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Favorite Posts of 2011

Todd Alperovitz — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 04:24:44 +0000

Completely Unrelated Photo

Predictably, blogging was light and sporadic in 2011. However, there were a few gems here and there. These are my favorite posts of 2011:

Like trains and factories? Then you’ll probably enjoy Chiayi’s Suantou Sugar Refinery just as much as I did.
Snapped a few shots on the Sun Moon Lake Ropeway.
Most of my cycling these days is limited to a small rotation of workout routes I tackle every Sunday. Every now-and-then I venture out with a camera – The 147 and 131 was one of those routes.
The Anti-Drooling Ceremony and Zhua Zhou Activity were two traditional rites of passage our daughter went through.
Made a brief stop at the Jhongsing Village Lotus Ponds.
The National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung is fun for children of all ages!
Took a trip up to Taipei to attend the International Flora Expo during its final week.
Participated in Taiwan’s very first Google+ Photowalk on Double Ten.
Saw monsters in the mountains.
Strolled through a recently revitalized military dependents’ village.

Have a Happy New Year!

Sitou’s Monster Village

Todd Alperovitz — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 05:53:04 +0000

Beware of Monsters

Sitou’s Monster Village [妖怪村] is a small Japanese-inspired tourist curiosity located next to the Mingshan Hotel. We visited the Monster Village along with the nearby Sitou Forest Recreation Area [溪頭森林遊樂區]. The village is filled with charming wooden buildings and lanterns and is populated by a handful of cartoonish monsters who disappointingly don’t seem too interested in devouring tourists.

Lounging

As with any of the area’s attractions – be sure you leave plenty early to avoid the crowds if visiting on a weekend. As morning progresses, the road up to Sitou’s parking lot gets backed up with cars waiting for others to leave so they can enter and park. Thinking about visiting during a public holiday? Might want to consider a different destination.

Monster Stack

Like any other tourist destination in Taiwan; there are plenty of souvenirs and specialties available to spend money on:

Monster Row

But that really shouldn’t distract you too long from the area’s beauty:

Lanterns and Trees

Shops

And oddities:

Bridge and Shrine

Monster Mailboxes await your postcards

Careful it doesn’t bite your hand off!

What are you looking at 5 eyes?

Surprise!

I didn’t even notice I caught the bird in mid-flight until I was reviewing the day’s photos several hours later:

A man and his bird

Trying desperately to finish off an old roll of film, I also brought along my Nikon FM2:

Lanterns courtesy of Fujicolor Superia 200

Unless you walk around taking tons of pictures, the entire Monster Village doesn’t require more than an hour to enjoy everything. While you are there be sure to visit other lovely areas such as the Wangyou Forest, Neihu Elementary School, or the Sitou or Sanlinxi Forest Recreation Areas.

Who collects the coins at the end of the day?

Getting there: Got your own transportation? Take Freeway 3 and exit at the Zhushan Interchange. Take Provincial HWY 3 towards Zhushan and turn left at County HWY 151. Otherwise you can catch a shuttle bus from Taichung’s HSR Station or catch one of the buses leaving for Sanlinxi outside Taichung Railway Station [Taichung Bus and Yuanlin Bus companies].

No explanation

Favorite Posts of 2009

Todd Alperovitz — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:15:23 +0000

With 2009 coming to a close I thought I would take a moment to highlight some of my favorite posts [in no particular order]:

