Below are the 7 most recent journal entries recorded in taitungknight's LiveJournal:

Monday, November 12th, 2007
12:16 pm	I have changed my blog. I have changed my blog, and it can now be found at the following place. Take a look! Check it out! Pretty pics! http://taitungknightblog.blogspot.com/ (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 7th, 2007
6:25 pm	Butterfly Valley Yesterday Lisa and I went up Butterfly Valley, intending to clean it out, except Lisa forgot the rubbish bags. We still had some though, and cleaned out as much as we could, and got it looking pretty clean, but we need to go back and finish the job. I'd like to put some signs up asking people to respect the litter. There are already huge signs up saying "no swimming" "no barbeques" "no entry" but that's the wrong approach. First of all no one really owns the river, and no one can really stop people going there. Secondly people already know about the place, so they're going to go there whether we want them to or not. We can't really stop them. But I want to educate people, and point out that if people take out their rubbish then everyone can come and enjoy the place, but if a few people leave trash around then no one enjoys it.   After we'd finished that, we went for a walk, sorry, I mean scramble, I mean river crossings, clambering over boulders, negoatiating a fast flowing and exciting river. Walk? We weren't really walking. :) The river was up, so it was a lot more challenging than usual, and we met our match where we came to a point which required swimming. The river was belting down, and as soon as it gets over chest deep it's impossible to walk through. I had a good go of it though, by going up to the river wall and sidling along it, pulling and pushing with my arms and feeling for holds with my feet. It felt so much like wrestling, I had to keep my chest as close as possible to the wall so I wouldn;t be ripped away, and feeling for underwater rocks with my feet. As I did it, I found that the river was very, very faintly pulling me upstream. I guess the slight gap between me and the wall was creating tiny eddies, and it was a matter of feeling them, listening with my bodie, using them to pull me upstream and to the next handhold. So much fun, requiring so much concentration and attention, listening with all my senses, and using technique instead of brute force.      We got out eventually, and were getting changed by the side of the road, when I heard a sound. Looking round I saw a red car, and there was Lisa standing topless. "Lisa! Put your shirt on! There's a car!" I said frantically, and she just managed to before it came round the corner.   Then I realised I wasn't wearing underpants....  (Comment on this)
6:23 pm	poem   Towering high and frothing free The water rushed in a living wall A powerful mass of leaping surf Drops of water splashed and sprayed And sole in the water Small in the water A surfer waited alone. An army of many charged together Wave after wave of surging power Chased by the wind, by typhoon brought hither Together they charged, wild and free And tiny in the water Frail in the water A surfer waited alone. Wind inspired them and set them free Free with the joy and spark of the sea Water drove them and gave them purpose An unstoppable destiny and righteous fate But down in the water Tiny and weak A surfer waited alone He waited for the one, the king of the waves That towered o’er the rest with majesty and glory Thundering forward with a deafening roar A mughty surge on the whind whipped sea And alone in the wature Miniscule on the sea A surfer scrabbled in haste He turned and paddles with frantic energy An hitched a ride on the majestic wave Which leant him its power, its speed, it’s thrill As it leapt joyously to the jagged reef. Alternative ending 1 And alone on the wave Riding the barrel A surfer flew in exstasy Alternative ending 2 And smashed on the rocks Ripped by the coral A body floated alone (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 6th, 2007
9:25 pm	Typhoon  Today we had a typhoon, a lovely, beautiful huge typhoon that missed Taitung entirely.  