LaForge's home page (Posts about taiwan)https://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/tags/taiwan.atom2022-06-21T07:49:56ZHarald WelteNikolaTen years Openmoko Neo1973 release anniversary dinnerhttps://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20171009-ten_years_openmoko_neo1973/2017-10-09T00:00:00+02:002017-10-09T00:00:00+02:00Harald Welte<p>As I <a class="reference external" href="http://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20170709-10years_openmoko/">noted earlier this year</a>, 2017
marks the tenth anniversary of shipping the first Openmoko phone, the
<a class="reference external" href="http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo_1973_hardware">Neo1973</a>.</p>
<p>On this occasion, a number of the key people managed to gather for an
anniversary dinner in Taipei. Thanks for everyone who could make it, it
was very good to see them together again. Sadly, by far not everyone
could attend. You have been missed!</p>
<p>The award for the most crazy attendee of the meeting goes out to my
friend <a class="reference external" href="https://www.meriac.com/">Milosch</a>, who has actually flown from
his home in the UK to Taiwan, only to meet up with old friends and
attend the anniversary dinner.</p>
<p>You can some pictures in <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/FoolsDelight/status/916723871641780224">Milosch's related tweet</a>.</p>On Vacationhttps://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20171005-vactaion/2017-10-05T00:00:00+02:002017-10-05T00:00:00+02:00Harald Welte<p>In case you're wondering about the lack of activity not only on this
blog but also in git repositories, mailing lists and the like: I've
been on vacation since September 13. It's my usual "one month in Taiwan"
routine, during which I spend some time in Taipei, but also take several
long motorbike tours around mostly rural Taiwan.</p>
<p>You can find the occasional snapshot in my <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/LaF0rge">twitter feed</a>, such as
<a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/LaF0rge/status/909743709700239361">the</a>,
<a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/LaF0rge/status/913322116870684672">pictures</a>,
<a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/LaF0rge/status/910379104553357312">here</a>
and <a class="reference external" href="https://twitter.com/LaF0rge/status/912925109463031808">there</a>.</p>Ten years after first shipping Openmoko Neo1973https://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20170709-10years_openmoko/2017-07-09T16:00:00+02:002017-07-09T16:00:00+02:00Harald Welte<p>Exactly 10 years ago, on July 9th, 2007 we started to sell+ship the
first <a class="reference external" href="http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo_1973_hardware">Openmoko Neo1973</a>.
To be more precise, the webshop actually opened a few hours early,
depending on your time zone. Sean <a class="reference external" href="http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2007-July/006598.html">announced the availability in this
mailing list post</a></p>
<p>I don't really have to add much to my <a class="reference external" href="http://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20160920-openmoko_10years/">ten years [of starting to work on] Openmoko anniversary blog post a year ago</a>, but still thought it's worth while to point out the tenth anniversary.</p>
<p>It was exciting times, and there was a lot of pioneering spirit:
Building a Linux based smartphone with a 100% FOSS software stack on the
application processor, including all drivers, userland, applications -
at a time before Android was known or announced. As history shows, we'd
been working in parallel with Apple on the iPhone, and Google on
Android. Of course there's little chance that a small taiwanese company
can compete with the endless resources of the big industry giants, and
the many Neo1973 delays meant we had missed the window of opportunity to
be the first on the market.</p>
<p>It's sad that Openmoko (or similar projects) have not survived even as a
special-interest project for FOSS enthusiasts. Today, virtually all
options of smartphones are encumbered with way more proprietary blobs
than we could ever imagine back then.</p>
<p>In any case, the tenth anniversary of trying to change the amount of
Free Softwware in the smartphone world is worth some celebration. I'm
reaching out to old friends and colleagues, and I guess we'll have
somewhat of a celebration party both in Germany and in Taiwan (where
