. You can stuff yourself for less than 1.5 euros. The fish in the picture was really good and the seaweed too. Of course, if you must eat it every day, it gets boring too. Fortunately, there are other possibilities and, even if rice seems to be in every dish, it is easy to have a quick bite for a few NT dollars.

I am lucky to be decent using the chopsticks, though.

Paying

My brother asked me last week if I already paid using my two hands to hold the bills. Well, it is something I have been observing since he told me before leaving Barcelona. It is supposed to be a way of showing respect, and I have seen it in Starbucks cashiers, in many shops, when they hand you an official document, things like that, but I cannot say that people who are not behind a counter does that always. Because I have seen the typical scene of a woman paying with the bill almost falling, while she is looking for something inside her handbag and answers the cell phone at the same time. Or the guy that despectively throws the money over the counter. I am surprised that nobody rides a scooter into a shop and while they go round and round, take what they want and pay... but I digress.

The truth is that it is done in many places and it is contagious. I am not sure if I have already done it, but when I paid my rent last week, I gave the money, maybe uncounsciously, with both hands, or almost. When in Rome...

Remote observation

It is almost five in the morning and I am looking out my office window at the dawn over Taipei. I spent the whole night with a remote observation using the 12 meter telescope of Kitt Peak in Arizona (ARO) of a comet. It was months since the last time I did this. And it looks as if we have a detection. It is the first time I use this telescope and I was with my supervisor at first. Then he left and I stayed. No problems.

A little while ago, I looked outside and saw the sky was getting clearer. I am not used yet at how early it dawns here. I guess it is because of the mess of times we have back home. I was thinking that it was the second sunrise I see in a few days. The view is not so nice as the one last week, but I can hear the birds singing. Ummm, it reminds me of those walks in the early morning near "el Parc de la Ciutadella" in Barcelona. It is a good time to let me be assaulted by the memories of the places and people I met, some of which I will see again, while for others it will be difficult to find a way to do it.

Half an hour to go and I will go home to sleep, but I am not sleepy at all.