More Cal

Hi again. Just 5 days until Christmas, and 11 until 2016! I'm not really that excited (as my use of exclamation points might imply); in fact, I wish time would go by a bit slower. Anyway, another stream of California pictures this time, mostly the evening, as I promised.

Here's a kind of soft picture taken on a quiet June evening. This is a local middle school, right in the middle of the suburbs. Typically the day is hot and the evenings get cool, which is something that doesn't happen in Taiwan where it's warm and sticky day AND night.

The picture below was taken in the spring, a cloudy day in May. The hill you can kind of see over there is yellow during the spring/summer months and green in the fall and winter. The grass changes seasonally which is pretty cool (especially in the winter), since this type of seasonal grass is visible all over this area.

 

I like this picture below because of the interesting range of colors, but as you can see there are some weird kind of lines on it. That's because I took the picture through a fly-screen on a window.

Here's a picture I took early in July this year. It's a little low quality since I zoomed in so much, but it's the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter which took place around mid-summer. Of course, it might as well be two random planes in the sky since the image resolution is so bad.

Another pretty sunset picture, also taken in May last year. I really love living in the suburbs as opposed to the city since there's a lot of fresh air and you can just bike to a high spot to watch the sunset. Of course, in this picture you can't really see the sun, but whatever.

That's it for now. Once more, I know most of my pictures of California are either of the sky or the hills, but I'm really trying to get some diversity in there too.

The Tianmu Neighborhood

Hi again. This time I'll be posting up pictures from around my hometown 天母(pronounced tyen-mu)

A September afternoon in Taipei

The first picture here is a photograph of the view from outside my bedroom on the 11th floor. Typically the window is really grimy (due to the plentiful dust/dirt pollution in the area) so I likely opened the window and took a picture. Underneath I've provided two other pictures of what it looks like in December, both day and night.

In the night picture you can see light pollution from inner-city Taipei. Sometimes when it's not too cloudy, you can even see tiny electronic billboards playing advertisements from all the way over there. It's pretty cool.

This is a picture of a chain pot-sticker/dumpling place called 八方雲集 (Ba fang yun ji), or literally "8 Directions Cloud Gather" The title basically means that people come from all 8 directions (the cardinal and inner cardinal directions) and gather to the restaurant like clouds. They have really great dumplings, and there are 2 or 3 stores in the neighborhood.
You can see people in orange shirts working on the pot-stickers and dumplings at the front of the store.


















Here's a picture from the 2011 TAS Food Fair. Basically a fundraising opportunity for restaurants and clubs, as well as a place for bands and music people to play their stuff.

Since I actually have a lot of pictures from this event, I'll just quickly post them.

A Turkish ice cream tent

A Coca-Cola Tent (they sell soda)

the Korean tent, where they sell spicy rice cakes and bulgogi

Basically you pay to pie this guy - some fundraising event

another fundraising event

I'm not sure who these people are but they look a little too old for this

yummy looking apples

It says 韓國歡迎你, or "Korea welcomes you" in Chinese

 
another fundraising minigame - utensil trebuchet. The blocky video is a testament to how old the footage is: in 4 years we've come so far!

I ended up staying until the end (since my mom was working at the Korea tent), so I took a picture

Okay I guess the Food Fair part did end up being a little bit of a photo dump. I'll try to limit that from now on. And I've started alternating between TW pics and CA pics, so maybe that'll be a thing.

Continuation

I'm still not quite sure how I want to organize these pictures, since simply posting nice looking photos doesn't really give much context but dumping photos from a single day seems imprudent. For now, here are pictures of California (most of them taken during summertime)

taken in summer, Yosemite Nat'l Park

outside my window: August afternoon, 2014

the suburbs, June morning, 2014

November morning in the suburbs, 2014

I was surprised that 7-11 owned a gas station. Taken July this year

All of these pictures were taken at daytime, so I guess the next set will be evening time. And I still have a bunch of Taiwan pictures so I'll still be uploading those.

Throwback Monday

Hello! Today I'll be posting a mixed assortment of pictures from Taiwan. I'll admit that in the past, I uploaded pictures nearly indiscriminately (blurry pics, non-blurry pics, who cares) but I'll definitely be a lot more selective now--this is a blog, not a photo dump!

Middle School Theater Production - May 2011

Carrefour (it's like Costco) - December afternoon

"Lovable Zoo" has been translated into 3 languages - taken in Tainan

a guy on a scooter next to the Taipei Zoo

taken at the "Cave" exhibit entrance at the Taipei Zoo

A picture of Taipei 101 - taken from the Maokong Gondola

Until next time!

4 Years Later

After over 4 years of no posts I've decided to start posting again!
My original purpose when I posted all those pictures of Taiwan was to depict life in, what to me, was such a foreign place. When I moved back to California, I was surprised to find that a lot of things also felt so different to me after having lived in Taiwan for so long.
Things like:
- airplane noises outside
- sunlight until 8 or 9
- leaves changing color
- smell of nature in the suburbs (as opposed to sulfur)
- frequently visible moon

I'm still taking pictures - now I have a smartphone, so that's cool.
I still haven't uploaded a lot of pictures I took from back then so I expect to be posting some stuff from Taiwan too.
For now here are some images I have taken since I've moved here.

November afternoon, Almaden Expressway

December sunset, somewhere close to my neighborhood

November sunset, San Francisco

November evening, Legion of Honor

also taken at Legion of Honor

November afternoon, somewhere close to El Camino Real

Basically most of the pictures are set in the evening. I'll try to get some more variation in there. Here's a final picture. I'll try to be consistent with uploads.

October evening, close to Saratoga Ave