In the morning, I packed and headed back to Peggy’s. I snacked throughout the day while Peggy baked banana bread. That night, my companion, Peggy’s family, and I went to a steak restaurant and enjoyed a generous meal. I was slightly too full by the end, but that is part of a big dinner. Later, I visited a night market held in a large parking lot and sampled a little more food. Once I became tired, I walked back to the car, returned to Peggy’s house, and quickly fell asleep. The next day, I would say goodbye and head back to Taipei with plenty of memories.

After a mediocre breakfast, we were on our way. Just a five-minute drive up the road, we reached the entrance to the hot spring, but a slow drive and a long hike (or climb!) still lay ahead. We parked and started getting ready. I was wearing sandals when it suddenly hit me: my hiking shoes were back at the hostel!

Waking up rather early, I walked back to the restaurant and ordered breakfast, another five-course meal. Soon I was packed, in the car, and on the road. Since we were driving through Jade Mountain National Park, there was almost no development. What a relief. We drove and drove, finally reaching the base of the mountain I was about to climb. I was under the impression that the mountain would not be cold, so I had brought only a sweater and a pair of shorts. Even at the base, I was cold, so I put on my trousers and hoped I would stay warm enough. Everybody else was wearing double-layered waterproof jackets, warm trousers, and large backpacks. Indeed, the two of us looked a bit out of place. Even though I got …

We were on the road by 8:00am, heading to the mountains. Still a little tired, I napped for part of the way, and sometime later we arrived at a roadside seafood restaurant. We met the rest of the “group,” twenty people in total. They brought out the food and we started eating. The plates were quickly empty, and I thought, “Hmm, still a little hungry.” Somebody joked, “OK, let’s go,” and everybody started laughing. What I did not know, or what had been lost in translation, was that we would be having something like ten courses.

Several months ago, I debated what to do during the Lunar New Year break. Should I fly somewhere or travel around Taiwan? Because everybody was trying to fly, ticket prices were triple their usual level. I was also likely to visit Tibet soon, so I needed to save money. One of my friends lived in southern Taiwan. I decided to make an adventure of it and join her, along with several other people, for a trip into the mountains.

It is Chinese New Year! Today is the 17th, the final day of the lunar year. Early in the morning, I packed some things from my apartment and gave it a quick clean, then returned and spent some time cleaning the dining room. The highlight came at dinnertime, when I sat down to a generous feast. There was plenty of seafood, including raw fish, which her mother knew I loved. She also bought me a few beers because she knew I didn’t care for rice wine. I had a bad experience in Zhongshan; ask Ian if you want the details.

My brother owns a coffee shop and a restaurant, which means there is plenty of coffee equipment around the house. One item is a waffle maker, which, as you know, I love. The main thing I did for my birthday was have waffles for dinner. They weren’t ordinary waffles, either, but waffles with Nutella. Now that’s a birthday dinner I can appreciate.

I love curry; there is no denying it. I prefer a hot, spicy Indian curry to the milder varieties often found in Thailand and Japan, although Thai curry can certainly be fiery. I went to a pleasant little curry restaurant, had a beer, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. This one felt especially well balanced.

You know you are too nerd like when your conversations are like this. Preface: I posted some packages I needed to upgrade into a Skype window (much better than a clipboard)…. [11:56:03] Kelvin Nicholson: sorry, needed to post that somewhere [11:56:04] Ian FItzpatrick: i am not apt! [11:56:15] … you can’t pass packages to me ;) [11:56:34] Kelvin Nicholson: blah blah blah [11:56:43] … apt-get upgrade ian [11:57:02] Ian FItzpatrick: apt-get error: unmet dependency, “beer 1.0-4 not found”

Well, I’m basically all done upgrading to Version 3.0, I deserve a cake or something. Here’s the 411: For the past few years I have been using Mambo, then Joomla, to manage the content on my site. It worked quite well, and was in PHP, so I could add or remove any code. Indeed, I’ve written a decent amount of PHP apps. In early 2004 I wrote a PHP platform to track adventures people had gone on, and networked people seeking to go on adventures with each other. I never marketed it, and mainly created it to learn PHP, but it was a CMS (Content Management System), and a little more. Late in 2004 I wrote another blog-esque platform for my second trip to Europe. It was pretty cool, I’ll admit: …