KMTers still distancing themselves from the KMT

Newly opened office of a KMT politician in Fengyuan. But... where is the familiar KMT logo?

Yup. Buried at the bottom of the sign. And of course the big characters at the top above "Forward Together" say "Taiwan". Next to the KMT logo is his title "Legislator" and name. But nothing on the sign except the blue color and the tiny non-standard KMT logo signal his party affiliation.
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Gangsters, collect 'em while they're hot!

Taichung AmCham alerted me to this tale of gangsters raiding the local post office (here and here). Earlier this week at the Fengyuan Post Office here in the Kingdom of Chung, people started lining up as early as 3 AM according to media reports to purchase the Year of the Snake stamp sets. However, just as the Post Office was about to open to eager collectors, a group of 70 lads clad identically in black pushed their way to the head of the line and started threatening postal workers and intimidating innocent stamp collectors. Women with children were almost knocked down, according to our intrepid reporters, who managed to get wind of this event. Apparently last year's issue had rocketed from $1000 to $14,000 NT in just a year. Better than gambling and prostitution! Collectors said they didn't expect this year's stamps to do so well, however, so karma may have the last laugh. No word in the media whether our brave policemen had taken time out from their mah jong games to save the stamps and souls at the local post office.
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921 Memorials: the Shihgang Dam

Not far from the Shihgang Dam, a group of men were playing croquet in a grassy space among the reeds and farms along the river.

Central Taiwan is filled with relics. Not historical relics, or religious remains, but structures laid to waste by the 921 earthquake, and then preserved by the miracle of public construction funds as parks and memorials. The Shihgang Dam, outside of the small town of Shihgang east of Fengyuan, is one of many such sites.

My son atop the Dam

The Dam was finished in 1977. Roughly 350 meters long and 25 meters high, according to the signs at the site, the quake raised one abutment 12 meters, utterly wrecking one side of the dam. It no longer has the ability to perform flood regulation, and is now used only for irrigation. A new weir constructed upstream has taken over its flood duties. It remains an important water source for Changhua County, according to one government website. Many local government websites promote it as a tourist site ('the mighty Shihgang Dam"). Having experienced it in person, I can only say that the target market must consist of some terribly thrill-starved tourists.

The entrance to the memorial at the Dam, with "921" emblazoned on the concrete walkway. The Dam lies along one of the scenic bikeways in the area. Since I often bike in the area, I decided to visit the Dam with my son this morning as we passed by on our way home.

The park preserves part of one wrecked abutment.

Another view of the wreck.

Signs give some idea of what happened. The sign says that before the earthquake the Dam was at 272 meters, and after, 284 meters.

The current dam, seen from the reservoir side.

As you ascend the (metal) stairs to the top of the Dam, you see this warning. A common problem at tourist sites is that the signage is not made to last, and looks awful after a couple of years.

Downstream from the dam are some lovely rock formations.

Looking over the reservoir towards the mountains.

Dressed up as a broken leaf, a butterfly rests on one of the fences of the little park.

Downstream from the dam, a lone fisherman takes a chance on a pool of water.

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Things Seen Out Biking

Been biking quite a bit lately. I used to hike a lot, but it didn't seem to have much effect on my weight or my health. Moreover, the trails around my house are now all covered with those idiotic log stairs that are hard on the tendons, and threaten at any moment to turn your ankle or blow out a knee. So I switched to biking and got hooked.

Sunday morning I headed out for Dajia and the Matsu Temple there, hoping to find a way back along the north bank of the Dajia Riverthat didn't involve the big hills of Rte 132. The whole trip took about 4 hours, 1.5 to the Temple, and 2.5 for the swing back along the river. As I left Dajia and headed south along 1, I could smell the salt-sweet ocean off to my right somewhere. It was a stunning morning, soon clouded over, a perfect day for biking with neither sun nor wind.

Soon after I turned off the main road just before the bridge on 1, I shot this panorama of Highway 3 as it crosses the rice fields along the river just before the Chingshui/Highway 4 exit.

The reason I went this way was to see whether you could ride all the way back to Fengyuan along the river. Eventually I ran out of paved paths and had to climb back up on the escarpment not far from the town of Jiushe ("old village"). I think you could bull your way through an unpaved path and hook up with some paved farm paths on the other side, but I didn't want to risk a flat far from civilization. It was a lovely ride while it lasted, following the gentlest of slopes upriver past rice fields, duck farms, and storage buildings, with me being the only person around most of the time.

Work crews are tearing down the old Houfeng Bridge.

Last week Drew and I went up to Hsinshe and rode the ridges there. There are plenty of interesting buildings around up there.

Hsinshe offers some excellent views, tough hills, and level roads for exploration, all right outside Taichung.

Drying sausages in Ta-ken.

A street in Ta-ken.

Bicyclists gather at the police station in the Ta-ken roundabout before hitting the steep, spiral hill on 129 into Hsinshe.

The hills are alive with the views of temples.

A trio of bank robbers? No, just the family on the way to Dongshih.

The Japanese granary in Shigang between Dongshih and Fengyuan. A little slice of history, now a tourist trap on the way out to the mountains.

Highway 3 curls across the Dajia River.

Along the river, it is so quiet you can almost hear the rice grow.

I snapped this ornate old house in Jiushe.

Dikes along the Dajia River.

Bicyclists record their feat of arriving at the Matsu Temple for posterity.

Encounters with the unexplainable: on a side road near my house, cars rest above an irrigation ditch.

Breakfast: a must if you plan to bike any distance.

Ducklings wait to grow into Peking Duck.

I panned the view of rice fields backed by the escarpment. What a beautiful place!

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Down the Lane

Today I went biking in the local neighborhoods and along the nearby river, trying to get into condition to do the East Coast soon.

Had to run into town to get tick medicine for the dogs first. In this Year Without a Winter the ticks have already started to arrive on our hounds.

On the way to the river I passed this shop selling and repairing used machines.

Along the Han River in eastern Taichung county a farmer was busy with a wheelbarrow.

The Han River.

Egrets, as always, somehow manage to find food in this concrete wasteland.

Just outside of Fengyuan I thought I'd turn down this lane to have a look at the farm-and-factory belt that comprises the exoskeleton of most cities on the western Taiwan plain.

In Taiwan, you can have an instant garage.

An orderly house surrounded by green.

I won't swear to it, but I think they were growing carrots here.

Typical farm and factory country.

The road is my warehouse.

Gardens may be found shoehorned into every empty plot.

An irrigation ditch runs past a rice field, a common Taiwan sight.

Farmers sometimes dam local rills or knock holes in drainage ditches, two of the many ways they obtain water without paying.

Lunch.

An old woman rifles through someone's trash looking for recyclables she can sell for a few extra bucks.

The rice just went in a couple of weeks ago, greening the island.

The orderliness of the rice fields contrasts with the open sewers that so often are local creeks and rivers.

A rose farm confronts a large, gray factory.

Terraces march up to the foothills.

Some kind of gourd?

Heaps of old tile lie shattered in an abandoned lot.

A house, demolished.

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