22 July 2009

(Partial) Solar Eclipse

Naturally, we had a date with the solar eclipse this morning. It was a partial one in Taiwan, about 82%. If you wanted to see the total eclipse, you would not need to go too far away from here, to China, to Shanghai for instance, where a lot of people of the ASIAA and Shida went to, but I still do not know how was the weather like there. It was not my case; I did not travel this time.

So, several people got together to see the show this morning.

The sky was not completely clear, because we had the same kind of clouds as yesterday, but we did not have any problem to follow the evolution of the eclipse, be it with filters, cameras or a simple pinhole.


I could also see the sickle-shaped shadows of the tree leaves that I had seen on other occasions,

which give a fantastic flair to the place.

The clouds were good for two things: they made the waiting a little bit cooler and allowed us to make some spectacular pictures, without any filter and just holding the camera.


The rest of the day has been somewhat disappointing, of course, but I was surprised at how excited I was just remembering what I saw one year ago in China.

21 July 2009

Hot

Month of July in Taipei. As you can imagine, it is very warm. We have been over 36ºC today, according to the temperatures on some websites, very humid and with a burning Sun, even if there were some diffuse clouds overhead. The funny image, that I have not been able to save because I did not have my camera with me, was five or six scooters waiting for the traffic light to turn not just at the line, as they usually do, but 10 or 15 meters behind it, under the shadow of a footbridge, all very close to each other to better avoid the Sun. Special people!.

As for me, maybe recklessly, I went out jogging along the river this evening for while. I felt rather well again, better than last Saturday, but it looked as if I sweated my soul out. I was literally dripping, so much that I left a trail on the tiles at home .

Maybe tonight, when I get home, I will take a third shower. Summer.

19 July 2009

Innocent smiles

I think I have already talked about the little children here, which can be very funny, particularly when they look at me shyly, with a half-made smile in their mouths, because, in fact, I am different. Many are very pretty, although there is a number of them that, maybe because of the way they are dressed up or just because they are like that, are rather ugly.

Today, when I was going back home with the bus after a successful raid of one of the Ikea stores in Taipei, there was a couple sitting in the row ahead of me with a probably around one-year old baby —two teeth above, three below— very pretty, with very big eyes, that was standing all the time. Suddenly, she discovered me and, as expected, looked at me fixedly and, as soon as I smiled at her, shone a big beautiful toothless smile, almost laughing. And she repeated that several times.

As somebody who knows what he is talking about once said, you only need a smile to wash away your worries. Certainly!, and I also remembered some things I should never forget.

18 July 2009

Frustration

That is the feeling that fills me now, at the end of this first week back in Taiwan. Not because bad things have happened, and there were even some good things, as small as they might be. But between the difficulties processing some personal matters and that almost nothing I tried to do at work worked out, I end up feeling a little too much powerless. Not to worry, these things happen, and I must watch out when I am far from my safe environment. They are not so important, but I feel a little bit angry.

At least, we had several sunny days, with warm blue skies, thanks to the typhoon that is going west between Taiwan and the Philippines, which is something that helps to keep the spirits up.

12 July 2009

Hiking

When black clouds gather inside my head, a way out is to meet some friends around a table and spend some time to see if the conversation, jokes or serious stuff manage to cheer me up and I end up walking out with a lively step and flying again over my worries. Besides, if they also ask me if I want to go hiking on the following day, the best thing to do is to say yes.

So, Saturday morning, I met with some other post-docs met at the Taipei Main Station, took the MRT to Beitou, then a taxi to Zhuzihu (Bamboo Lake, even if there is no lake and few bamboo trees) to hike in the Yangmingshan National Park, north of Taipei.

As I have probably said more than once, Taipei is surrounded by mountains, around 1000 m high, and Yangmingshan is supposed to be one of the more beautiful places. I had wanted to go for months, but I only did it for the first time yesterday. It was a wonderful sunny day, as many of previous ones,

which meant that it was very hot and the Sun was bound to burn you.

After a good meal, and under the naked Sun —I could almost hear the prototypical old man complaining about the time we were setting off, but the company was like that—, we took the trail that lead to Xiaoyoukeng

made of stones and/or steps, going up, gently in some parts, steeply in others. The initial part of the trail was flanked by a thick forest of different kinds of trees, bamboo trees among them,

traversed by many different sounds, butterflies of many colors (and oh so beautiful)


colourful fireflies


and full of plants with odd leaves.


Once we were up there, the landscape had changed from the initial forest, to pine trees to a kind of tall grassland without any trees, and later we could see the fumaroles at the feet of Qixingshan, while we recovered from the walk (listening to Abba, by the way)


Some of us climbed up Qixingshan (the 7 star mountain), of 1120 m, the tallest mountain of northern Taiwan. I really enjoyed it, pushing myself up the very steep steps that took us there. We found several fumaroles more on our way up, and were subjected to the changing wind and Sun, sweating a lot.

We could see Taipei at our feet on some parts of the trail, even if the air was not so clear as we would have wished.

At the top, we had a magnificent view of the North-East coast to reward our effort —I could even see Yehliu— with a very clear sky and that great feeling that comes from reaching the summit, it does not matter how small.


We climbed down on the other side of the mountain, where there were similar or even steeper slopes, even if they were short, and we managed to catch the last bus to Taipei.

One of the postdocs asked me later, while we had dinner, what was the goal of hiking, to get tired?. I do not know, but for me, it is that mix of walking in nature, reach a beautiful place and stress my body with exercise, which on some day, and while I am still healthy, it is the best thing to do. A clean body, a clean spirit.

11 July 2009

Buff

A day late, of course. What seemed that was coming, which was very probable to happen, but I never ever wanted, has finally happened. Now, I will have to breathe deeply a lot and see what we can do. It won't be easy. Buff!


At least, I could listen to "Waterloo" & "Dancing Queen" up in the mountain today, which is always a reason to be happy.

07 July 2009

Leaving

It is really amazing how fast two weeks and a half go by. I arrived with a list of things to do, or to sort out, people to see, places to see again; but now that I am about to leave, I could not do it all. In any case, I leave glad because I could do most of the work I planned to do, I had enough time to see my family, and I could some friends. About sorting some other things out, well, I will leave it for another moment, as usual.

Right now, with my bags already packed and about to leave for the airport, I feel a little sorrow because I am leaving mixed with the anticipation of going back to Taiwan. It took me three days to get used to the Catalan life and now I wonder how I will feel in Taiwan. The question I ask myself as I travel around the globe.

The next post will be from there.

01 July 2009

Reading

During these last few days that I have been in Barcelona, when I go to the Physics building with the metro —to do some work—, I have recovered an old hobby of mine that I used to do during my degree and, particularly, while I was doing my PhD: reading a book in the metro. Since I left the city, I could not do it neither in Columbus, where I took a bus at the beginning to go to work, and afterwards I rode my bicycle; nor in Madrid, where I had to drive; nor in Taipei, where I walk to my office. The result is, after spending a few minutes lost inside a parallel universe, that I can catch up to some of the pile of books pending to read. This time, I had even help from a long flight from East Asia.

I must find some time to visit a couple of bookstores before I leave and see if I can get some more books in Catalan to bring back to Taiwan.