Cycling from Tainan to camp at Wushantou Reservoir

The Wushantou Reservoir Scenic Area is famous for many reasons, few of which I appreciated before I started reading about it in preparation for writing this post and, having since educated myself as to the significance of the area... well, you decide.

Wushantou Reservoir is the linchpin of the Wushantou Reservoir Scenic Area, a part of the greater Siraya National Scenic Area north-east of Tainan. The lake behind the reservoir wall is sometimes called Coral Lake because from above it looks like ... well, coral.

The reservoir itself was constructed in the 1920s by the Japanese colonial administration of Taiwan. The engineer in charge of the project was one Yoichi Hatta, a graduate of Tokyo Imperial University in Japan.

Every year on May 8 a ceremony is held to honor Japanese engineer Yoichi Hatta (1886-1942) at his grave near Wushantou Reservoir. Those who solemnly pay their respects to "the father of the Chianan Irrigation Waterworks" amid copious offerings of flowers and fruits include both Chianan farmers and admirers who make the trip all the way from Japan. They keep coming year after year-even now, 66 years after Hatta's death.

The story of Yoichi Hatta, his life and death, the death of his wife, his renown for being fair and egalitarian, and the fondness with which he is still remembered today, all make for interesting reading and here is an article on the subject from Taiwan Panorama.

Wushantou Reservoir is right next to the township of Kuantien/Guantian (literally "tenanted farm"), famous for being the hometown of Taiwan's former president, Chen Shui-bian. This website provides lots of information about the town and it's most famous ex-resident.

The Wushantou area is also famous for its fields (ponds rather) of water caltrop. This caltrop is a kind of water chestnut (but unrelated to the water chestnut popular in Chinese cooking as it is done in the west). It is a "floating annual aquatic plant, growing in slow-moving water up to 5 meters deep, native to warm temperate parts of Eurasia and Africa." It has a distinctive shape and is called many things, including "moustache nut" by me. Interestingly, the water caltrop has been declared a noxious weed in some states of the United States and of Australia. [Wikipedia reference]

Just beyond the south-western side of the reservoir is the Tainan National University of the Arts. This university campus has a nice feel about it and every time we have been there we feel as though we could be in another country or place. We are drawn to the campus for another good reason: there is a 7-11 there and we don't know where else to find something to eat for breakfast.

The one other thing I want to point out is that within the grounds of the Wushantou Scenic Area is a replica of the Temple of Heaven (Tiantan) in Beijing. I think it's time to get lazy and copy a description from here:

The Temple of Heaven (Tian Tan) (天壇) at Wushantou is one of the biggest attractions there. The 'temple' is a recreation of the one in Beijing. However, this wooden Temple of Heaven is only 1/6th of the size of the actual temple; but it is still quite impressive and looks almost identical to the other. At times, the inside of the building may be open, but it was not during my visit. Supposedly, this Temple of Heaven, like the other, is made with no nails or mortar at all.

It's actually not very exciting but it is a nice-looking building to have around.

We left Tainan on a Saturday morning and headed north out of the city on a course through the fish farms. Living in An-ping as we do, heading north is the quickest way to get out of the city although you do find yourself in what sometimes feels like a bleak, empty, possibly post-apocalyptic landscape. But it does get you away from the over-stimulation of the city. Here's Andrea posing somewhere close to the coast while in the background the giant golden crab rears its giant golden claws. Beware the giant golden crab!

I enjoyed the beautiful day and let Andrea and John negotiate our route from here while a fisherman passes between their helmets. Note the colossal new highway in the background which breaks up the bleak landscape, for better or worse I am not sure.

To stop at at least one 7-11 during any journey in Taiwan is nigh on obligatory and inevitable. 7-11s differ from each other in the facilities they provide and the provision of public toilets becomes a particularly salient quality when cycling from town to town.

