Borobudur, Indonesia

Borobudur Temple

Had the chance recently to travel to Indonesia with a holiday weekend to occupy ....so together with some friends went to Jogjakarta and one of wonders of the world,  the 8th century Buddhist temple at Borobudur Also visited some other nearby temples Plaosan (Buddhist) and Prambanan (Hindu)

Here are some of the highlights set to traditional Indonesian Gamelan music

Temple Trek at Borobudur (WMV)

  

Relief carving at Prambanan Temple

An Trip of a Lifetime

We'll we're back from our vacation to Africa!!  It was a long haul..19 hours 15 in the air, but I think it was worth it.  We flew from Taiwan to Hong Kong, Johannesburg, and finally to Cape Town, where we had rented a beach house in the suburb of Kommetjie.    We lounged and explored the beach, went into Cape Town, and down the coast to the Cape of Good Hope.   The scenery was stunning and the temperatures cool.  It was spring after all in the Southern Hemisphere!!

After overcoming our jet lag we flew back to Johannesburg where we were met by our guide Alida de Villiers, who drove us 4 hours across the "veld" to Kruger National Park.    There for 5 days, we criss-crossed the landscape, soaking in the scenery and more importantly, the wildlife.  And oh the wildlife!!  During our say we saw 35 different types of animals..most up close and numerous times...and close to 50 kinds of birds.  Just amazing.  I think we'll never watch an animal documentary the same way.  Spending a half hour watching a herd of elephants play in the mud, a family of cheetah escaping the heat, a pride of lions well, lying down, a tree full of vultures, a hyena running down the road.  memories for a lifetime.

I've tried to put some of the gigabites of pictures we took into a slide show for you. 

Hope you enjoy it...it runs about 15 minutes.  I embedded a link to the file which is stored on Google Drive. It may or may not ask you to download the video (as with any video), but no password or program download is required.

The Towner's Africa Sojourn


The Towner's African Sojourn..alternative file type try for IPAD


 This slide show is just animals that we saw..a few more of each..  We took 98% of the photos herein...but  a couple, like the Genet, were taken at night and the internet photos were just better

The Animal's of Kruger National Park ..as we saw them in the wild


The Animal's of Kruger ...alternative link..works for IPAD3

Lastly we have the birds.  I wasn't much of a bird guy til we got to South Africa.  We really saw an amazing number of birds...big and small, colorful and camouflaged.  Pretty incredible.    We took all the photos in the slidshow but a couple are a little fuzzy because of cropping....Not every bird flies right up to you....though some did!

The Birds of Kruger and Cape Town (WMV file)

Birds of Kruger and Cape Town (Ipad)

Ticklish

Who'd have thunk that on the outskirts of Taipei one could find small fish from a warm sodium bicarbonate spring in Kangal, Turkey...but there they are at Formosa Fun Coast Water Park in Bali Taiwan !!! And there we were for Aileen's birthday party.   They eat bacteria and dead skin from your feet in a FEAT of extraordinary self sacrifice..or stupidity.  I guess if you live in some cave in remote Turkey....well you go with what you can get.  Oh and how it tickles

 

mm  mm good!

The Summer of Aileen

Miss Aileen is having a heck of a summer and it all started even before summer started....Aileen was selected for the Taipei European School Year 6 (5th Grade) FOBISSEA Team.  FOBISSEA is a Federation of British Schools in East and Southeast Asia.  Each year FOBISSEA schools across Asia have a sports competition.  Six boys and six girls from Years 4, 5, and 6, are selected to form a school team to compete against teams from other schools in Swimming, Soccer, T-Ball, and Track.  Each year a different school hosts and this year it was the Harrow School in Beijing.  Aileen made the TES team and after a 6 months of practice was set to go.

The hitch was...because we are US diplomats in Taiwan but the US doesn't officially recognize Taiwan and Beijing has certain aspirations for Taiwan, the Chinese government adds a few extra hoops for us to travel to mainland China...in short we have to go in person to Hong Kong to secure a Chinese visa...  SO after working late on a Sunday night, Aileen and I woke up at 0430 for a 0700  flight to Hong Kong .  Once we put the visa requests in we had nothing but time on our hands.  SO I took her and one of her classmates (who was also getting a visa) up to the PEAK overlooking Hong Kong Harbor.  The next afternoon we picked up her visa and it was back to Taipei.

