Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Green Expo, Japanese Show #1

We happened by the show just as it was starting, so popped in and had a seat.  Not sure what the theme or story was, but it was an interesting venue and show for picture taking.

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Green Expo, Crazy Ride for Adults

As it turns out, not all of the rides were for kids.  This crazy-looking contraption was something I hadn't seen before.  After witnessing a grown-up or two try this thing out, don't think I'd go on one.  Looks like this guy's having a great time, though:

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Green Expo, Pink Merry-Go-Round

Bombarded by colors, movement, sounds, and kids running around, it was hard knowing where to start snapping photos.  If possible I avoid taking pictures of kids, even inadvertently, so much of it was off limits, but think I managed a few keepers while we were there.

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Green Expo, Gated Entrance

Finally we approach the gated entrance, greeted by a cascade of characters and colors.

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Green Expo, Hitching a Ride

We arrived to the Green Expo in the early afternoon, so there was a trickle of folks done for the day and headed back to their cars.

"Who said Grandma couldn't give me a ride??"

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Green Expo, Excavator Sign

On the way in we were reminded that driving our excavators in this wooded area is prohibited...

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Green Expo, Sidewalk Flowers

Another beautiful but mostly kid-related outing was the "Green Expo", an annual event in Yilan geared to promoting "green" initiatives - i.e., those touting responsible environmental practices.

Copy of ticket below.  Cost of admission equivalent to about $8.50 US:

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Giant Crayon Art Installation

After the class-like presentation was finished we went to the next station, where I was more free to use the clacky Bigger Cahoona to do these crayons justice.  Different perspective below of same:

There were four stations with different activities, each taking about 20 minutes to complete.  I really wanted to go up to the factory itself, which was the last thing they do with the paying tourists, but time got tight so we moved on to other things along the coast.

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Giant Crayons Next to Steps

We sat for a presentation on how they make crayons and do the mixing for various colors when this display off-stage beckoned, so I used the iPhone to capture the colors and included the steps as a reference for size.

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Giant Crayon Decor with Glowing Edges

The whole first floor of this factory was set up as a giant play and craft area for young children.  Many giant representations of the crayons were used as props and wall decor such as this one.  Just the right colors were selected for proper saturation and contrast.

Cropped out a piece of it to convert to Glowing Edges, increasing the line width to five pixels instead of the two that I normally use:

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Glowing Edges Pic of Family

Cropped in on the family and photoshopically applied Glowing Edges to a portion of one of the pictures posted yesterday, which was captured with the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Crayon Factory Exterior

With two kids on the trip, how could we pass this up?  And with all the colors, how could the Bigger Cahoona pass this up?  It's a crayon factory (not Crayola's).  The product is manufactured in this giant, silo-looking building shaped like the crayons we all know and love.

Tilted-down view below of the entrance at ground level, which gives an idea of the building's size:

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Hangman

For the life of me I could not figure out why this guy was hanging up there.  Suppose it was to give visitors a proper fear of what was lurking underneath...

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Sand Eels

These were very interesting to watch, but difficult to photograph since they were constantly in motion.  And when spooked for some reason they literally disappear, in unison, sinking completely under the sand of the sea floor.

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Moray Eel

Amazing how some animals are so well camouflaged against their surroundings...

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Aquaculture Research Center Sign

We had our elementary-age niece and nephew with us on this trip, so several kid-oriented activities were planned.  This is the sign to the Aquaculture Research Center just outside of Jiaoxi, a place where you can feed sharks and see all kinds of sea life native to the area.

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Hotel Sign / The Skinny Dippers

The hotel sign where we stayed for one night.

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At about age 13 a few friends and I took to skinny dipping. Yes, that all-American boyhood rite of passage immortalized by Rockwell's "No Swimming" painting. During the daylight hours we located a few remote creeks for the purpose, which was fun, but got tired of the long bike rides. Where to go next? We were already sneaking out at night, wandering the dark streets of Orange virtually every weekend. Why not go for something more handy? The whole town during those hours was at our disposal. Of course my friends Brent Holland and Doug McHugh were charter members of the skinny-dipping gang.