In yet another obscure small town a public monument depicts a bullock cart being helped along by three men. I suppose they are transporting rice. This is one of those many, many times at which I wish I could read Chinese.

At a seemingly unnecessarily large intersection for such a small, quiet town John and Andrea follow the road beneath a web of wires.

If the Sydney Opera House were able to mate simultaneously with a mosque and a Taiwanese temple and bear viable progeny, surely they would birth an architectural child resembling this bulding in the photo above. This place is awesome and exists in the middle of a lot of ... well, nothing much in particular. And the central figure of worship here could be Lao tzu or Confucius although I really have no idea. Yet another instance of me proving my ignorance because I cannot read Chinese.

The road to salvation has many branches and twists and turns. Presented with a choice of two heavenly raptures (the temple on the left, the toilets on the right), Andrea forwent salvation of the spiritual kind for salvation of the bowel kind and used the public amenities provided for the patrons of the temple. And doesn't she look like she has found a kind of inner peace?

When I took this picture I already knew what I was going to write about it:

(think Elton John ...)

That's where we meet
That's where we meet
Me and you rendezvous
In the temple at the end of the street

Lunch. Typical Taiwanese fare down the road from the temple.

We finally reached the Wushantou area and cycled past the main gate towards the small suspension bridge we knew offered much more convenient access to the grassed area where we intended to camp. However, the bridge was closed and undergoing renovation work and so we were forced to return to the main gate. There, we discovered to our chagrin that there was an entry fee of NT$200 plus a camping fee of NT$200 per tent. Considering that the last time we camped here we paid nothing because we were ignorant of the park fees (having entered the park via the suspension bridge), we were a little indignant at having to pay up. Sometimes you just need a piece of flat grass but end up paying for facilities you don't need just so that you can own a piece of flat grass for the evening. Oh well, I guess it makes up for our free stay last time.

Setting up camp. John has aspirations to make his mark in the adult movie business and this brush with John the porn star scared me enough to want to sleep on the far side of our tent with Andrea between John and I.

After setting up camp we walked through the village adjacent to the Tainan National University of the Arts to get to the 7-11 on the university campus. The village streetscape bore evidence of its proximity to a hub of creativity and design. It was really nice to see some public art in the town.

Just a little further down the road the walls on either side of the road were being decorated. This kind of art imposed on a public space is something we don't normally see in Taiwan so it lent the place a special ambience.

We had dinner at the 7-11 and managed to catch the end of the sunset when we moved upstairs onto the roof of the building where somebody had thought to provide a table and chairs. Afterwards we walked back to the campsite although we took the long and scenic route. Above: The temple of heaven is broken up into pieces as a reflection in the windows of an adjacent building. That seems fitting as the temple itself is a mere reflection of the real temple of heaven in Beijing.

We had a terrible time trying to sleep that night. It was still very warm and humid which is alright if there is any breeze but on this particular night the air was as still as the breath of a corpse. There was no movement of the air at all and we sweated on top of our sleeping bags. The humidity sapped our resilience. It was awful. And shortly after we did finally get to sleep we were awoken by a voice with a flashlight speaking Chinese. It turned out to be one of the park attendants collecting tent fees.

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The next morning was a straightforward matter of packing up, showering, stopping at the 7-11 for a few breakfast snacks, and starting back for Tainan although this time we were taking the more direct route. On the way out we stopped for one last survey of the reservoir from atop the dam wall. Living as we do in Tainan, it is somehow comforting to comprehend a vista consisting almost entirely of hills, trees, and water, and, if you look closely ...

... someone cultivating their own small piece of peace of mind.

Taichung Marathon 2009

On October 3rd we headed north on the fast train (not the High Speed Rail train, just the fast train) to the city of Taichung for the Taichung Boulevard International Marathon (TBIM). Taichung is the third-largest city in Taiwan, followed by our own Tainan in fourth place. As usual, I ran the ten-kilometre course while Andrea and John ran the twenty-one-kilometre course. All the marathons we attend in Taiwan are organized and coordinated by the Chinese Taipei Road Running Association (CTRRA).

