Port of Keelung Exploration

I decided to come back to NTOU earlier today for some exercise and a little bit of exploring. I managed to swim 1500 meters before heading towards the port of Keelung with my camera and tripod. Last weekend when I was there I thought the night view was really pretty, but my camera ran out of battery that day. Today I got to the 廟口 night market a bit early to beat the crowd so I can take photos when the sun sets. I first walked around the night market to see what kind of stores were there and see what I wanted to eat. Got takoyaki, squid, and 冬瓜茶. It was still bright out, so I walked along 愛河 for a bit and took some photos of the sun setting behind the mountains. When it was finally dark out, I walked to the center of the river leading into the Keelung port. There were fancy lights spelling out Keelung and a band was performing at the time. Afterwards, I went to the elevated platform, 和平廣場, and set up my tripod to take a photo of the red Keelung sign in the mountains. My photos today didn't come out as great as I had hoped, and a lot of them turned out to be blurry. I need to brush up my night photography skills. At least I got a few decent shots tonight.

愛河.

Fancy lights spelling Keelung

Performance on the docks.

Highway coming from Taipei.

Port of Keelung

五分埔 and Taipei 101

Today was a pretty exhausting day with a lot of walking. I met up with Jason, his sister, Michael and Wes at 2:00 and shopped at 五分埔. Taiwanese clothing are too decorated with so many different kinds of designs - not my style. This store owner was showing us how one article of clothing can be transformed into three different styles: a tshirt with a scarf-looking thing in the front, a tshirt with a cardigan, a tshirt with a blazer. Why can't they just keep things simple? I didn't get anything from 五分埔, but it was interesting seeing all the different styles they had. We met up with Tammy and Jennifer and went to Rao He night market to get dinner. Got the usual food at night markets: Taiwanese sausage, massive shaved ice with four different flavors, fried food and watermelon juice. Afterwards, we took the MRT to 市政府 in hopes of finding somewhere we can sit and chat. The mall there was crowded with people and we ended up walking around looking at toys. By then, our feet were exhausted and all we wanted to do was sit, but we still walked to Taipei 101 since it was still early in the night. I really liked the interior design of the mall across from Taipei 101. It was very different and had all sorts of cool designs on the ceilings, the walls, and along the escalators. By 10:00, we were all too tired to do anything else and took the MRT home. 

It has been a great weekend hanging out with these people and I look forward to future hangouts in Taipei! 

My attempting at panning...

MRT handle bars are so low.

Cool reflective ball in Taipei 101!

師大夜市

Finished the first week of internship at NTOU today. I spent most of my day today trying to figure out how to work the electronics kit I got, but still couldn't figure it out. It'll keep me busy next week and hopefully I can build something cool with it. 

I left early today to beat the traffic coming into Taipei. Met up with Tammy, Jennifer, Jason, Michael and Wes at 師大 area and walked around the night market there. We decided to eat at a store with air conditioning since it was pretty humid in the streets. Ended up at this 25-year-old 牛肉麵 store; I didn't think it was that special, just alright. Afterwards, we got icy from a street stand. Passion fruit syrup! So delicious. Next, we walked to 45 Pub to chill for a bit. The outside of the bar looked so sketched, with a steep staircase leading up to the second floor, but the inside was actually not that bad. Ordered a pitcher of Passion Fruit Daiquiri for $500 NT and split it among the six of us. Thank you Michael for treating us! We each just had a glass; there wasn't much alcohol in it so we were still all pretty okay, maybe except for Jason... Hung out around the night market area again and eventually made our way back to the MRT stop. Wes, Michael, Jason and I walked around 台北車站 area after the girls left, but all the stores were closed or getting ready to close. 

It was a nice reunion and end-of-week hang out. Looking forward to tomorrow's hang out at 五分埔. 

九份

Just as I was telling my friend that I want to take more photos for this blog, the grad students in my lab took me to 九份 today after work. Speaking of work, I actually got stuff to do today. The professor gave me an electronics kit where I can connect seven different boards to a main board and test communication related technology, such as RFID, LCD screen and bluetooth. I'm still trying to figure out how to download the programming software and get it to work on my computer, but at least its a start.

