During the Double Ten holiday I met up with photographers Mark Forman, Darren Melrose, David Lin, and Joe Lin for the first ever Google+ Photowalk held in Taiwan.  We met at Taichung Train Station and worked our way through Jianguo Market, Taichung Park, and Yizhong Street.  Here’s a small collection of photographs taken during the walk:

Catch a Wave

This vendor wasn’t camera shy at all.  He’s used to Mark dropping by and taking photos:

Sittin’ by the Scale

This gentleman is very proud of his calligraphy.  He was hastily putting his work on display when he saw us approaching with cameras:

Vegetable Vendor / Calligrapher

Some of course, didn’t warm up to the camera much:

Sweet Potato Peeler

This young woman ran over and insisted on posing for a picture upon overhearing that we taking part in the first ever Google+ Photowalk in Taiwan:

Sox

Two Tone

If you’re on G+ feel free to add me.  It will give me an excuse to be more active there.

Nautilus Cross-Section

My kindergarten class had the opportunity to go on a long overdue field trip to the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung. This post contains a small collection of photographs that don’t include my students [actually, the only photographs that don't include students]:

Double Helix

Palmdemonium

Printed Circuit Board

For some reason, my boss really wanted me to take a good picture of the following ceiling display:

The Miracle of Conception

In early October, my school embarked on a company trip to some of Chiayi County’s lesser-known attractions. It’s impossible to enjoy the scenery pass-by or engage in a pleasant conversation with the person sitting next to you on a bus ride for a company trip.  Every minute on the bus has an activity planned:  Ours included some goofy memory games, an informative speech about the destinations we would be visiting [followed immediately by a Q&A session to make sure we were paying attention], raffles, number guessing games, riddles, and KTV.  For losing one of the games I was forced to tell a joke, I chose the Joker’s final joke from The Killing Joke.  As a reward I won a pack of instant noodles – clearly the highlight of the bus ride.  I was reluctant to take part in the KTV portion of the trip but sang an Wu Bai song to be a good sport.  My portion of the bus was particularly rowdy – I don’t know if that had to do with KTV coupled with room temperature Heinekens or the fact that all my coworkers are overworked and don’t get out enough.

Suantou’s tourist trains: pulled by German-made Diema Locomotives

Our first destination and the topic of this post, was Lioujiao Township’s Suantou Sugar Refinery [蒜頭糖廠].  I’ve been to two of these tourism factories before: The Yue-mei Sugar Refinery in Houli and the Ciaotou Sugar Refinery in Kaohsiung.

Headlights

The first portion of our tour included a ride on one of the refinery’s tourist trains.  The train took us a few kilometers in one direction to enjoy the slowly passing scenery of rural Chiayi County accompanied by our tour guide who was busy giving an impassioned and detailed history of the Taiwan sugar industry over a loudspeaker.  After about twenty minutes or so, the train went back in the direction from which it came and eventually went through a tunnel in the factory that was decorated with a few old lanterns.

Premium Unleaded

There was a small seating area inside the refinery for visitors to listen to more information about the refining process.  I took this opportunity along with the other non-Hoklo Taiwanese speaking people in our group to explore and take photographs up, down, and outside the designated tour path of the refinery.

TaiSugar [台糖]

After that portion of the tour was over.  We had about an hour to ourselves.  Most of the group bought popsicles and other TaiSugar related products while I decided to walk around the train yard a bit and tried my best to finish off a roll of Fujifilm Superia 200 which had been in my FM2 for ages.  For fun, try to guess which shots from this series were shot on Superia without checking the Flickr photo tags.

Feeling Blue

For some reason, this photo reminds of the Oil Ocean Zone in Sonic 2

Sugar cultivation started in Taiwan during the mid-1600s when an influx of Chinese specialized in growing rice and sugar began arriving.  Before long, sugar became Taiwan’s primary export.  Under Japanese occupation, processing was modernized and by 1939 annual production peaked at 1.4 million tons with one-fifth of the island’s arable land being devoted to sugarcane cultivation.  Taiwanese sugar was uncompetitive on the international market but was sold duty-free in Japan.

