Author: ana

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in taiwan

taiwan postal museum

any postal museum is an obligatory visit for us, and this one had been on my list for ages. we decided to visit it just at the right time, it seems — they were having some activities ahead of children’s day (which is a holiday in taiwan) and entry was free! :D we were also given a card at the entrance, so we could answer a question at every floor and collect stamps to exchange for a prize at the end. 

so off we went to explore all the floors! some were dedicated to postal history and the first stamps, others to thematic philatelic collections…

…and one was just for children which was quite cool as it was particularly interactive. 

they also had quite a few different mailboxes on display, which were available as postcards! i do love it when a museum has nicely made postcards, so i had to grab a few to write later. :)

our gift at the end turned out to be two-fold: first, we were given the chance to pick a stamp from a pile to make a badge on the spot. i chose a dalek-themed stamp, and paulo spotted another uk stamp featuring sir rowland hill at the last minute (the inventor of the penny black), so of course we had to pick that one. 

and because we bought some postcards, we were also offered a couple of cool stamp-themed tote bags… wow! we might be a little spoiled for other museums now…  

Categories
one second everyday

march 2023 — one second everyday

a month of friends visiting, cow-spotting, countryside brunches, the boy’s birthday, catching up with family up north… and then finally, taiwan! :D

Categories
in taiwan

the tuned mass damper

usually when we visit a place, there’s one thing people say you “must” do — and in taipei, that is probably climbing the taipei 101 and seeing the city from high above. more than the views though, the big skyscraper has one interesting feature that i really wanted to see: the tuned mass damper! brady from practical engineering explains how it works, on this funny old video:

the thing is just a huge, super heavy pendulum that absorbs the building’s movements to counter the oscillation from winds or the ground motion. there’s plenty of movies on youtube of it swinging during typhoons or earthquakes — including during the 2008 sichuan earthquake we felt in shanghai. 

i think it’s brilliant that they gave it a spotlight and turned into a feature that everyone can visit — hurray for making engineering visible! i often think of how many things like this exist, and how we’re not even aware of them, and of all the work and science that is involved in big and small things. 

oh, and i guess the views from up there are not bad either! :D

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birdwatching in taiwan

taiwan barbet

walking around the da’an forest park here in taipei, we saw a lot of people with their big cameras pointed at a little hole in a tree…

so i gathered up my courage and asked a grandpa standing there whether they were all birdwatching. he said “we’re waiting for the five color bird!”, and at my confusion, he picked up his phone and showed me pictures of the taiwan barbet… wow! 😍 we had heard its call before (a loud frog-like noise coming from the trees in the park), but the bird itself remained elusive. with some patience though, we were able to find it… and it is stunning!

most of the body is green and blends with the foliage, but the head and neck feature some really bright stripes of color, including 2 red dots just above the beak. and that call!

we haven’t even left the city and we’ve already seen a few other new birds… i had forgotten how exciting islands can be for birdwatching — even sparrows are a little different here! :)

Categories
in taiwan

japanese encephalitis vaccine

japanese encephalitis is one of those diseases that, if you get it, things can get irreversibly bad pretty quickly. the chances of being bitten with the mosquito that carries it and getting symptoms are low, so doctors only recommend the vaccine for longer stays in asia, or trips that involve going to the countryside during mosquito season… but it’s a statistics game, really. knowing that 1 in each 4 symptomatic cases are fatal, i really didn’t want to risk it.

after checking in portugal (and poking a few pharmacies in spain as well), we quickly realized it was not going to happen, and an email to the lab that makes them confirmed that they’re having trouble delivering stock to southern europe… so when we were planning the trip, the thought crossed our mind that we might as well get it in taiwan.  we checked, the price didn’t seem to be that different from what we’d pay in portugal, so let’s book it!

when the day came, things were a little messy… a bit like a paper chase around the hospital! go to the other building of the hospital -> register -> talk to the doctor -> take this paper and go pay for everything -> get the vaccine from the outpatient pharmacy -> come back here to take it… pfeww! it took a couple of hours to go through all the steps, but somehow, we managed to do it. the doctor was young and chatty, perhaps a little surprised to see foreigners on holidays taking vaccines… but he explained everything carefully and even gave us suggestions of places to visit in taiwan. :) the hospital wing we were at was quite crowded with people going about their appointments and exams, but somehow, everything seemed to work. when we got to the hospital’s pharmacy, the prescription was already ready and waiting for us.

the vaccine itself was easy-peasy: super quick and painless and no significant side-effects afterwards. and now we wait a couple of weeks and we’ll be immune for the next 20 years. check! ✔️