We started with the Linkwood Apartments on 14th St, two blocks from our house on Chapman. Stealthily we made our way to the pool after entering the complex in the dark of night. This was before cameras were everywhere, and in those days the crime rate was low in a small town like Orange anyway, so all we had to do was keep quiet. After leaving our clothes on the side we entered the water very slowly to avoid attracting attention from the neighbors, whose doors were only about fifteen feet away, then swam mostly under water. It was fun - been here, done this.

We upped the ante a little by next choosing the YMCA pool on West Park Avenue, which was ringed by an 8' wooden fence. This was a bit more dicey because it wasn't nested in a neighborhood like the Linkwood Apartments were, and there was more road traffic to avoid. But we managed, choosing to go there only once to avoid pushing our luck. A little challenging - been there, done that.

Next stop? The Holy Grail of our skinny dipping adventures - the Sunset Country Club! This was designated as the Holy Grail for several reasons: 1) it was the nicest pool in town; 2) it could have been guarded or monitored in some fashion, increasing the risk; and 3) there were substantial obstacles in getting there, including navigating through a stretch of woods and traversing a considerable distance in the open through the length of the course. Brent lived at 2309 John Baker Circle nearby, so we decided to use his house as a base. Also with us were a couple of skinny-dipping novices, brothers Stan and Clay. On the designated night, at 0100 hours, our team of four embarked on this perilous mission. And since the Country Club was such a swanky place, for the first time we brought towels.

The woods were no problem...we'd been exploring, galivanting, shooting BB guns, and camping in the place since we were younger kids. I had good night vision and Brent a good sense of direction, so we negotiated a pre-planned route until emerging at the edge of the club property. It was a moonlit night, thus easy to plot our way to the pool but risky because it would be so much easier to see us. Gathering courage, we began warily crossing the course grounds, heads on a swivel, keeping our eyes peeled for anything that moved. When possible we stayed close to the occasional oak along the way. Finally, we reached the pool undetected. It was surrounded by an eight-foot chain link fence. Knowing that time was of the essence, we scaled it as quickly and quietly as possible, staying clear of those twisty points on top. Then, as we'd done in other places, we left our clothes on the side while slipping in for a good swim. Dare we be so bold as to use the diving boards? Probably not, we concluded. After about ten minutes we decided that enough was enough, so donned our clothes and scaled the fence again to reverse course back to Brent's house.

Ah, but things were not so easy on the way back. Since we'd already done the deed, a little bit of cockiness accompanied our swagger and we became overconfident, talking almost normally as we crossed the grounds. More than three-quarters of our way back to the trailhead, however, someone noticed a movement traveling the perimeter of the property. A golf cart! It was the night watchman, driving slowly with a strong search light, illuminating the length of the course as it swept across. So what to do now? Only thing was to hide, because we would be exposed by that light in no time. Very fortunately, a relatively large water oak was nearby so the four of us lined up behind its trunk, one behind the other to minimize our profile. As the cart made its way across the property, we repositioned ourselves to stay lined up, keeping the trunk between us and the guard. To our dismay, as he passed closer we observed a shotgun resting across his lap. More than once we held our collective breath as the beam brightly lit the other side of our blessed tree...thankfully it was big enough and we were all skinny enough to stay out of the guard's crosshairs. We watched as the cart passed no more than a hundred feet away, then it turned toward the pool area we'd just abandoned. That was our cue to make a break for it and ran like crazy for the woods.

We became disoriented in our haste and temporarily lost the trail, but regained our bearings and made it back to Brent's. Never found out what it was that alerted the night watchman, but no matter...we were safe and sound with another story-telling feather in our caps.

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Peep-like Duck Pastry Things

You would think that the excellent and unique soup featured in yesterday's post would make that their specialty, but not so.  This restaurant is known more for these little duck pastries that resemble the Peeps sold in the U.S. during Easter.  They're filled with a sweet black sesame paste inside:

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Upside-down Bread Bowl Soup

This was neat, and very very tasty.  The pastry on top is perfectly baked and sits atop a standard soup bowl.  The customer's job is to break through the crunchy layers in order to get to the soup, which was also very, very good:

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Temple Incense

One of these days I'm going to ask what the big incense stick symbolizes as compared to the dinky ones surrounding it.  Surely the monks working in the temple itself are the ones that put it there.  Is it one per day, or will it last a little longer?  Does it convey a greater spiritual significance, considering its probable source?  Is there a special ceremony each time it's installed?  Chenjean has some relatives that are pretty deep into this thing, so will ask one of them someday...