No Pressure

Shooting Up

Pipe Dream

The Taiwan Sugar Corporation [台灣糖業公司] or Taisugar [台糖] was created in 1946 after Taiwan’s handover to Nationalist rule and merged all the existing sugar companies left from the Japanese occupation era.  A sugar boom during the 1950s and 1960s was followed by a rapid decline as Taiwan ceased being an agricultural economy and rose to become an industrial power.  Although it is not uncommon to still see sugar grown in farms large and small throughout Taiwan, most of Taiwan’s sugar refineries have shut down and the national TaiSugar Corp. has since diversified.

The Control Room

Take the Stairs

My suggestion, if you are going to visit any of the several old sugar refineries is to visit the one in Kaohsiung.  I’m pretty sure that’s the only one with any English information.  If you just want to take pictures of an abandoned factory, then any of them will do.

Bolt on Orange on Rust

Sources: The Economic History of Taiwan, Taiwan Sugar Corporation [wikipedia], Locations of Sugarcane Railway Locomotives.

On Saturday, I met up with my friend and fellow blogger Mark Forman for a photowalk through a portion of Taichung’s Nantun District.  Here’s a small collection of photographs from our morning walk:

Welcome to the Kingdom of Anvilania

I think she spotted me

A lantern outside Wanhe Temple [萬和宮]

Cephalopods make great stocking stuffers

William Kristol’s body double

Checking the weight at 9:38

7706-WB

Do you think it’s contagious?

Time to Lean

The photo above is my favorite one taken by Mark that day.  Mark has been specializing in street photograph lately and the elderly are often a subject of his work.  His post-processing gives the photo a nice glow

Smoked Sausage

The final photo is my favorite from David.  He shows a common sight in Taiwan:  a street-side sausage vendor smoking.  Smoking while preparing food and other unsanitary acts are unfortunately fairly common in Taiwan.

A set of my photos from the day can be found in the following Flickr Set.

A group pool of our photographs can be found at our Taichung Photowalk Flickr group.

Looking forward to the next photowalk!

Military dependents’ villages [眷村] are communities throughout Taiwan built in the late 1940s through 1950s for the original purpose of housing Nationalist soldiers and their dependents after the KMT retreated to Taiwan.  Most of these communities have already been demolished and replaced with high-rise buildings.  A few have been preserved as historic sites and there are efforts to preserve others.

Cathy looking fabulous at four and a half months

Getting There:

If you are interested in visiting I suggest you do it soon.  The Ministry of National Defense has commissioned the city government to redevelop the area. UPDATE: Mayor Hu has promised to preserve the Rainbow Village.  Here’s a link to its location on Google Maps.

Further Reading:

• Military Dependents’ Village [Wikipedia]
• Saving the Military Dependents’ Villages [Taiwan Panorama]
• Veteran’s Paintings Put Dependents’ Village on the Map [Taipei Times]

A handful of other photos can be found on my Rainbow Military Dependents’ Flickr set.

Cathy approves the chocolate/milk combo flavor

Above: there’s a small pen full of baby calves near the entrance, this was the only one not sleeping through the heat.   Below: an adult cow takes a break from eating.

Directions: If coming from Changhua, travel along 74 jia [74甲] and turn left at Line 139 [139線].  You’ll see a sign pointing up to Yinghangshan.  Here’s its location on Google Maps.

Passengers waiting at Ershui Train Station

Ershui Train Station sits on the TRA Western Line and serves as a transfer station for the Jiji Branch Line.

Vampires beware!  Garlic hanging outside a home

A very decorative fluorescent light fixture

An old motorcycle in front of an old home

Finally, a couple pictures of windows that I found interesting:

Here are six of my own shots that I took during the photowalk that I personally like and weren’t featured elsewhere:

Roof and Trees on Tunghai University’s Campus

Outside of No. 43 Studio, a small gallery featuring student artwork

Creating the illusion of being in a giant bamboo forest

Ceramic Os – sounds like the name of a cereal

Break-time on the backhoe

Tunghai University Campus

The first three photos were taken with my digital camera, while the bottom three were taken with my film camera loaded with Fujifilm Superia 200.