It was practically sunny and shiny outside when I turned up to work this morning, t was very hot, and there was a little wind but no rain. Nevertheless all the staff were running around trying to figure out whether the school was supposed to be open or closed. The government offices which they were supposed to call were all closed, it being Saturday. The internet said nothing about Taitung, and there was contradictory information such as "Kaohsiung City schools are all closed, but Kaohsiung County schools are all open", from which the staff were trying to extrapolate whether we were supposed to be open or not. Looking at the net myself, I saw that the eye was currently north of Taipei, and that the tail was over Taitung, which meant that it probably wasn't going to get any worse than it already had. Half an hour into my first class, I was told all classes were cancelled and that we should go home. "Great!" I said. "I'm going swimming! Who wants to come to the beach?" I think they thought I was joking. I walked outside into balmy sunshine, and rode home, whereapon I changed into togs, and arranged to meet up at the beach. Lisa decided to come to watch me. Well, the ride up was interesting. There was a huge sandstorm over the bridge, with powerful gusty winds that threatened to blow us  into the bridge railings. I couldn't exactly stop and turn around in the middle of it though, so I just kept my head down and concentrated on keeping us on the road. Once we got to the other side however it abated and we just kept riding. At Dulan, the port, we avoided hitting a middle aged woman in a pink t-shirt riding her scooter on the wrong side of the road with no helmet. "It's a typhoon, and you still ride like this?"  I yelled incredulously, which she serenely ignored. A few minutes after we got to the temple at the beach a cop car pulled up, did a slow circle, looked us over and then left. I got off my  bike and started taking photos of waves, and presently I was joined by Mark and his grilfriend Emma. "So you're going to go swimming?" Mark said. "Be careful, that the police are having a crackdown. They're vicious, man, we were at the beach, just taking photos, and they almost did us. They took all Emma's details, and gave us a notice and told us to leave. A NT100,000 (US$3,000) fine, for swimming at the beach in a typhoon."  I found this very strange. "Go to the papers," I told him. "Write to the China Post. The most dangerous thing in Taiwan in a typhoon is other people. How is it okay to ride a motorbike on the wrong side of the road with no helmet, but it's not okay to go swimming? Why's it okay to ride with small children, no helmets, in weather like this, but not to go swimming? What's the difference? The difference is that if you go swimming, you're putting yourself in danger, you're putting yourself in harm's way. If you ride like an idiot on the road, then you're putting other people at danger. Especially in weather like this, with wind gusts and decreased visibility. "In fact, swimming in typhoons should be encouraged, because it demands responsibility for your own actions. It's just you and the wave, and there's no help out there, so you'd better be damn sure of your abilities and watch the sea and pick the right spot. It's like climbing a mountain, you've got to know what you're doing, and you know before you take the first step that it's your choice and your decision and you are solely responsible for your own safety and any consequences are yours alone. "But riding a scooter? There are so many other idiots out there, even if you're driving responsibly you can buy it because someone else is being stupid and then makes a mistake. And in typhoons there's less margin for error. So why are the police 15km out of town patrolling the beaches?" After taking photos, we returned to Taitung, Mark yelling like a squad commander in the Vietnam War when we hit the bridge and battling through the sandstorm. "Incoming! Incoming! We're taking heavy fire! It's an ambush! Requesting pick up! Go go go!" Still, he was still driving carefully and paying attention to what he was doing... The Mexican place was closed, so we had Napoli pizza. Over lunch I told them the story of Geordy, a South African Surfer who used to live here. One time he was out surfing, in a typhoon, and a policeman came out and stood on the beach waving at him to come in. "So I went in" Geordie said. "It could have been anything, you know, he might have seen a shark, anything." But when he got in and was told only "It's a typhoon, it's dangerous, you can't go swimming" geordie got mad. He tore strips off the copper in Chinese, berated him for not doing his job, pointed out that the waves were huge,  suggested he go find some crime to stop." Then he headed back out to sea. At some point some camera crews turned up, and started filming. Anyway, this policeman decided to stop Geordie, and headed into the water after him. Except he got into trouble - not Geordie, Geordie was out paddling through the waves and heading out to sea - and the policeman was there getting into trouble and had to be rescued by the reporters.       (Comment on this)
Friday, October 5th, 2007