I'll be for my holidays from mid-September to mid-October).</p>Ten years anniversary of Openmokohttps://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20160920-openmoko_10years/2016-11-27T16:00:00+01:002016-11-27T16:00:00+01:00Harald Welte<p>In 2006 I first visited Taiwan. The reason back then was Sean Moss-Pultz
contacting me about a new Linux and Free Software based Phone that he
wanted to do at FIC in Taiwan. This later became the Neo1973 and
the <a class="reference external" href="http://openmoko.org/">Openmoko</a> project and finally became part
of both Free Software as well as smartphone history.</p>
<p>Ten years later, it might be worth to share a bit of a retrospective.</p>
<p>It was about building a smartphone before Android or the iPhone existed
or even were announced. It was about doing things "right" from a Free
Software point of view, with FOSS requirements going all the way down to
component selection of each part of the electrical design.</p>
<p>Of course it was quite crazy in many ways. First of all, it was a
bunch of white, long-nosed western guys in Taiwan, starting a company
around Linux and Free Software, at a time where that was not really
well-perceived in the embedded and consumer electronics world yet.</p>
<p>It was also crazy in terms of the many cultural 'impedance mismatches',
and I think at some point it might even be worth to write a book about
the many stories we experienced. The biggest problem here is of course
that I wouldn't want to expose any of the companies or people in the
many instances something went wrong. So probably it will remain a
secret to those present at the time :/</p>
<p>In any case, it was a great project and definitely one of the most
exciting (albeit busy) times in my professional career so far. It was
also great that I could involve many friends and FOSS-compatriots from
other projects in Openmoko, such as Holger Freyther, Mickey Lauer,
Stefan Schmidt, Daniel Willmann, Joachim Steiger, Werner Almesberger,
Milosch Meriac and others. I am happy to still work on a daily basis
with some of that group, while others have moved on to other areas.</p>
<p>I think we all had a lot of fun, learned a lot (not only about Taiwan),
and were working really hard to get the hardware and software into
shape. However, the constantly growing scope, the [for western terms]
quite unclear and constantly changing funding/budget situation and the
many changes in direction have ultimately lead to missing the market
opportunity. At the time the iPhone and later Android entered the
market, it was too late for a small crazy Taiwanese group of
FOSS-enthusiastic hackers to still have a major impact on the landscape
of Smartphones. We tried our best, but in the end, after a lot of hype
and publicity, it never was a commercial success.</p>
<p>What's more sad to me than the lack of commercial success is also the
lack of successful free software that resulted. Sure, there were some
u-boot and linux kernel drivers that got merged mainline, but none of
the three generations of UI stacks (GTK, Qt or EFL based), nor the GSM
Modem abstraction gsmd/libgsmd nor middleware (freesmartphone.org) has
manage to survive the end of the Openmoko company, despite having
deserved to survive.</p>
<p>Probably the most important part that survived Openmoko was the
pioneering spirit of building free software based phones. This spirit
has inspired pure volunteer based projects like
GTA04/Openphoenux/Tinkerphone, who have achieved extraordinary results -
but who are in a very small niche.</p>
<p>What does this mean in practise? We're stuck with a smartphone world in
which we can hardly escape any vendor lock-in. It's virtually
impossible in the non-free-software iPhone world, and it's difficult in
the Android world. In 2016, we have more Linux based smartphones than
ever - yet we have less freedom on them than ever before. Why?</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>the amount of hardware documentation on the processors and chipsets to
day is typically less than 10 years ago. Back then, you could still
get the full manual for the S3C2410/S3C2440/S3C6410 SoCs. Today,
this is not possible for the application processors of any vendor</p></li>
<li><p>the tighter integration of application processor and baseband
processor means that it is no longer possible on most phone designs to
have the 'non-free baseband + free application processor' approach
that we had at Openmoko. It might still be possible if you designed
your own hardware, but it's impossible with any actually existing
hardware in the market.</p></li>
<li><p>Google blurring the line between FOSS and proprietary code in the
Android OS. Yes, there's AOSP - but how many features are lacking?