So at 4:30 three grad students and I left campus and rode motorcycles up to 九份. It's fun riding on the motorcycle and it feels good when a cold breeze comes by. The hills up to 九份 were so steep that the motorcycles were having trouble accelerating. There wasn't really much to do there actually. We walked up and down the main historic street and looked at shops along the way. Stopped by for some cold and yummy 'Oh Yee' (not sure how to say it in Chinese...) and sausage. The grad students knew that I like to take photos, so they took me to spots to see the view of the mountains and the ocean. We also stayed to watch the sunset. It was really pretty.

九份

Oh yee!

View of Keelung and the ocean. 

Pretty pretty.

Day 4 at NTOU

Today is the fourth day of my internship here at NTOU, and I haven't done anything at all. I've been getting into the research lab at around 9:30 everyday and do my own thing on the computer and chat with the grad students. So far, every time I went to find my professor in his office he's never there. I've only seen him twice this entire week. Through talking with other interns here at NTOU, and other places in Taiwan, all the internships are very relaxed and doesn't require much effort. A lot of professors encourage their interns to go out and see different places in Taiwan. My friend at Taichung got tickets to a museum from his professor. 

Yesterday I asked a grad student to show me some of the projects he's been doing. The project he showed me is for first-year Masters students. NTOU works with the local hospital and receives periodic recordings of patients talking, and the goal is to conduct a speech analysis to determine if the patients' speech skills has improved over a period of time. It's an ongoing project and NTOU reports its' results back to the hospital every few months. To get me more familiar with the project, the grad student first gave me a few pages of paper to read about the four standards NTOU uses to conduct the analysis: pitch variation, average frequency, noise-harmonic ratio, and jitter. I haven't seen how they actually work on the project yet, but I know it involves MATLAB and simple programming on MATLAB. Hopefully I can work on this project over the summer and brush up my MATLAB skills. In a week and a half there will be a summer camp for underprivileged elementary school students here on campus. I'll be helping out with that and it should keep me pretty occupied for that week at least.  

So I started my workout plan yesterday: swimming in the morning and gym at night. Yesterday morning I swam 2000 long course meters and felt super exhausted afterwards. After work, the grad students and I played badminton for a bit and went to the gym. It's actually really nice here and they have all sorts of equipment. It feels nice to workout again, except I feel so weak not being able to lift the same amount of weight as before. This morning I swam another 2000 meters and plan on going to the gym later at night. Seven weeks to get myself back in shape. 

Happy me after my morning swim. 

Summer Workout

Yesterday:

5 miles around track

6 x 6 pull-ups

Today:

3 miles around track

6 x 6 pull-ups

Tomorrow and Beyond:

1-1.5 hour morning swim, hopefully at least 1000 meters (long course)

Gym/jog at night

Feels good to exercise again.

National Taiwan Ocean University

Today is the first day of my internship at National Taiwan Ocean University in Keelung. I got to my professor's research office at 8:30, and only one grad student was here. The professor didn't come until 9:30. We talked for an hour when he came, and he showed me the different departments in our building and gave me a tour of the building. First thing he said was that there isn't really anything for me to do... He gave me a list of departments and what kinds of research they are doing, and said he'll have me tag along whichever group I'm interested in. Besides that, I can help out with a summer camp for elementary school students in two weeks and help other Masters students fix up their English thesis papers. I told him I'm interested in GIS research, but I don't know when he's going to talk to the professor in charge of that department.

The other grad students in the research room are all really nice. They were all surprised at why I chose this university over other schools, and confused at what exactly is my major. Only the professor has heard of Operations Research, and I have to explain to the grad students what I am studying. They treated me to lunch and they're trying to get me free access to the swimming pool. The office is pretty empty and most of the grad students are pretty laid back since they just finished presenting their thesis. Hopefully they'll take me to fun places around Keelung some time in the summer. And I hope my professor will find me something to do in the next few days...