4:30 pm	The Road to Nowhere I went for a ride today up to Da Nang river. At one point there's a pipe crossing the river, and I wanted to know how it got there, because as far as I knew there was no road. So I went exploring. I crossed the bridge, and continued up the road. It was in better condition than I remembered, last time I went up there was about a year ago. Now it's a concrete road, and easily navigable if a bit steep. It goes up and up and up, meandering up the hillside, and then curving round to the left to go back towards.... well, where exactly? There's no town up that way. There's no little settlement up there, waiting to be linked to civilization. Ahead of it there are cliffs, and then the main road from Da Nang to JrBen. So what... a road from Da Nang, across two rivers, up a mountainside, down a mountainside to end up 1km from where it started?  Maybe it's to provide access to farms, or enable the local Da Nang people to build farms. Well, there are no farms up there apart from the ones following the road, and no one is allowed to own land up there as it is a water catchement and therefore owned by the government. All waterways and catchement areas are owned by the government as per Taiwan law "to protect the water supply.   The problem with roads in places like this is that it opens it up for people. As I went up it today, I could see the road on the other side of the valley, and it was clearly marked with beetlenut plantations faithfully following the road all the way up. Beetlenut trees are an environmental disaster; they have very little foliage and therefore are next to useless at converting CO2 to O2. When a farmer clearfells an area and clears off all the scrub in order to plant these bare polses of trees, the forest loses a huge amount of biomass, not to mention destryoying the habitat for all the birds and animals that should be there. The trees themselves have shallow roots, and therefore become a hazard for flooding, which is an issue in Taiwan as it seldom rains, and most of the water arrives in the form of tropical storms and full blown typhoons.    Two thirds of the way up, there's a sign. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 9th, 2006
6:52 pm	I was driving home today, and I noticed that on the back on the SUV in front of me was a covered spare wheel with a picture of a killer whale and the words "Suzuki likes NATURE." My immediate reaction was an impulsive desire to leap out of my car and have a discussion with him with a tire iron. My second was to follow him home, find out where he lives, and return when he's sleeping and ... with flourescent white paint ... add the words "with wasabi." Probably they just forgot a few words. I mean, think about it. A motor vehicle company liking nature? Is it a hybrid petrol / electric vehicle? Doubt it. Is it running on a petrol / ethanol mix? Doubt it. It's a gas guzzling SUV for crying out loud, one of the most environmentally destructive vehicles on the planet. And it's a Japanese SUV. With a picture of a whale. And the words "We like nature." Yum. What a thing to say! How obscene! How callous! And what a bastard to buy a car like that, with that emblazoned on it! Obviously, it is simply a sales gimmick, brazenly unashamed false advertising aimed at hitting the nature loving nerve in New Zealanders, making them think "Suzuki likes nature, it must be a good environmentally friendly company, how nice." Next time the target needs a new vehicle, they might think favourably of Suzuki and buy one of theirs. Yet if you think about it, it is an extremely offensive statement. It makes me furious because it insults our intelligence; and because it's blatently false - a profit driven car manufacturor which has suppressed research into environmentally friendly vehicle alternatives, from a country which wholeheartedly supports whaling putting forward an advertisement with a picture of a whale and a claim to "like nature." And shoves it on the back of an SUV. It's nearly as bad as that Toyota ad with all the beautiful pictures of New Zealand and the words "Welcome to our world." I read: "This (New Zealand) belongs to us (said Japanese corporation.)You are wlcome to stay here if you want." Needless to say ever since I have never even considered buying a Toyota. And, just to be fair, on the off chance that Suzuki may actually be environmetally friendly and I have everything all wrong, I hit google on getting home. "Suzuki environment" "Suzuki donations "suzuki charity" "wikipedia suzuki." There is apparently a Japanese - Canadien environmentalist, researcher and protester called David Suzuki who cares very much about the environment and should be applauded. Look him up. There is also Suzuki corporations, which sells motor vehicles. (Comment on this)
Monday, May 8th, 2006
10:11 pm	Well, I thought I might create one of these online diary things. That doesn't mean I'll actually ever update it, let alone maintain it... Anyway. Everyone else seems to be doing one, and they're all away anyway, so I might as well. Preparation for the police quiz is starting to piss me off. Getting fit seems to take forever, and I don't seem to be making much progress... always "next week, maybe next week." (Comment on this)