And on how many real-world phones can you install it? Particularly
with the Google Nexus line being EOL'd? One of the popular exceptions
is probably
<a class="reference external" href="https://fairphone.com/en/2015/09/23/opening-up-fairphone-to-the-community-open-source-fairphone-2/">Fairphone2 with it's alternative AOSP operating system</a>,
even though that's not the default of what they ship.</p></li>
<li><p>The many binary-only drivers / blobs, from the graphics stack to wifi
to the cellular modem drivers. It's a nightmare and really scary if
you look at all of that, e.g. at the <a class="reference external" href="https://code.fairphone.com/projects/fp-osos/dev/fp2-blobs-download-page.html">binary blob downloads for
Fairphone2</a>
to get an idea about all the binary-only blobs on a relatively current
Qualcomm SoC based design. That's compressed 70 Megabytes, probably
as large as all of the software we had on the Openmoko devices back
then...</p></li>
</ul>
<p>So yes, the smartphone world is much more restricted, locked-down and
proprietary than it was back in the Openmoko days. If we had been more
successful then, that world might be quite different today. It was a
lost opportunity to make the world embrace more freedom in terms of
software and hardware. Without single-vendor lock-in and proprietary
obstacles everywhere.</p>Holidays in Taiwan, againhttps://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20160924-holidays_taiwan/2016-08-24T16:00:00+02:002016-08-24T16:00:00+02:00Harald Welte<p>Ever since I first came to Taiwan in 2006 (which happens to be more or
less exactly 10 years ago, watch out for a separate blog post about
that), I've been coming back at least once every year until 2014.
Sometimes it's business related ,but one trip per year has always been
about holidays.</p>
<p>I really like the country for a variety of reasons. One of them is the
beautiful landscape from sand beaches to tropical forsts and high
mountains (Taiwan has more than 100 peaks higher than 3000m). This is
also the reason I keep my Yamaha TW-225 motorbike here, as it's
impossible to explore the island without your own transport. And I hate
driving bulky, large cars. Plus, some of the narrow roads have
ascent/descent levels and road conditions that you actually can only
pass them with a motorbike, preferrably using offroad tyres.</p>
<p>But I digress. I like coming to Taiwan, and motorbiking accross the
country is one of the main reasons why.</p>
<p>After the various trips before, including the FIXME last trip circling
the island in 2014, I wanted to do something special this year. The
original plan was to cross the <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Cross-Island_Highway">southern cross-island highway
(Provincial Highway 20)</a> from
Taitung to Tainan. Unfortunately that road has been closed for many
years now due to typhoon related damage. Typhonns and Eathquakes (and
associated landslides) unfortunately happen quite often around Taiwan.</p>
<p>I've received some news that a group of motorcyclists managed to pass
the road very recently (despite officially being closed and having
various construction sites enroute). However, the road conditions were
very difficult, having to pass narrow gravel sections at the
construction sites, etc. So I again postponed this plan until a future
year.</p>
<p>Instead, I wanted to travel along provincial highway '7 jia', which
passes alongside a river valley into the central mountain ranges towards
Lishan, and from there take Nantou Lixing Industry road (aka road 89)
further down south towards Ren'ai. This road is of the most narrow
roads that you can find on maps of Taiwan, and leads through very remote
mountain areas with little population. You can find an interesting
<a class="reference external" href="http://formosaontwowheels.blogspot.tw/2015/09/the-most-epic-of-all-rides-in-taiwan.html">report of somebody crazy enough to travel that road on a bicycle in
2015</a>
online. The author describes it as <cite>the most epic of all rides in
Taiwan</cite> and you can see pictures of the road conditions in it.</p>
<p>Unfortuantely, while on our way, a Typhoon struck the southern
tip of Taiwan, and also brought loads of torrential rain into the
central mountain areas. Given that road 89 is difficult even in dry
conditions, I didn't want to take chances in terms of landslides and
muddy road conditions, and I had to turn back from Lishan to Taipei.</p>
<p>In order to make the return trip a bit different, I went all the way up
to Yilan, and then alongside the north-east coast to Gongliao, before
heading back to Tiapei via Shifen and Pinxi.</p>
<p>Soon after returning to Taipei, the second Typhoon affected the weather
(passing by off the north-east of Taiwan).</p>
