I’m in Taipei today, and seems that Typhoon Kalmaegi has been pummeling Taiwan for the last 2 days. I do see some light to medium rain, and occasional strong winds, but compared to what I have seen in the past trips to Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Philippines, this didn’t look too much like a TYphoon from where I am in Taipei. News says that there has been some casualties, but I’m already planning to wake up early tomorrow and if there’s a little respite from the rain I might go out for a morning jog. Staying over near the office at NeiHu across the river from Taipei city. Morning jog consists of running 1km to the river and then running along the park across from the city airport. Nice run. Too bad I can’t cover more than 5km now.
As for today, went out shopping for provisions. That, for this trip, means 2 pairs of SmartWool socks which I find really comfortable for long treks where you don’t have the luxury to change socks every hour since it doesn’t stick or stink, at least 20 rolls of film. Tri-X for 35mm and Provia 400X are at least 20-30% cheaper than in Tokyo. Funnily Tri-X 120 is more expensive. I can’t figure out the pricing policy. You shoot only 8 pictures on a 6×7 and you pay almost the same price as a 35mm roll that shoots 37 pictures.
Went to the new Kwanghua electronics market. It used to be in a makeshift shack under a highway 10 years back, and last few years they moved to a temporary shack on a new ground, and today they have a new high rise (looks more like municipal flats!) next to the old place. The crowds are still there, and the with the highrise, it is more difficult to get in and out of the building. I spent not more than 15 mins there becuase of the crowd. Admiring the new ultra cheap subnotebooks from Acer (Inspire One), the original eeePC and its new variants, the MSI Wind and HP’s whatever. Out of the few, HP’s keyboard looks nice but I dont really trust the VIA chipset. MSI and Acer uses Atom chipsets from Intel, and I think of the lot, Acer has the price/performance points that’s the most interesting. 13000NTD for one. Too bad I dont have the need for a new notebook, so skipped.
nangka.org 