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Protected Temple Accoutrements

Hadn't seen this elsewhere, so snapped a shot at how these accoutrements are protected from kids and irresponsible adults.  Didn't notice the guy sitting inside until post-capture.

Taiwan 2025 - NE Coast, Woodpile

Chenjean's brother and his family took us along to see some sights on the northeast coast of the island, about a 2-hour drive from Taipei and not far from where we visited last year.  We were walking along when I spied this woodpile, immediately recognizing it as a good subject for the blog.  After removing the background I did the usual thing with Found Edges (which I think looks better), and Glowing Edges respectively:

Taiwan 2025 - Monkey Post #10

This will be the last of the monkey posts for this trip, another of the troop's stragglers as he took a moment to scope me out.  (That haunting expression is better viewed by clicking to enlarge on a laptop or desktop.)

This will also be the last post of Chenjean's dad's village area, unless I decide to follow through with a series called "Cultural Considerations" later on...

Taiwan 2025 - Monkey Post #9

During the latter part of our stay at Chenjean's dad's house, in the heat of the afternoon, I was hiking alone up the usual mountain road when alerted, by their noisy movements, that monkeys were around.  Beelining to where they were, I was amazed to see between eight and ten individuals crashing and cavorting around in the trees.  Yes, the troop had grown.  There were so many that I was able to capture a few stragglers, including this female whose face was lit perfectly by the setting afternoon sun.

Taiwan 2025 - Monkey Post #8

 

Taiwan 2025 - Monkey Post #7 / Dad's Photography

Thank goodness for the high-resolution sensor and awesome full-frame light-grabbing capabilities of the Bigger Cahoona.  Times like these totally confirm the choice made back in October of 2017 to purchase the Nikon D850.  And amazingly, even now the trades claim that the 850 is still the best Nikon on the market.

It was a poignant decision, too, as I bought it in my father's memory.  He was an avid photographer as well, but of course everything back then was film-based.  Took lots of photos, which I regrettably did not keep many of, but he was more enthusiastic about and spent more time on 8mm movies, which I have most of in our possession.  Later had them transferred to CD's and digital on a hard drive, enabling distribution to siblings, etc.

And about 25 years ago the siblings pitched in and bought him his first digital camera.  That's when I showed him the wonders of working with electronic pics, using Photoshop Elements 2.0 at the time.  When I brightened one of the pictures we were looking at, he exclaimed, "Seems like you turned the lights on!"  I was proud to have been a part of rekindling his interest in photography, learning later that he subsequently spent quite a bit of time fiddling with Elements on his home computer to enhance pictures captured with his new camera.

Taiwan 2025 - Monkey Post #6

Just a couple of random shots of these guys moving around.  I'm still amazed they stuck around so long, as the tree wasn't very tall and there wasn't much coverage.

Taiwan 2025 - Monkey Post #5

Is this a happy expression?  Do monkeys smile when they're happy or excited?  One could think so looking at this guy.  Though it may or may not be true of monkeys, it can at least make us smile...

Taiwan 2025 - Monkey Post #4

Early on the second morning of our stay at Chenjean's dad's house, we were hiking up and down the mountain roads when I spied not one, but TWO monkeys foraging for food in this sparsely-leaved tree.  Quite the bonanza, as it's rare to walk up on these guys while in such open exposure.  They were very intent in their task, however, and appeared not to have noticed us at first.  And surprising to me was the fact that they were eating leaves, not fruit...hadn't seen that before.

Of course I went crazy under full zoom and in burst mode.  Even after seeing us they carried on as if we weren't there, not showing any of their usual skittishness until I moved closer.  Then they both climbed higher and out to the left, making the leap across the road into the denser trees of the jungle beyond.