<p>In the following week the weather was excellent and there was time for a
second trip. However, due to the rain of the two typhoons I still
didn't want to go for road 89, and decided to go towards the north coast
and continue to explore some of the waterfalls described at the
vonderful <a class="reference external" href="http://taiwanswaterfalls.com/">http://taiwanswaterfalls.com/</a> site. Specifically, those
alongside the Keelung river valley, close to road 106 form Taipei
towards the coast, then heading north along the coast, covering the tip
and returning back to Taipei via Dansuei (aka Tamsui).</p>
<p>In summary, the motorbike tours were a lot of fun. What made them more
fun than the previous trips was my strategy of using 'white' roads
(smaller roads) and avoid the provincial highways whenever three was a
'white' alternative on the map. Also, the newly-discovered map of
Taiwans waterfalls was helping a lot to find beautiful sights, and
encourage to go on even uncharted roads at times, a real challenge to
both bike and biker.</p>
<p>So if you ever consider recreational motorbike riding in Taiwan, my
recommendations would be:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>get a light-weight motorbike. There's no point for a heavy bike in
Taiwan, other than for locals to show it off. Many mountain roads
typically have speed limits of 30 or 40 kph, and while it is possible
to go 10-20 kph faster, more than that is suicidal. So no need for a
fast bike with large engine.</p></li>
<li><p>avoid travel on weekends. Everything is super crowded on weekends. I
prefer to stay home (and even work) on weekends, while using the quiet
weekdays to travel.</p></li>
<li><p>always choose mountainous roads over straight roads.</p></li>
<li><p>choose smaller 'white' roads over provincial highways. Even though
provincial highways on weekdays have less traffic, they still tend to
attract a fair number of trucks, and are generally more easy and a
less challenging ride.</p></li>
<li><p>always carry sufficient water with you.</p></li>
<li><p>go in September or October, after the rain season (normally) is over.
The weather is still warm to hot (depending on altitude).</p></li>
</ul>8-day motorbike round-trip in Taiwanhttps://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20140921-8day_ride/2014-09-21T03:00:00+02:002014-09-21T03:00:00+02:00Harald Welte<p>
I always wanted to do this during the years I spent more time in Taiwan
(the good old Openmoko days in 2007/2008), but of course never found the
time back then. This year, I finally manged to do it: A motorbike ride
around the island.
</p>
<p>
To be more honest: It was not literally around the island on the coast
line, as I find the west coast not very attractive for a leisure ride:
It is quite densely populated and has lots of industry. I also skipped
the north coast north of Taipei city, as I've been there so many times
before. So in fact, it is a trip from Taipei along the east coast all
the way down south, and returning back north towards Taipei on the
western side of the mountains.
</p>
<p>
You can see (a smplified version) of the GPS track via <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps?q=http:%2F%2Flaforge.gnumonks.org%2Fmisc%2F201409-taiwan-motorbike-tour.simple.kml">Google
maps</a> or also via <a href="https://laforge.gnumonks.org/map/201409-taiwan.html">OpenLayers/Openstreetmap</a>.
</p>
<p>
My biggest doubt in the past was whether I would be able to find
accomodation 'on the go', given my very minimal mandarin language
skills. If you don't know the road conditions, weather, etc. it is hard
to plan all the stops in advance. Also, given that typhoon or
earthquake induced landslides or rockslides are quite common in the
mountains, advance planning is not the preferred option.
</p>
<p>
However, given the quite universal mobile wireless data coverage and a
smartphone, I was able to always book the next accomodation (1 day in
advance) using popular booking websites such as agoda.com or
booking.com. This worked quite good, except in the rare case where
those websites get the address/location of the hotel/homestay completely
wrong.</p>
Regarding the trip itself:
<ul>
<li><b>Day 1: Taipei to Hualien</b>
<p>
I don't even remember how often I have taken provincial highway 9 from
Xindian (south of downtown Taipei) through the mountains to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yilan_County,_Taiwan">Yilan</a>
before. It must be the road that I travelled most frequently. What was
different this time is that the departure was on a weekend, so there
were literally hundreds of motorbike riders on the track. Also,
interestingly, in virtually every curve there was at least one
photographer taking pictures of the motorbikers.