Hong Kong from the PEAK

The PEAK Tram

After the Chinese Visa was secured  Aileen was ready to head to Beijing.  Aileen and the 36 member Taipei European School delegation left on June 6 for three days of competition and an extra day of fun.  Aileen did very well, winning 3 Golds (Freestyle Relay, Soccer, and Shuttle Run), 6 Silver (Long Jump, High Jump, 50 M Freestyle, 50 M Backstroke, Medley Relay, and T-Ball) as well as 2 Bronze (60 M Run, and the Tire Race)  and most important had fun with her school friends...and without Mom and Dad

 

 Within days of getting back from her successful Beijing adventure, Aileen joined the entire family for a trip back home to DC.  Dad had to work but the rest of the gang could catch up with friends and even go to camp.  Aileen went to a week of British Soccer camp and then headed  out to Denver to stay for a week with her Uncle Chip and Aunt Mel an offer they extend to their neices and nephews once they are 10.....hooray for frequent flyer miles...  Aileen had a week to remember ..museums, going up 14,000 foot Mt. Evans, alpine slides, bungee trampolines, classic trains and silver mines, movies, cooking class, playing with the dogs, and holding tarantulas...What a week!!!

 

 

SO the "summer of Aileen" is coming to an end....She is gearing up for middle school (which starts in sixth grade in the British system) ...she just a tough cello placement test ...and because of some issues between the "Embassy" (AIT) and the landlord it looks like we'll be moving from our apartment and its great view  in just a couple weeks...Thank goodness Aileen can look back on the summer of 2012 as one to remember...  Fear not Natalie had plenty of fun and has some in store.

Kinmen in a Day

  On the afternoon August 23 1958 a barrage of artillery came falling onto Kinmen island  from Communist held Quemoy (Xiamen) about a two kilometers away....My father in law happened to be there ...caught in the open.  He dove in a ditch and then scrambled  from spot to spot and eventual safety.  The barrage would continue for 44 days and destroy much of the island's above ground structures.  After that shelling continued on a rigorous every other day schedule until 1979 when the US recognized the PRC and broke ties with the Republic of China.  Kinmen for decades was the front line of Chinese civil war that lingered on after ROC forces fled to Taiwan.

Today, however, Kinmen has fallen back asleep and while there are still troops there,  there is almost no tension.  Much of the island has become a national park, famous for bird watching.  Wheat, sorghum and peanuts are grown...mostly to make the island's famous Kaoliang liquor (from the sorghum) and Emperor's candy (from the peanut).    A huge tunnel carved into rock  along the SE coast in the 1960s to host 42 small supply ships is now a tourist site... now visited by more Mainlanders (who take a  20 minute ferry) than Taiwanese.  Kinmen today has a sleepy relaxed feel... It's only 24 KM long and a few wide.  The roads are quiet and good for biking and the villages have a rustic charm.  It's a short  hour flight from Taipei making it a doable day trip or a nice weekend stay

European style home built by local who emigrated overseas

Traditional Kinmen style home

US provided tank at the 823 museum

Supply tunnel and tourist trap

Local gods at a temple

Kinmen "old street"

Especially interesting is "Maestro Wu's knife shop.  The Maestro takes some of the one million plus shells that fell in 1958 and crafts them into knives...Talk about recycling.    One shell yields 65 knives!!  I bought some kitchen knives for Hsiu-ling .  Here he is the "Maestro"  in action.

 

Unlike the PRC temples in Taiwan  are very active with lots of social and religious activities.  We stumbled on a "bazaar" at one of the local Kinmen temples...and the gods were getting funky

Crabby Day

 
The kids are on Spring Break so I took a rare sunny day to get the gang out.  We drove an hour east of Taipei to Yilan on Taiwan's northeast coast.  10 year ago  the trip would have been about 2 hours but now you can zip under Taiwan's rugged mountains through a 12 KM tunnel one of the worlds longest   and another 5-6 KM one and voila you are there.  In Yilan we visited the local crab museum...yep the crab musuem,,,,,where we learned all about our crustacean friends .  We also drove along the coast and had lunch in a restaurant devoted in spirit and even culinary practice to water lillies...making tea and all sorts of products out of the flower and other parts of the plant.   There was more than that of course but the food, incl the water lillies, was excellent and of course the flowers were beautiful

Heping (Peace Island)

  During our visit to nearby Keelung we visited one of the most popular points on the island , a place called Yeliu.  Yeliu is along Taiwan's northern coast and is a sea park filled with unique rock formations.    Unfortunately it was also filled with about a million Mainland Chinese tourists and locals which lessened the appeal of a stroll along the coast...even in the fog and mist.  SO instead we drove up the coast about 10 KM to Peace Island ..just a 50 meter bridge away from the mainland... which has many of the same interesting formations with 95% less people.  We had a nice stroll and even saw a puffer fish in the tidal pools.  Here are some pictures