Zagreb? No such country.

Today I went to the City Police for my ARC (Alien Resident Certificate-and who says I am not on Mars? Alien residing here.). I obtained it without any troubles, and with lots of pleasant smiles. Never, nowhere in Europe I got the papers so quick. And they spoke English, yes, not as it is usual in some other countries that ladies in such office speak only (very) local dialect.

Then I wanted to change some euros-just 20 eur, to get rid of them. Here exchange offices are not so often as in Europe, rather you should try in bank. So I went. It took me half an hour. Ladies were pleasant, but 3 of them were managing with my, as they said, "euro dollars". I doubt they ever have seen any. Problem was that they had only 100,50 and 10 eur on the banknotes list for euros. After few phone calls, boss decided they can buy it from me-and it was big, 5 floor bank, not some small hole. Name was Cosmos Bank, so you understand I HAD to go there! Filling the papers, making copy of the passport etc. took quite a time. The best was when lady tried to find Zagreb in the list of countries for entering the code. Then I showed her "Croatia"- her level of recognition was equal as for "Zagreb", but (fortunately) it was in the list :-). Their fee was 1%, but "minimum 180NT$". Finally of 810NT$ (today's rate was 1eur=40.06NT$, them selling for 44NT$), I obtained 700NT$, it seems they understood it's a bit too much to take 180NT$, nice of them. But, if you do not need, better do not change euros here.

Biking back home, I made some day-light pics in the city - btw. it is Hsinju-I think this is Yale transcription and I find it much better than Wade-Giles Hsinchu or pinyin Xinzhu. A pity they do not use it...so I'll stay with Hsinchu, this you usually find on Internet.

Ying Shi door is the most photographed object in the city. And it deserves it. Behind is a nice small park above the water-Hsinchu is one of the rare cities which preserved its water canals in the city. Not always pleasure, as you can imagine (smell!), but we remember Venice, eh? One day this will be walking-zone, now it's quite busy rondo.

Appearance of the canal in the city is usually less romantic than in the very center:

Sometimes you are surprised in the less expected place:

I am curious what tells the sign near the bike :-).

SEAsian TV

Some characterise Taiwan as North East Asia. How it come? To me it seems rather SE. Any opinions?

This will be a small "trip" through some very "local" TV programs :-). Just to give you a scent. I have some 110 cable TV programs in my home, and ONE is in English, sure, as I am in the 52nd USA state, it's CNN. It is much more funny to go through rest 109 of them, believe me, even if I do not understand them. My favorite is Mandarin Top20, pop chart. These days my favorite is cute lolly-pop called Cyndi :-), and some clones of her, with similar names.

Let's start spiritually: such guys have their own channels. They are equally "funny" as some other we know in the West.

Sometimes I know I am in China...

Some old style movie:

Studio chat looks as usual

Course of English (strange, yes?) This is Japanese channel, there are more of them, with Chinese subtitles.

Economy TV gurus are something ubiquitous here. These channels are all the time like this, talking heads and hands, drawing diagrams and showing numbers. People here like it, it seems. There is 5 or 6 of such channels.

Taipei-longer

This time it was sunday afternoon walk-around. Two Croatians wandering around Taipei for 10 hours. Meeting a friend from that distant lands of tiny Europe here is quite surrealistic thing. We bathed it in decent amount of beer, sure. Behind us here is CKS Memorial, yes, it is BIG.

Inside Buddha-like smile of CKS. Remembers a bit all the similar Founding Fathers. After the great pre-cursor of similar cults, Kemal Ataturk, anything new in the world of Fathers of the Nation(s).

Dragon made of plastic bottles, impressive work!

Ordinary small street of Taipei, just behind Roosevelt Road.

For Europeans: this is how bamboo grows

Among other shops you can find this one also

After this we needed beer, so after a bit of search we found some place with quite decent esspresso and some beer (from tin-can but good...and cold). Choice of drinks attracted my attention, Polish people will know why... :-) (this is NOT a Polish votka, it is rather spirit used for cleaning!, not strange they could think Polish people a bit strange)

Here is the entrance to the TAIDA campus, NTU (National Taiwan University), where also my host institution ASIAA is located. In the background you can see the tallest building in the world, Taipei 101, half a kilometer (508m) high tower. It is equipped in 800 tons spherical rotating balance near the top, to prevent 'surprises' from quite often earthquakes. It is impressive.

One pic remembering where I am: in the Longtan town, between Hsinchu and Taipei, this playground says everything, I think.

They could need praying-and there is plenty of such places in the cities:

.

Taipei-short

Today I visited Taipei for a short over-taking of my documents. Interesting experience to travel around (by bus, 70km to Taipei) without really understanding (or be understood by) anyone, and written info is not of a much help :-{ . But I managed without getting lost, and here are two pics from that trip, taken from the bus. Only two as this was a SHORT trip, I started at 8AM and at 12AM I was back in Hsinchu! Btw., Shinju would be much better romanization in English, dokladniej Sindziu (krotkie, ciete u) po polsku, \Sindju na hrvatskom (\S je za s sa kvacicom).

Here we see what happens when there is too many people in a too small area. And we in Europe complain about devastating nature? I saw lots of buildings just on the top of the juicy green hill.

My favourite (to be) building of today, from one town between Taipei and Hsinchu:

Joined the bloggers

Well, here I am, as I understand, blogging is part of the cyberlife today, so as I am quite cyber-Miki last times, why not?

Some could say it's graphomania-I'll try to make it ALAP like that. I do not find sending list-emails to my friends a good idea, and then all the time I find I forgot to send to somebody IMPORTANT a last update. This is one possibility to escape it. Maybe. But let's give it a chance :-).
For the beginning, some pics: here is my working place

And here is my vehicle here at the Tropic of Cancer:

Sure, here is me in the mirror (CP symmetry not conserved :-) )

One 'capture' from Hsinchu street (GuangFu Rd.) just in front of the NTHU:

And in the Campus of NTHU hidden are such 'flowers', sure, this is Physics buliding! I would nickname it Gotham Hall, it seems Escher's spirit was around, ech?