</p>
<p>
(Side note: I usually avoid leaving the hotel/apartment over the
weekend, as Taiwan is simply to crowded. Doing any kind of travel,
sightseeing or even going out for dinner is almost bound for a
disappointment on saturday or sunday).</p>
<p>Having travelled 'number 9' many times still doesn't make it a less
interesting mountain ride, with plenty of serpentines and marvellous
views, particularly when you can first see the coastline from high up in
the mountains. I'm also quite familiar with the coastal provincial
highway 8 down to the entry of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taroko_National_Park">Taroko
Gorge</a>, along the steep cliffs, passing the various industrial
harbours and cement factories as well as the numerouns tunnels along the
road.
</p>
<p>The remaining kilometers down from Taroko towards <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hualien_City">Hualien</a> go much
faster than anticipated, as it is suddenly quite flat terrain and a wide
(two lane per direction) road that permits 60/70kph. The latter doesn't
sound like much, but it is a lot, compared to the 30/40kph limits in
the mountain roads.
</p>
<p>Accomdoation at a hotel inside Hualien city. Nice and clean room,
close to the shore. However, difficult to actually get to the shore as
a pedestrian, and aside from concrete bricks (to break the waves)
there's really not anything. No natural coastline, no rock or sand
beach, nothing.</p>
<p>
What was worth noticing where two anglers who were actually using a
quadrocopter to take their hooks/bait way further off the shore than you
would be able to achieve with manual casting of the fishing rod. I have
no insight into current angling practises. To mee it seemed quite
high-tech / nerdy / sophisticated ;)
</p>
</li><li><b>Day 2: Hualien to Taitung County</b>
<p></p>
<p>Accomdoation at <a href="https://www.agoda.com/lehuo-shoudo-moli-homestay/hotel/taitung-tw.html">Lehuo Shoudo Moli Homestay</a></p>
</li><li><b>Day 3: Staying in Taitung County</b>
<p>We actually liked the location (and the "private beach") so much that
we decided to stay for an extra night.</p>
<p>Accomdoation at <a href="https://www.agoda.com/lehuo-shoudo-moli-homestay/hotel/taitung-tw.html">Lehuo Shoudo Moli Homestay</a></p>
</li><li><b>Day 4: Taitung to Kenting</b>
<p></p>
<p>Accomdoation at <a href="https://www.agoda.com/miami-hostel/hotel/kenting-tw.html">Miami Hostel</a></p>
</li><li><b>Day 5: Kenting to Pingtung</b>
<p></p>
</li><li><b>Day 6: Pingtung to Chiayi</b>
<p></p>
<p>Accomdoation at <a href="https://laforge.gnumonks.org/J/www.agoda.com/tea-homestay/hotel/chiayi-tw.html">Tea Homestay</a></p>
</li><li><b>Day 7: Chiayi via Alishan and Yushan and Sun Moon Lake to Taichung</b>
<p></p>
<p>Accomdoation at <a href="https://www.agoda.com/sky-villa/hotel/taichung-tw.html">Sky Villa</a></p>
</li><li><b>Day 8: Taichung to Taipei</b>
</li></ul>Back from a 3-day motorbike ride to the central Taiwan mountainshttps://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20120610-3day_ride_taroko_hehuanshan/2012-06-10T03:00:00+02:002012-06-10T03:00:00+02:00Harald Welte<p>
I've wanted to do this for many years, but somehow never managed to do
this even back while I was spending a lot of time in Taiwan: A
motorbike ride crossing the mountainous center of the island using the
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Cross-Island_Highway">Central
Cross-Island Highway</a>. This <i>highway</i> is probably not what most
people imagine a highway would be like: A narrow road consisting almost
entirely only of serpentines with a speed limit of typically 40 km/h.
In other words, a motorbiking paradise.