We found a decent cheap hotel a block or two away from the train station and made ourselves comfortable. Luckily the starting area for the marathon was only a few blocks away from the hotel and train station which saved us a lot of trouble. Marathons usually kick off very early in the day; you often wake up to the sound of your alarm clock in your hotel room while it is still dark outside. Being able to walk from your accommodation to the marathon starting-area on the morning of the race saves you a lot of trouble and time: you don't want to be relying on buses or trains; you just want to know that you can get there on time and without much effort.

After securing a hotel room we had to go to the temporary TBIM race station to pick up our 'package'. This package almost always includes a shirt printed for the event, a bib with your race number on it (you pin it to your shirt), an electronic ID chip (for marking your time as you pass through checkpoints along the race course), and an assortment of information relating to the marathon.

After a teppanyaki dinner not far from the TBIM race station we headed back to our hotel to try to get a good night's sleep before the big race.

What should have been a restful slumber consolidating our energies for the marathon was marred by at least two earth tremors, a series of attempts to control the temperature in the room (AC on, AC off, AC on, AC off ...), and several bathroom breaks. We awoke very early in the dark to the sound of my alarm clock, well aware that we hadn't slept very well. But after making the necessary preparations and getting out of the hotel room we were walking towards the marathon start area and feeling just a little excited about the whole thing. It was a beautiful morning to be in.

This is what you see waiting for you as you are about to cross the finish line.

Here are Andrea and John at the end of their 21km run. Andrea is keen to point out that the time given on the electronic clock attached to the finishing gate in the photo is the length of time since the race started. Our own race times depend on when our electronic chips (attached to our shoes) passed over the starting line. So although the clock in the photo displays a time of 2hrs 11m John and Andrea ran a time several minutes faster than that.

Upon crossing the finishing line John and Andrea made a beeline (whatever that is) straight for the water. I only ran 10km so I finished much earlier than both of them. It also meant that I didn't get a Super Supau towel like the one draped over Andrea's shoulder and the shoulders of dozens of other runners in the park.

John and Andrea do their stretching after rehydrating themselves. This web site says that, "If you do choose to stretch after you run, you should wait 30-45 minutes after you stop running to do so" while this web site says that, "Waiting 30 to 40 minutes later after your fatigued and tight muscles have cooled down (especially after long or fast-paced workouts) increases your chances of causing injury". I think John and Andrea do theirs ten or 15 minutes after they stop running so that's probably a good compromise.

After taking a taxi back to the hotel we discovered one of the cable channels playing the original Terminator and so we relaxed on our beds while Arnold Schwarzenegger chased Linda Hamilton all over the place. She ran quite a bit faster than we did.

Alishan, where you can kiss the clouds

Alishan was a place we had been interested in visiting for a long time but had never really gotten around to. The occasion of Erin's (Andrea's sister) stay with us mandated for getting up into the mountains. We live very close to the coast and so showing Erin the beach here was easy. But we couldn't let Erin leave the country without experiencing Taiwan at elevations greater than 100 metres above sea level, especially not when mountains are so central to the character of Taiwanese geography and at the heart of conceptions of Taiwan in general.

I've circled Alishan on the map above. To say that we went to Alishan is actually pretty vague and requires a bit of clarification. Alishan could refer to: A) The Alishan mountain range ("Alishan" in Chinese literally means "Ali Mountain"); B) The Alishan National Scenic Area, which is like a national park; or C) The township of Alishan. We caught a bus from Chiayi to Alishan township up in the mountains. The scenery on the way up was a wonderful reprieve from the flatness of Tainan.

And when we got to the top we found beautiful mountain vistas, cool fresh air, a different range of flora and fauna, and ... Starbucks. And a giant car park. Oh well, it wasn't a great surprise, just a disappointing inclusion within a beautiful setting.

