Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Taipei: The Land of Typhoons and EarthQuakes

I'm a bit bored now. Another one of those days that you have tonnes of stuffs to do that you just feel like .. sigh .. i need a break.
So for the benefit of my visitors, i am taking my break to sprinkle a little delight on your eyes.

These are my pics form my last trip to the capital of Taiwan, Taipei, from 25 Sept till 11 Oct.

It was a trip that was filled with mixed experience, from my first Typhoon (Hurricane) encounter to my second earthquake and having to privilege to stay in one of the most luxurious hotel in Taipei. Enjoy.




kuancheen|kualalumpur|20051025.2010
... Lord, I need Thee, I long to hear from Thee, lead me to Thy righteous path, reveal to us Thy plans.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

More Pics from Germany ... Finally

As a continuation from my previous post on my trip to Germany, here are the rest of the pics.

I have managed to updated my pic links and now it is grabbing the images from my flickr account rather than from my imagestation account as it seems they have some BW hogging prevention system on.

This kinda a slight delayed post as i was having a torrid time uploading my pics. (maybe there are too many of them). Okay, enuff said, it's picture time.

kuancheen|kualalumpur|20051018.2000
... ah ... finally an entry from back home

Thursday, October 06, 2005

5.2 on the Richter Scale

At about 0015 today my Taiwanese friend pinged me on MSN.

Just as I saw her message popping up, i felt a tremor.

Immediately i pinged her back, "earthquake ah?"

It was the second time i felt an earthquake tremor. The first was also in Taipei about 3 months ago. That time it was stronger, i in the hotel room that time and suddenly i thought i saw the lamp stand was shaking and then i felt dizzy for a while and then i switched on the TV and saw the news.

This time however, it last less then 2 seconds and was just a slight movement.

The Taiwan Central Weather Bureau reported that this earthquake was 5.2 on the Richter Scale. The epicenter of the quake is to the south-east of Taipei City as depicted in the diagram below.


kuancheen|taipei|20051006.0145
... wind, earth and ...?

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Hurricane LongWang Hit Taiwan

[k ... this is not really a breaking news, but could be a late, way late, breaking news, hence the past tense]

LongWang hit the Central East Coast of Taiwan as what the Americans will classified as a Category 4 Hurricane (Katrina land fell at Category 4). The typhoon made its land fall with a maximum sustained wind of 225 kmh (140mph) which was also classified as a Super Typhoon.

The classification of the storm in numeric categories is of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.
Category One:
Winds 74-95 mph (64-82 kt or 119-153 km/hr).
Category Two:
Winds 96-110 mph (83-95 kt or 154-177 km/hr).
Category Three:
Winds 111-130 mph (96-113 kt or 178-209 km/hr).
Category Four:
Winds 131-155 mph (114-135 kt or 210-249 km/hr).
Category Five:
Winds greater than 155 mph (135 kt or 249 km/hr).

Hurricanes and typhoons? What's the difference? Well the difference is purely geographical. A short answer will be that hurricanes are from the oceans around US, typhoons are typically from Western Pacific (East Asia). And all both are called Tropical Cyclones in meteorology.

This was my first account of a tropical cyclone and apparently for some others that was captured by a of Taiwan news channel. A reporter was approaching a group of people watching the waves, braving the pouring rain and strong gust. When approached and questioned, a person from the group said in Mandarin,
我们从马来西亚来的
wo me si chong ma lai si ya la de
We are from Malaysia
When asked why there are here (in the middle of the typhoon storm), they answered,
马来西亚没有台风吗
ma lai si ya mei you tai fong ma
There are no typhoons in Malaysia

Who said Malaysians are not adventurous!

Longwang (龙王/龍王), or "Dragon King" in Chinese, though the name sounds scary, the typhoon was not named right after it was spotted but rather from a list of names contributed by a group of Asian countries.

And our own Malaysia contributed to one of this year's super typhoon: Super Typhoon Mawar.

Did you know that from around 1953-1977, hurricanes are having only female names? They were initially names of girl friends and wives of the people that found them. Hmmm...

Here is an article that explain why hurricanes are named in the first place.


kuancheen|taipei|20051002.0145
... braving for more storms

BLOG is a four-letter word

BLOG is a four-letter word

so are LOVE, HOME, FOOT, BALL, ...

hehehe ... sorry, i just have to get that off my chest!

kuancheen|taipei|20051002.0015
... man, i wonder how much lower can i stoop ...

Sunday, October 02, 2005

No Live EPL in Taiwan!!!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!

Man .. Taiwanese are crazy about basketball, baseball, but not soccer!!!!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fulham 2 - 3 Manchester United
They scored three and I missed the 5 goals thriller!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!


kuancheen|taipei|20051002.0030
... man .. i soooooooo missed blogging ... heheheh

Saturday, October 01, 2005

I'm Back!! Finally ....

I'm Back!!

Wow, I can't believe it's more than one month since I last blogged.

Too much things been happening.

When I came back from Europe, I had a lot of things to settle, since we were moving. Had to make calls, faxes and emails to change my address last minute, since I was away for 1 month in Munich (it was supposed to be two).

Then took three days off to move. First day help out in packing all the stuffs then second day unpack them. This time round, my dad used his moving allowance to hire movers. Man, can't imagine moving all the things we had by ourselves!

Years and years of stuffs accumulated [i got a feeling i got the plurals wrong here ^^]. From Kedah, to Sarawak, to KL, back to Kedah, then to Kluang (Johor) and finally in KL. And not to mention we moved 3 times in span of 3 years in Kluang.

My dad is officially retired now and we (my parents and my brother) are no longer allowed to stay in the government house that we have been in since 1993.

So we moved from Sungai Besi to ... Bandar Cheras Mahkota, in Cheras of course. That adds up to extra 10km, RM3.60 of tolls and 15 mins (one way) of driving!!

I still have plenty of things to unpack. I left my room coming to Taiwan with most of my stuffs still in boxes. I need some book shelves and cupboards. Saw this nice shelve in Carrefour the Thursday before I left but it was out of stock!

I kinda have too much things liao. Need to find place to keep my stamps collection, my coins collection la, my currency collections, my coke collection, my Cleo collections, k ... you go the picture.

So much to do in so little time.

Then, back to work on Thursday after moving, have to make settle the rest of the contacts that I need to change my address. Then have to rush down to one of my company's customer to troubleshoot.

Then the week after it was training and training. After training every day except on Tuesday was dinner and dinner together with our colleagues from US, Japan, Singapore and HK.

And at the same time, we the Young Adults are given charge of this year's church Christmas event! What's more, I had to speak for hte first time in my church on the pulpit on Youth Sunday!!! By the way, the youths were awesome, a BIG BIG hand to them!!!

Then I have to rush the projects for Europe and Taiwan and now end up in Taipei.

What's more typhoon LongWang approaching!!!

First typhoon after my first earthquake also in Taiwan few months ago.


kuancheen|taipei|20051002.0015
... nope, i do not have internet connection at home ... yet