</p>
<p>
You can enter that highway from the east by starting from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taroko_Gorge">Taroko Gorge</a>. In
order to get there by motorbike, you take the famous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provincial_Highway_9_%28Taiwan%29">Provincial
Highway No. 9 from XinDian via Pinglin to Yilan</a>, which is frequented a
lot by Taipei motorbike riders on weekends. The No. 9 further leads
along the cliffs of the coast to Xincheng, from where No. 8 starts.
</p>
<p>
The trip from Taipei to Xincheng is only about 200km, but still you need
at least something like 5.30 hours if you want to ride safely. This is
once again due to the mountain roads. You can barely see 100m at any
given time to the next turn in the road all the way between XinDian and
Yilan.
</p><center><img src="http://laforge.gnumonks.org/photos/201206-taiwan_mountains/small/P1050864_small.jpg" width="50%"></center>
So I stayed one night at the entrance of Taroko Gorge.
<p>
Upon arrival I was greeted by the hotel owner with the news that No. 8
had been closed temporarily due to rock fall at km 150.9. That was
pretty devastating to my plan, as this road is the only connection in
the northern two thirds of the entire island. There is no alternative,
except for No. 20, which would have been probably three times the amount
of distance (and thus time). However, as it later turned out, the road
would be opened for 30 minutes between 6am and 6.30am. So I had to
leave at 5.00am in order to safely ride the first 30 km up to the road
block. This turned out to be the best thing that could have happened:
</p><ul>
<li>There was absolutely zero traffic in either direction (the first
25km to Tienshang that are normally full of tourist busses).</li>
<li>I was able to witness the sunrise at about 5.40am in the mountains</li>
<li>very clear sight, which at other times is not clear at all</li>
</ul>
<center><img src="http://laforge.gnumonks.org/photos/201206-taiwan_mountains/small/P1050893_small.jpg" width="50%"></center>
<p>
So I reached the road block even ahead of schedule and was able to pass
as intended.
</p>
<p>
I continued along the road, and due to the fact that the road was
closed again after 30mins, there was close to zero traffic all day on
the entire road.
/p>
</p><p>
At Dayuling, you can either continue the 8 towards Lishan (but not much
further due to repeated subsequent earthquake and typhoon damage), or you
an continue along No. 14 A towards Hehuanshan (Mt. Hehuan). I first
went to Lishan (a major tea planting region) and back, as due to my
early morning start I had lots of time left for detours, to continue
towards Mount Hehuan , where the road reaches an altitude of more than
3100m.
</p><center><img src="http://laforge.gnumonks.org/photos/201206-taiwan_mountains/small/P1050950_small.jpg" width="50%"></center>
<p>
I spent the second night in Renai, where I arrived just in time: The
first rain drops of a heavy afternoon thunderstorm were falling.
In the morning, I was greeted by the following view from my hotel room:
</p><center><img src="http://laforge.gnumonks.org/photos/201206-taiwan_mountains/small/P1050974_small.jpg" width="50%"></center>
I left again in the early morning, drove through Puli and headed for the
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Moon_Lake">Sun Moon Lake</a>.
It really is beautiful, as you can see in the following picture.
However, it is also over-developed to care for tourists of all sorts,
including lots of concrete directly at the lake, and bus-loads full of
tourists, Starbucks coffee shops and everything that comes with it.
<center><img src="http://laforge.gnumonks.org/photos/201206-taiwan_mountains/small/P1050980_small.jpg" width="50%"></center>
After two days in remote mountains with little buildings and almost no
people, the experience was so shocking that I decided not to circle the
whole lake but instead continue down south along No. 16 until it meets
No. 3, which I then drove more or less all the way back to Taipei.
<p>
The first sixty-or-so kilometers are painful, as they lead through
heavily populated areas around Nantou and Taichung. This means that
there's lots of traffic, and very frequent traffic lights that make you
stop. Later on, the road leads through less populated mountainous
regions, and driving is more relaxed again.