We had booked our accommodation before we left Tainan and after a couple of queries we managed to locate our hotel down the hill from the main car park. Our room was fresh and light and didn't smell of stale cigarette smoke. Incredibly, the temperature was cool enough that we could lie under heavy quilts and feel very comfortable. Back in Tainan we would have been sleeping on top of our beds with the fan blowing on us all night. The temperature up here in the mountains had the effect of rapidly energizing us, or so I found.

We left our hotel room to do a bit of scouting about before the day's end but first we needed some nourishment, and what better place to find nutritious nourishment than the local 7-11. We consumed some nourishing drinks, pumpkin seeds, and baked snacks which fortified us against the demanding ramble that was to follow.

I think the wall upon which this mosaic resides is part of the wall that defines the boundary between the township and the National Scenic Area proper. We had passed through a checkpoint and paid an entry fee for the national park on the way up in the bus. Erin and Andrea could be sisters in this photo. I guess that's not as surprising as the implication that they might not be sisters in other photos.

We found our way to one of the two Giant Trees Trails within the park. These trails take the pedestrian sightseer through some magnificent stands of very tall trees, the cypress being notable among these. During the Japanese occupation of Taiwan from 1895-1945 the Japanese constructed a railway line from Chiayi up to the Alishan range to make logging of the cypress here feasible. Today the same railway line is famous as the Alishan Forest Railway, the red engine of which has become synonymous with Alishan and appears on all manner of related advertising and paraphernalia. The walk trail was fantastic. It was so refreshing to be among such tall trees and the air smelled of living things.

Erin and I stand in a shaft of sunlight that cuts its way through the blanket of shadow covering almost everything at ground level. This felt like a real forest.

On our walk-about we took a path through a grove of cherry blossoms and found this view of the clouds smothering the mountains at the end of the day. It was a beautiful evening, a world away from Tainan.

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The following morning we took the famous Alishan Forest Railway down the mountains to Chiayi. You pass through three climatic zones (some sources claim four zones) on the way down and there was a noticeable change in vegetation as the train descended. However, there was also a noticeable change in our opinion of the forest railway as we realised that it was quite loud, clunky, and not too comfortable. The whole journey from Alishan to Chiayi took some four hours (including the short hike from one rail line to another halfway down the mountain) and we were more than happy to alight at the end of the journey.

Inspiring views on the way down compensate for some of the discomfort of the old train.

The end of the line in Chiayi and relief for us all as we are able to experience the joy of walking again. You can see that famous engine behind us.

Our trip to Alishan really broke up our routines, both practical and psychological, and allowed us to exist in a very different space for a weekend. Andrea and I want to return to the area and hike the Fenqihu trail but there's no word yet on when the Forest Railway or the Fenqihu trail will reopen after being damaged by Typhoon Morakot.

A few links: Forestry Bureau site, really nice National Scenic Area site, the Wikipedia site.

The World Games in Kaohsiung: Sumo

The sumo competition was probably my favorite event, of those that I saw anyway. It was surprising in as much as the spectacle at hand differed markedly from what I can not but help imagine sumo to be. Not all the competitors were male and not all of them were Japanese or Asian. Some of them didn't even look heavy. I remember the indignation (we imagine) suffered by one of the smaller competitors when, after the match was started by the referee, his opponent simply picked him up without a great deal of effort and placed him down outside the ring, winning the match; that got quite a reaction from the crowd.

The spectators: (from left) Tim & Lei, me, Andrea, Andrea's sister Erin, Lee, and Dan.