Growing up a short drive from Sandusky, Ohio, I’ve never been too impressed by amusement parks in Taiwan. The rides at the Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village were really nothing to write home about, but the cherry blossoms sure were nice.
Skip the Sitou Forest Recreational Park and go to the Wangyou Forest instead. It’s a real gem and almost deserted [for now].
I visited the Old Taichung Winery with blogger Mark Forman in October and had a great time. On this trip I learned to love my 50mm f/1.8 all over again.
My trip to Kaohsiung with my wife was a blast. It’s hard to choose one post to highlight here but the one featuring shots from Formosa Boulevard MRT Station’s the Dome of Light really stand out for its panorama goodness.
I wrote a short little article about Reverse Lens Macro Photography that you may find helpful. The examples in the article are fairly dull, but the subsequent Daily Photos came out nice.
Surprise! Nantou had a flower festival!
I never knew a ceramics museum could be so interesting! Now I need to find time to visit Yingge again!
Cathy and I had a great time walking around the Gold Ecological Park in Jinguashi. Check it out to learn about Taiwan’s intriguing mining history!
I’ve written a few posts from our honeymoon to the Czech Republic and Austria. Unfortunately, I’ve experienced quite a delay getting pictures online due to my pre-Intel processor iBook G4 showing its age. Out of the posts I have made, the one of the Old Jewish Cemetery is my favorite.
Can I pick just one cycling post? Of course not. My trip on the Northern Cross Island Highway was the most fun I’ve ever had cycling in lousy weather, mainly because of the great people I went along with. My recent solo-ride to Xinshe was great because it was more challenging than any other ride I had done before.

This year I started doing Weekly Links as a regular feature on the blog. I hope my readers have found this useful for finding interesting content. The Daily Photo feature began last year and unfortunately posting has been sporadic at best. I usually post a Daily Photo if there wasn’t a long post and usually only post a photo on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday [and technically Thursday if you count the Weekly Links header photo]. Regardless, here’s my 10 favorite Daily Photos [sorted by date]:

January 22 – Anping Tree House [4]

February 2 – A Sign of Spring

March 17 – Electric

April 27 – The Tenth Floor

May 7 – Bamboo

May 14 – Lotus

May 25 – Time to Take out the Trash

June 8 – Corrosion

August 18 – FM2

October 7 – All Your Weight Falls on Me and Brings Me Down

Notice anything missing? Yeah, no people. I’ll try to work on that in 2010.

In personal news, Cathy and I just celebrated our one year anniversary! I’m looking forward to plenty more anniversaries and travels with my beautiful wife!

Have a Happy New Year!

Saturday Cycling – The Lugu Loop

Todd Alperovitz — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:58:41 +0000

This morning, cycling buddies Michael T. and Drew K. came down from Taichung for some cycling around Lugu [鹿谷]. The route was about 50km long and tallied up over 900m in climbs. I packed my bike in Michael’s van and we traveled down HWY 3 to Zhushan [竹山]. We parked the van at the 7-11 on Jishan Road [3丙], unpacked, and were off!

Our route gave us a great view of the Jiji Weir and the Zhuoshui River. Soon we were on County Road 139 followed by 131 to Lugu. Along the way, there were plenty of tea plantations:

This is the much more heavily traveled County Road 151. It leads to the popular tourist destinations Sitou [溪頭] and Shanlinxi [杉林溪]. Since the weather was cool, the traffic wasn’t too bad:

After stopping to confirm our location on a tourist map at the side of the road, Drew discusses his satisfaction with the outstanding English translations found on tourist maps throughout the island. We were just a stone’s throw from the Tca Culture Hall [茶業文化館] and a short ride from Mr. Dongding [凍頂山].

Our bikes lined up during our final ascent before turning off on 投55-2 to circle back around to Zhushan:

Although it was really hazy, I did manage a few decent scenery shots here and there:

The ride back was mostly down hill. We stopped briefly at a homestay run by the parents of one of Drew’s friends for tea and conversation before charging back to the van in Zhushan.

Here’s the official map of the route we took this morning. I got a portrait of all three of us in front of a convex traffic mirror, but I accidentally erased it from my camera. Here’s a self-portrait from the same traffic mirror that my delete-happy thumb spared:

Nantou’s Wangyou Forest

Todd Alperovitz — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:09:55 +0000

Nantou’s Wangyou Forest [忘憂森林] lies a stone’s throw from the popular Sitou Forest Recreational Area [溪頭自然教育園區]. To get there, simply follow Route 151 to Lugu→Sitou, keep a look out for the 12 animal zodiac signs, once you’ve past the pig zodiac it’s not too far till you get to a steep and narrow road leading up to a parking lot and the restaurant Wangyou Forest Cafe. You can park on the main road and walk up, which probably takes about 40 minutes, or you can call the restaurant and the owner will pick you up [tel:0916990520].

