night lights

'nuther quick post here.... i'm leaving taipei in about half an hour to go back to my field area. i could really use a weekend away from the city. it'll be sunny and warm in puli, and i'll be spending a few days riding a motorcycle up and down the peikang-hsi ("-hsi" is mandarin for river) and taking measurements of the rock column and structural orientations.

there is a huge bike expo in taipei for the weekend, so i went to check it out yesterday afternoon... just to ogle and covet and drool. i spent about 4 hours walking around the expo hall, fondling all the newest gadgets and bike frames, and wishing i had the funding necessary to walk away with some of the nicest italian road bikes. for those who don't know, it's not that hard to spec a top-of-the-line racing bike out at about 11-12 grand.

i also took a few shots of 101 and a neighboring building as i was leaving... taipei has a lot of stunning buildings that are lit up at night. various schemes are used to illuminate the buildings, and seeing them at night completely changes your perception of the design compared to viewing them during daylight hours. i've been planning a sort of night-tour of some of the better buildings sometime when we have a clear night so that i can take some good images. i'll have to shoot with film too, since the gain in my digital camera sort of blows up the grain of the image... if i can find a tripod to borrow that will help. anyway, here are a couple of the shots....






~t