</p>
<p>
Having managed this trip without any problems (nor getting lost even
once), I'm hoping to find some time in the future to ride No. 7 from
Yilan to Lishan, and particularly <a href="http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2004/12/09/2003214415">Provincial
Highway No. 20</a>, crossing the mountains much more south.
</p>
<p>
And if there's one part for me to remember: Always avoid the densely
populated regions in the west of the island. If I wanted to ride
stop-and-go all day long, I don't have to leave Taipei or New Taipei
City in the first place ;)
</p>Getting woken up by an earthquake...https://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20120610-earthquake/2012-06-10T03:00:00+02:002012-06-10T03:00:00+02:00Harald Welte<p>
...is a good adrenaline rush to start your day. Happened to me this
morning at 5am in Taipei, caused by a <a href="http://www.cwb.gov.tw/V7e/earthquake/Data/quake/EE0610050065087.htm">Magnitude
6.5 earthquake 70 km off Yilan on Taiwans east coast</a>. If it happened
two days earlier, it would have caught me on the motorbike ride,
possibly causing even some more road blocks due to rubble coming down
from mountains.
</p>Some more thoughts on the Yamaha TW-225https://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20100406-more_thoughts_on_tw225/2010-04-06T03:00:00+02:002010-04-06T03:00:00+02:00Harald Welte<p>
A <a href="http://laforge.gnumonks.org/photoalbum/travel/taiwan/TW-225/index.html">Yamaha TW-225</a> is my motorbike in Taiwan. Although I often refer to
it as <i>my toy bike</i> (compared to the BMW F650ST and <a href="http://laforge.gnumonks.org/photoalbum/misc/fazer_fz6_black/thumb0.html">FZ6
Fazer</a> in
Berlin), it has proven to be a very reliable bike.
</p>
<p>
Before I cam to Taiwan and bought it, I was used to ride the heavy BMW
for almost a decade. Ever since driving school at the age of 16, I
didn't ride a small/light bike again (at that time a Yamaha DT80). So
initially I was skeptical about the TW-255. Sure, for getting from one
place to another inside Taipei it is great. But what about riding
further distances and/or in the mountains?
</p>
<p>
To my own surprise I actually think that it is an almost ideal bike for
the conditions in Taiwan (at least those that I encountered so far). It
is very light, so you can actually manually move it around easily - very
important considering the parking conditions in Taipei. The small
weight also means that you don't have to throw around much weight on
mountain serpentines.
</p>
<p>
The engine with its 18 horsepowers is also surprisingly strong, even on
steep mountain roads. On the other hands, the engine is not too strong,
i.e. it is forgiving in case you make any mistakes. You certainly don't
make a wheelie or get your rear tire to slide while accelerating. You
also don't run into the danger of a rear wheel blocking when shifting
down and being a bit too swift with the clutch.
</p>
<p>
You can almost do anything with (or to!) the bike and it will tolerate
it. You can pull the throttle as you want, make mistakes while shifting
gears and whatever else. I've experienced many less pleasant situations
with my other bikes, but not with the TW-225 despite plenty of
opportunity.
</p>
<p>
As opposed to the ever-so-popular scooters you have a manual gear, much
bigger tires, different center of gravity, better suspension (think of
potholes), ... - and most of the scooters also have a weaker engine
anyways.
</p>
<p>
The only two weak points that I could find so far:
</p><ul>
<li>The brakes could be much more aggressive, saving important time when
you have to do a full stop after some unexpected event in the traffic
ahead.</li>
<li>The seat is ridiculous. I'm by no means tall with my 172cm,
but I think the seat TW-225 seat is way too low for me. And god, is it
uncomfortable. Not sure if it was designed with an Asian anatomy in
mind (the TW-225 is officially selling only in Japan) and if it is less
painful for Asians. But thinking of doing more/longer tours through
Taiwan, I definitely need a different seat...</li>
</ul>
<p>
Having said this, I'm still looking forward to trying some of the high
mountain roads like the central cross-country highway from Hualien to
Taichung. Let's see how the carburetor will do once you get to around
3,000 meters of altitude..