Before the bouts could begin there was an opening performance of sorts involving Chinese dragons and a whole lot of drumming and cymbal-smashing. Note the sumo ring or dohyo, built to specifications laid down during centuries of sumo wrestling in Japan.
(for a link to a decent site with loads of information (more than you want) about the dohyo and other aspects of sumo, try this one): http://www.tangoll.com.hk/Sumodohyo.html


Traditionally, women weren't allowed into the dohyo for any reason at any time. Apparently, women's sumo isn't considered authentic by most Japanese and women are prohibited from competing beyond amateur events. However, the World Games includes a full men's and a full women's competition and so would be seen as an amateur competition by those closer to the traditions and legacy of sumo wrestling in Japan. For more information you can check the Wikipedia page and follow the relevant links within.

Note in this photo the referees and the other contestants. The role of the sumo referee (or gyoji) is critical and bound up with the history of the sport. From the sample of female sumo wrestlers in this photo you can get an idea of how the contestants in this competition might differ from those that the word sumo tends to conjure up. You can see representatives from Taiwan (TPE), Hungary (HUN), Australia (AUS), and Italy (ITA).


The usual roles are reversed here as a diminutive Russia takes on a Ukrainian behemoth. This just seems a bit unfair.


Australian sumo wrestlers? What would Australian sumo wrestlers look like if they existed? Well, they do exist. Two male and two female sumo wrestlers appeared at the tournament. Sadly, they were all knocked out in the first round of eliminations. This guy actually looks like what I imagine an Australian sumo wrestler would look like if I could imagine it. It's kind of weird. Sitting behind him on the right is a wrestler from New Zealand (NZL). I noticed that the Australians and New Zealanders were pretty comfortable with each other. The guy about to wrestle in this shot ended up out of the ring and must have hurt his foot because he had trouble getting back up the small set of stairs into the ring again to finish the bout with the obligatory bow. I got emotional when the New Zealander helped him up. All those jokes about New Zealanders having sex with sheep were just jokes.

A classic bout between one of the Egyptians (I think) and the guy from Taiwan (I think). This bout lasts longer than most. I love the way that one helps the other at the end. I'm getting emotional again, but we're talking about men fighting each other so it's okay for me to get emotional, being a man and all.

The World Games in Kaohsiung: Ultimate Frisbee

Apparently the Frisbie Pie Company of Connecticut sold their pies (in tins) to a lot of university campuses in New England and the students started throwing the tins around, and from this beginning we would eventually add the noun "frisbee" to our collective lexicon for describing a round plastic disc designed to be thrown through the air from person to person. Of course, "Frisbee" itself is now a trademarked brand name and the Wham-O company who own the trademark and sell the genuine Frisbee have long begrudged the use of their name without any input or return. The flying-disc game played as part of the World Games is generally called Ultimate Frisbee in informal settings. However, the calculated wrath of the Wham-O company has seen the trademarked appellation dropped from the title of the sport leaving the official title as "Ultimate".

Erin, Andrea, John, and Dan survey the scene just after we arrived at the Flying Dragon stadium.
I'm not sure which teams these are. Let's call them the red team and the white team.

The stadium continued to fill up as the Ultimate matches went on. Interestingly, the seats seemed to be filled by a wave of new spectators that slowly swept from the seats nearest to the entry gates to those at the far end of the stadium. We were sitting in an area all by ourselves for a while and then suddenly... we were surrounded. Are there cultural differences in stadium seat choice?

Almost nobody wanted to sit on the other side of the stadium near the sunlight. In fact, later as the sun crept around to the near side of the stadium, people got up and left to relocate themselves in the shade. That's normal I guess, but just a little more exaggerated in some Asian cultures.

Part of the backbone of the Flying Dragon above the main entry gates.

Wow. Stadium games like Ultimate Frisbee sure make interesting material for blogging about [sarcastic]. The red and white teams again. Unless these are two different red and white teams. I don't know.

In the distance the scoreboard hangs suspended in mid-air and time is distended by the space, the light, and the spectacle. To be honest, Ultimate Frisbee is something I'd rather play than watch. I think I spent a good deal of time reading the newspaper and listening to my mp3 player. I'm just not excited by a lot of spectator sports but it was nice to be out in a different city with friends. By the way, Edward "Steady Ed" Headrick, the "father of the modern frisbee", apparently wanted to be cremated and "to have his ashes molded into memorial flying discs and given to family and close friends" according to the San Francisco Chronicle. You might be tempted to think of his desire as a bit pie in the sky.