The next few posts are closer-up shots of these two individually as I was able to capture their movements and behavior before moving on.

Taiwan 2025 - Monkey Post #3

Did not know what I had here until working with this pic in post-capture.  Looking at his eyes and left hand, this is the very moment the fruit was picked, fingers just having made contact.  Could not have planned this shot if I'd tried.  It's all about volume....

Another pic from same burst here:

Taiwan 2025 - Monkey Post #2

Here we have the same chap - a male - looking a bit forlorn.  Based on this look you would think that he was just sitting there, looking around while at rest, but in fact he was there for only a few seconds before scampering away.  I had to think ahead and act fast to capture the images seen in this series...

Taiwan 2025 - Monkey Post #1

This highly-cropped image needed a little massaging to make it presentable.  On virtually all of the monkey images some work was needed to make the eyes appear brighter, which included not only lightening in various ways but also an increase in color saturation.  Because of the clack of the mirror on the Bigger Cahoona, many shots captured a curious stare right at the camera.  The monkeys are obviously not used to hearing such, now that a vast majority of tourists take pictures silently with their phone cameras.

Indeed it was worth the trouble lugging around the D850, as technically the pictures of these critters have proven to be far superior to those taken with the iPhone.  But for wildlife shots like these one really needs a quality 500mm lens.  To demonstrate perspective, the image below - the same one from which the above was cropped - was zoomed to its full 300mm, which is as close as I could get to these critters:

Taiwan 2025 - Bare Tree on Mountainside / The Monkey Situation

We noticed last year that a certain species of tree on the mountainsides was not faring too well.  By this year they were completely bare.  Whenever seeing one I would think, "Wouldn't it be great if these branches were a favorite perch for the monkeys...", which would be ideal for taking pictures of the critters.  No luck on that front, however.  While the population of macaques has noticeably increased, they favor the broad, leafy trees down low that provide cover from prying human eyes.

And because of the greater population, sightings of these creatures are far more common.  Last year I identified where a certain troop - perhaps just a single family - lived, and approached the area with the Bigger Cahoona as if on a hunt.  As seen in posts from last year's series, sometimes there was success.  This year, however, the troop obviously has grown and, from what I saw, numbered in the range of 10-12 individuals.  And they were predictable enough to photograph if you knew when they'd be at a certain location.  For example, based on dozens of hikes through their territory, I concluded that in the mornings they descend to the river for water.  Then they make their way up the mountainside onto higher ground, and settle within 50 yards of it once they cross the road.  This is where they keep an eye on things from a high perch.  When they do see someone on foot, or a large group such as from the tourist buses, they scramble down to the lower canopy so as not to be seen.  This defeats the purpose for them, however, because they aren't careful and crash loudly through the brush, giving away not only their location but the direction to which they are headed.  Of course for me that serves as a beacon for quick positioning to hunt them photographically.

Taiwan 2025 - Very Different Grapes (sort of)

Have you ever seen grapes growing on the branches of a tree instead of on a vine?  Don't think these are true grapes, but whatever they are they were in season and everywhere.  They do taste like grapes, but different in that the skins are thick and bitter, not edible, and there is only one seed in the middle.  I was the only one in Chenjean's house that claimed to like them, so got a big bowlful both in the morning and also during the heat of mid-afternoon.  The skins filled up an entire teacup by the time I finished each serving...

Taiwan 2025 - Pinkish-red Flowers in Town

During the past couple of years I've seen more fancy flowers in front of the houses down Chenjean's street - some because the owners simply like them there, and others no doubt to attract the eyes of tourists passing through.  Either way it's a win-win for all of us, including the Bigger Cahoona, which captured these two perspectives of the same potted plant...

Taiwan 2025 - Dried by the Fire

This picture was taken on April 13th and, if one can believe it, the temperature was cool enough to warrant long sleeves for my daily morning hike further up the mountain.  Saw this while passing through the edge of town and stopped for a while to warm up by the fire before continuing.  What are they doing?  Those are thickened tofu skins (made from soy beans) being dried, and presumably smoked as well.  The sign touts the fact that they are "purely handmade".