Most of the dishes at the restaurant cost between $300-$350NT, which is expected given its location. No one in our group seemed really wowed by the food, but the air and the view [first picture in the post] are great.

I left my wife and her friends behind for a moment to take a walk around one of the area’s tea farms, the picture above are baskets used to collect tea leaves. At times mists would come and go hindering visibility:

The Wangyou Forest is only about a 5-10 minute walk from the restaurant. Despite the short walk it’s still really important to dress appropriately because most of the way is a dirt trail covered with roots, mosses, and the occasional fallen tree or large rock that needs to be manuevered over.

The area is a large pine forest, but one section has gone through a transformation.

The 921 Earthquake caused a small section of the forest to become a marshland. The pine trees that were living in this section died because they could not survive with their roots soaked so long underwater. The result, is breathtaking:

I found a stunning aerial photo by Chi Po-lin [齊柏林] available on his blog.

After sometime in the forest we made our way back to the car along the narrow road:

We saw plenty of these on our trip, they are for moving goods and people to and from the farms. I was tempted to ask for a ride on one but chickened out at the last minute:

Sitou Barbeque and Critters

Todd Alperovitz — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 05:01:02 +0000

A portion of the extended holiday was spent barbecuing and exploring part of Taiwan’s quieter-side. A friend rented a cabin in Sitou [溪頭], Lugu Township [鹿谷鄉]. It was a great weekend featuring food, KTV, and bugs.

Our group’s cabin was the one on the right:

One of several grills cooking on a cool Fall evening [sorry Michael, no Dutch Ovens]:

After a long night of grilling and KTV, we set out on foot to explore:

Dashigong [大石公]: a massive house-sized rock.

The sign to the left advertises the specials at the cafe up the stairs that is located above the rock. At the rock there is a small Buddha statue. If you donate $10 NT you can write your name and a note on a piece of wood and hang it for good luck. We donated money but opted out of writing a note and wasting wood.

Along our brief expedition we encountered several creatures. Our first was this butterfly:

The dragonflies were all flying low from the on-again off-again light rain of the morning:

A moth taking a break:

This spider was incredibly fun to take pictures of…

…it mostly involved me balancing on top of a brick wall because I haven’t invested in a powerful zoom lens for the D40…

…I took a shot from up close with the flash and I think that may have ticked him off, he fell (or jumped) to the bottom of his web and started wildly flailing his legs.

And the final critter is this Long-Horned Beetle [Locust Borer?] we saw fly overhead and land on this tree:

Neihu Elementary School, Nantou County

Todd Alperovitz — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:26:54 +0000

Like the Taipei Public Library Beitou Branch [臺北市立圖書館北投科], Neihu Elementary School [內湖國小] in Nantou County [南投縣] is an excellent example of what a public building in Taiwan can look like when a community steps away from the norm of building more and more massive concrete structures to serve the populace.

We had originally planned to go to Sitou Forest Park [溪頭森林遊樂區], however once we got there we were disappointed to find that there were no places to park from the volume of families that were visiting at the time (cars were parked up and down the roads leading up to entrance). Driving down the mountain, we pulled over when we spotted the school, it looked like a decent place to stretch out after being in the car for so long.

The area turned out to be a great place to stop, the school’s campus complimented rather than clashed with its natural surroundings.

Giving me amply time to get a decent photo, this little reptile showed more patience than most people do:

The number of people visiting grew exponentially by the time we were leaving (my guess is other poor souls who went up to Sitou Forest only to find it was overcrowded):

See you next time!