Taiwan: Days 5 and 6

Wrapping it up.  This picture is of one of our impromtu wine tastings after work at the factory.  Richard, the engineering manager, has his own cup. 

We mostly worked these last two days; finishing up some projects.  We found time for a few diversions.  We had an excellent Taiwan seafood lunch one day.  Jack took me on a tour of an area where they have all manner of plant nurseries; I don't think I'd ever seen so many in one place before.  We had lunch at the Japanese restaurant again on Friday, but with a much simpler menu: sashimi, fried rice, grilled sea bass and various vegetable dishes.  Also something I hadn't tried before: fresh tomatoes dusted with a mixture of sugar and cherry powder (not sure what that is). It was really good.

Friday was our last day at the factory.  We all loaded up Stefan's car and he took us to Taipei, about a 2-hour drive.  We stopped at a Hakka restaurant (one of the many cultures from the Chinese mainland) and had dinner before going to the airport for our 11PM flight.

We arrived at SF without problem, though the flight was kind of bumpy; 10.5 hours.  We arrived before we left: about 7PM Friday, SJ time. 

That's all for now.  Check back later and I'll post more on my next trip.

Taiwan: Day 4.2

Part 2

After looking around the temple, we walked around the back and there was a large market street area that focused mainly on tea.  Tea is grow in the hills here.  Some friends of Jack's saw him and came over they invited us into a tea shop and we had to sample various kinds.  They didn't speak any English, but just kept giving me stuff; "try this, try this."  They send us off with a jar of candied locquats and something else I'm not quite sure of. 

We walked around the market and looked at all the produce and other things for sale.  All the tea stalls had people out front handing out little cups of tea to try.  We sampled a few.

We made our way back the way we came.  Jack drove back a different way so I could see the town where they grew tea and pineapples.  We got back to the factory and the others were still working, but had broken out the red wine by then.  The others were busy so Jack later took me to his favorite potsticker restaurant in the nearby town of Beidou. 

We had a lot to eat and chatted the whole time.  Jack's really an interesting guy.  He has a couple of houses in Taiwan, 3 in California.  He visits CA a couple of times a year because he just likes to go there and have fun.  His wife doesn't like to travel. 

After dinner - yes, we're still on Day 4- he took me for a massage.  It was the hardest massage I've ever had [I'm still sore].  They even did the walking on the back thing which has to be felt to be believed.  Jack nodded off at one point and the girls were giggling about it.  I really don't know how he could sleep through that.

After that, Jack drove me back to my hotel.  It was a long and full day.  Here are some pictures:

Pictures from Day 4

Taiwan: Day 4.1

This is Jack. He was my tour guide for the day.  Well, not really.  He's actually the owner of the factory I've been visiting.  This is one of his rare, non-smiling moments.  He's 72 years old and you have to run to keep up with him.

On Day 4 (Wed) I was busy working in the morning.  We all went to lunch at Stefan's favorite beef noodle (niuroumian) place; literally a "hole in the wall" and very good.  In the afternoon Jack and I left the others working at the factory and he took me in his 20-year old spotless Mercedes up into the foothills near the factory.  We are on the west side of the Taiwan island, near the middle in a town named Tianzhong (middle farm).  There are rice paddies all around. 

He told me we were going on a hike to look for wild monkeys.  OK.  We did see lots of monkeys along the steady incline through a semi-tropical mountain canyon.  Then we climbed some steep steps and came into the courtyard of a large Daoist temple.  We lucked out and there was some kind of celebration going on: firecrackers, music, people in costume, etc.  They were moving little statues around inside the temple and there was a lot going on.  I'll post some pictures in my next post.  The temple looked brand new and the painting was all very recent.  Jack told me the old temple had been destroyed in an earthquake 4 year ago and this was the new one.

Stay tuned for Part 2 or "the day I spent a week in Taiwan."