</p>A trip to Fulong beach in the northeast of Taiwanhttps://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20080706-fulong_beach/2008-07-06T03:00:00+02:002008-07-06T03:00:00+02:00Harald Welte<p>
On Saturday I went to Fulong beach. Believe it or not, my first
bathing-at-a-beach trip in Taiwan, despite the long time that I spent on this
tropical island.
</p>
<p>
The venue of the beach is really nice (photos will follow later). The water
temperature of the pacific ocean felt surprisingly cold to me - but keep in
mind that I'm still spoiled by the 28 centigrade warm Atlantic ocean in
Pernambuco/Brazil ;)
</p>
<p>
However, it wouldn't have been a Taiwanese experience if there weren't some
strange observations. First of all, I obviously appreciate that there are a
number of life guards. But then I found out that they had a rope in the water,
which you were not supposed to pass. The problem with that rope, though: It
was at a water depth of about 1 meter to 1.10 meter!
</p>
<p>
So imagine a huge beach, of which there is a small portion separated by this
rope floating on the water, and all the people are crammed into the small
confinements between the actual waterline and that rope. The sea was
incredibly calm, I could not even detect the remotest hint of any underwater
currents, the slope of the ground is _very_ flat, but you can't actually get
into the water to swim.
</p>
<p>
The other peculiarity was that the beach closes at 5.30pm. WTF? Especially
during those incredibly hot days, why not just stay in the water into the
evening or even at night?
</p>
<p>
So as a summary, I have to say, Brazilian beaches rule in comparison! Nobody
to tell you that you cannot go into water deeper 1.10 meters, beaches are
always open (there are no private beaches, they're all public), and most part
of the day you will get served beverages, alcoholic drinks and fresh food.
</p>
<p>
So this trip to Fulong beach was certainly an experience I wouldn't want to
miss. But not one that I'm likely wanting to repeat again. I now know what
it's like :)
</p>Electrical installations in Taiwanhttps://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20080704-220v_e14_taiwan/2008-07-04T03:00:00+02:002008-07-04T03:00:00+02:00Harald Welte<p>
I haven't noted this here yet, but I'm in Taiwan again since two weeks ago. I
also have two more weeks of Taiwan ahead, since I decided to stay a full month
and go to a Chinese language school. Now don't expect too much, this is
basically just to find out whether I really want to seriously learn about the
language or not. Four weeks will not get me anywhere, at least not beyond pronunciation drills and very basic sentences + vocabulary.
</p>
<p>
Anyway let's get to the subject of my posting: During the last couple of days I
actually spent a significant amount of time trying to find something that to me
is the most normal thing: A 60W 220V light bulb with an E14 socket. But that
would apparently only be normal in Europe. Here in Taiwan, the voltage
typically is 110V at 60Hz, with US-style power sockets. Basically just like
the US or Japan.
</p>
<p>
However, for some really strange and unknown reason, the particular apartment
has <b>both</b> 3 phase 110V <b>and</b> 3 phase 220V. The power sockets are
all 110V, whereas the fixed ceiling lights are all 220V.
</p>
<p>
So apparently sometimes people have 220V lights here, and you can get a
limited selection of usual bulbs in 220V type, even though 90% of the light
bulbs in the store would be 110V.
</p>
<p>
I've been to Carrefour, B&Q and Tsan-Kuen (all large super-stores in
NeiHu). 220V was really rare, and neither of them had any E14 bulbs
(independent of shape) for 220V. So after a lot of wasted time, I then decided
that I'm just going to replace the entire lamp socket with an E27 type in order
to accommodate a different lamp. My other option would have been to add another
E14 socket in series and then use two 110V bulbs attached to 220V mains.
</p>
<p>
Now the really big question is: Why would anyone have the lighting at 220V
whereas the power outlets are running1 at 110? This means you need separate
infrastructure, separate lines, transformers, metering devices, circuit
breakers, etc. And three simply is no point. I could understand 3-phase 220
is better than 3-phase 110 in case you want to use extremely high-power
consumers.
</p>