The World Games in Kaohsiung: Acrobatic Gymnastics

Acrobatic Gymnastics is something of a marriage between gymnastics and dance and there is an emphasis on continuous movement. I feel like such a philistine. It is obvious that there is an incredible amount of skill in these Acrobatic Gymnastics routines and the timing of the individuals in each team is amazing when you consider that there may be six of them, synchronized almost perfectly. However, I just can't seem to be moved much by any of it. Anyway, here's a quick tour of a few random aspects of Acrobatic Gymnastics. If you wanted to know more then you could click here.

The team from Great Britain create an impressive human tower. This stuff must be hard on the joints. How much force or weight does it take to dislocate someone's knee from its socket? How much pressure will a femur take before it breaks? The photographers seem to be impressed. What does it take to become an aerobic gymnast?

Well, you've got to have a team outfit. No one goes for plain blues or subdued reds; it's about flames and swirls and whorls.

And now the Ukrainian team will demonstrate a method for getting the forth man to the top of the tower to perform a one-handed hand-stand:

Step 1.

Step 2.

Step 3. Simple!

This video shows the Chinese team's kung-fu-inspired routine and is actually kind of cool. Did I say I was unmoved by this sport? Well, perhaps I am moved after all. But only a little bit.

I have chosen to end this commentary on aerobic gymnastics ends with this photo for which I have no comment other than a vague exclamation of bemusement, something like, "Uh?".

The World Games in Kaohsiung 2009: Introduction

After Taipei, Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan and this year the city hosted the 2009 World Games. Beijing may have won the right to host the Olympic Games in 2008 but Kaohsiung won the bid for the World Games. Never heard of the World Games? Well, the World Games are held quadrennially in the years following the Olympic Games. These World Games are really a showcase for a variety of sports and athletic pursuits that aren't as popular as those that make up the Olympic Games. In some cases sports have migrated from one to the other Games over the years. In other cases some of the sports on the agenda of the 2009 World Games were included for the first time in either the Olympics or World Games. And what kind of lesser-known sports are we talking about? Here is a list I found at The International World Games Association website:

• Aikido
• Air Sports
• Archery
• Billiards
• Body-Building
• Boules Sports
• Bowling
• Canoe
• Casting Sport
• Climbing
• Dance Sport
• Fistball
• Flying Disc
• Gymnastics
• Handball
• Hockey
• Ju-Jitsu
• Karate
• Korfball
• Life Saving
• Netball
• Orienteering
• Powerlifting
• Racquetball
• Roller Sports
• Rugby
• Squash
• Sumo
• Surfing
• Tug of War
• Underwater Sports
• Water Ski

The majority of these titles are the names of the events although some are categories which can be further expanded upon. For example, Gymnastics is an umbrella term for five individual events: Acrobatic Gymnastics, Aerobic Gymnastics, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Trampoline Gymnastics, and Tumbling Gymnastics. If you've never heard of Tumbling Gymnastics, that's okay. Most people have probably never heard of the World Games. I only know of it because there was a Commodore 64 computer game based on it (although that computer game was more of a parody, including events like pillow-fighting and pogo-sticking).