Taiwan: Day 3

Today was the first full day at the factory.  The factory is literally a "mom and pop" operation.  Most day to day operations are managed by the "son," Stefan.  "Pop" is Jack. More on him later.

We spent most of the day working, but Stefan and Jack took us to a local Japanese restaurant for lunch.  I had some things I'd never had before: Shark and sunfish cartilage.  It tastes as good as it sounds.  Also: pufferfish.  Not very tasty either.  We did have some excellent tuna sashimi along with shrimp fried rice, squid, deep fried little fishes, and tuna fin. 

We worked late.  We were all still full from lunch when dinner time rolled around. Jack said he'd pick up some popstickers and bring them in.  We had some white wine, some red wine (Stefan has a good collection of wine from all over the world) and enough potstickers and vegetables for a small feast.  We got back to the hotel about 11PM.

Sorry I haven't posted any pictures yet.  I haven't had the time.  Check back here again soon and I'll hopefully have some.

Taiwan Day 2

Taipei south to Changhua County

Still very overcast and grey today. Stefan and I visited 4 factories of various suppliers on the way to his company's factory today.  Everyone was very pleasant and helpful and I saw an overview of the suppliers.  Just getting to know all the suppliers in this new job.  See some pictures from the day here:

Tw Day 2

Had a (thankfully) lightish lunch of beef noodle soup; the national dish: "ni rou mien."

We ended up at Stefan's family factory.  Did some work, had some wine (Stefan and George are big wine guys) then went to a really good Thai restaurant near our hotel.  Still haven't had Taiwanese food (except for the noodle soup).  This area is very 'provincial.' and doesn't have the cosmopolitan feel of Taipei. 

Still haven't caught up on sleep so will try to get some more tonight.  I'll be at this location the rest of my stay.

More later.  Stay tuned....

Day 1: Taipei

Day 1: Taipei
Arrival in Taipei

After a 14-hour red eye in which Saturday was just erased from the calendar, we arrived in Taipei at 6AM on Sunday. Stefan, who works for the company we are visiting, picked us up and was our guide for the rest of the day. It rained all day. We were pretty exhausted from the jet-lag and not having slept much, but we kept busy so as not to go to sleep until the evening. I'm traveling with George, one of the engineering managers.

We visited the National Museum and saw a lot of ancient Chinese ceramics and artifacts. It was interesting to hear the "china" story from the Taiwanese (TW) point of view.
We had a great Italian meal for lunch then walked all over the malls via the footbridges that connect them with Taipei 101 and the hotel. It rained non-stop all day. Still people were out strolling.
We finally stopped and settled into one of the hotel bars and had a couple of drinks (still full from lunch), we didn't feel like dinner. We talked business and George and Stefan went over old times. They've know each other for years. We finally called it a night (or an afternoon) about 6PM and each crawled off to our respective executive suites. All the "cheap" rooms were taken.
Btw, Stefan told us that when the US gov't evacuated diplomatic families from Tokyo after the recent earthquake because of fear of radiation, they ended up at this hotel, the Grand Hyatt. He said they mostly gone back to Tokyo or home now. There were radiation detectors in the airport we noticed when we came in.

I'll post some links to pictures later when I have more time.
[if the picture doesn't show to the right of this post, click on the little black square to show it. I'm not sure why it's not showing up.]

Off to Taiwan

Hi all,

Well, I have a new job now and so probably won't be going to Beijing again any time soon.  But I am going to Taiwan late tonight.  Taiwan is not "China" according to the mainlain Chinese, but according to the Taiwanese it is.  The official name for Taiwan is "The Republic of China."  The official name for mainland China is "The People's Republic of China." 

Anyway, I hope to post pictures of my trip on a daily basis.  I will only be there for 1 week and I have a lot of work to do so I hope I have enough time for that.

The picture on this post is of Taipei 101, the tallest building in Asia.  The hotel I'm staying it is within a block of this building.

Stay tuned...