While the World Games are relatively unknown compared with the behemoth that is the Olympic Games, they are gaining in popularity with every rendition enacted. Here is a table with a few pertinent statistics demonstrating the growth of the World Games since their inception:

The World Games in the Past

Year	City	Total Sports	Total Nations	Total Participants
1981	Santa Clara (USA)	18	n/a	1265
1985	London (GBR)	23	n/a	1550
1989	Karlsruhe (GER)	19	n/a	1965
1993	The Hague (NED)	25	69	2275
1997	Lahti (FIN)	30	78	2600
2001	Akita (JPN)	31	93	3200
2005	Duisburg (GER)	38	89	3400
2009	Kaohsiung (TPE)	31	105	4800

I found those statistics at the official World Games Kaohsiung 2009 website. Speaking of Kaohsiung, here's a picture of a Kaohsiung landmark:

At 347.5 metres the Tuntex Sky Tower is currently the second-tallest building in Taiwan after the Taipei 101. Interestingly the pronged design (there is a gap between the two bottom sections) was inspired by the Chinese character for 'tall' ['gao']. Personally, the idea of basing the shape of a skyscraper on a letter or a symbol seems like something straight out of a fictional movie or cartoon; for example, the evil overlord Zorg would live in a structure with the shape of a giant 'Z'. But the Tuntex Sky Tower certainly is distinctive.

The view of the 'Flying Dragon' - the World Games Main Stadium from the World Games MRT station (MRT stands for Mass Rapid Transit or Metropolitan Rapid Transit). Lots of trees here. Nice.

From the World Games MRT station you walk up the street toward the main stadium and in the centre of this photo is the tail end of the skeletal 'Flying Dragon'. I have no idea what that red twisty thing is. It could be an architectural rendering of an impression of flames, or a structure based on the triple-helic DNA structure that dragons might have. Or perhaps the organising comittee liked someone's architectural impression of a red twisty thing and so they had it constructed and stuck in the ground near the flying dragon. Maybe.

Nothing special about this photo. It's just a cool image. If I was feeling more pretentious I might tell you that this photo represents the other crucial aspect of the games - the 'they' in "If you build it they will come". But I had oatmeal for breakfast and so I'm not feeling particularly pretentious today.

A Day out at the 2009 Tainan International Boat Fair & Oceanic Culture Exhibition

Hoist the main brace, scrub the poop deck, and winch the yard arm into a satisfactorily-compliant-with-the-relevant-marine-statutes position! The 2009 Tainan International Boat Fair & Oceanic Culture Exhibition was held last month and brought together a whole lot of stuff that had a whole lot to do with water - especially the salty, briny kind. The purpose of the 2009 Tainan International Boat Fair & Oceanic Culture Exhibition is officially to:

"... create new values for the city, expand maritime industries and create economic values, while starting from static and dynamic displays to encourage all citizens to participate. At the end, we hope to promote Tainan City through integrated marketing and establish quality images of the country."

Yes, yes. I couldn't have put it better myself. I took that quote from the 2009 Tainan International Boat Fair & Oceanic Culture Exhibition website which can be found here .

I don't know about you but I find that a title like 2009 Tainan International Boat Fair & Oceanic Culture Exhibition is a little too long and cumbersome and by the time I get most of the way through saying it I've lost my cognitive grasp on the start of it. Perhaps, from now on, I'll just refer to it as the TIBFOCE2009. Ah yes, that's much better. And now I beg your indulgence as I continue to quote from the very quotable TIBFOCE2009 website regarding the government's hopes for the exhibition's effect on people:

"The City Government hopes to bring in the vision of development, natural landscaping, historic and cultural edges and the population yacht building industry to encourage people to get close to the sea, love the sea and do good deeds to the seas while improving their knowledge and experience about the cultural and historic monuments."

You have to be careful not to injure yourself on those 'cultural edges'. There is one more quote I will take from the website - the best quote by far. Right at the end of the Mayor of Tainan's speech found this gem:

"And may the event harbor great success."

I like that mayor. And that's in a second language too.


You can see a lot of TIBFOCE activity on the other side of the river. In the foreground (but behind my head) are the piers where fishermen tie up their boats.

Down in the water you can see a pier from which kayaks and canoes were being rented. For a while we toyed with the idea of buying our own kayak in Taiwan and plying the rivers of the city at dusk. But dusk is the best time for mosquitoes so we won't be doing that.