Entries Tagged as 'Shan Ding Lu'

Farewell Shan Ding Lu

After two good years at Shanding Lu our time in Taiwan is now over. Our children are now more Taiwanese than Australian, my Perth work office have mostly forgotten what I look like and our house, family and friends in Australia are all ready for our return.
It is always sad to leave a place.  Shanding Lu, Daliao, Kaohsiung and Taiwan have been very good to us indeed and these two years have been enjoyed by us all. They will forever be remembered by our kids with family, friend and national bonds that will last their lifetimes.

Thank you and farewell the mountains, rivers and the great outdoors.  These are Taiwan’s backyard treasures and my pure delight.

Taguan shan
Batongguan trail hikers
Bamboo
Reflective Fishing
Summer water fun
Purple butterflies

Thank you and farewell to all Taiwan’s keen photographers and the Kaohsiung Flickr group. The monthly meetups and all the fantastic photo opportunities that Taiwan has to offer.

Glass Dome Photographers

Thank you and farewell to all those fishermen, fish markets, seafood meals and fishing boats.

Drying fish eggs
Discerning buyers
Fishing boats at Hengchun
Drag net fishing boat:Kezi Liao fishing harbor:Kaohsiung county
Fresh Sashimi
Sashimi - Dong gang fish markets
Shrimp and spices
Long-line boats in Kaohsiung harbour
Bicycle built for two
Squid boat

Thank you and farewell to the farmers and good people living on the Gaoping river plains.

Farm truck
One of the last
Working the rice fields
Ghost money

Thankyou and farewell to the all the great people we’ve had the pleasure of meeting.

Bubbles
Foguanshan monestry
Taiwanese opera in the park
Graduation flower season
Mahjong. The national pastime
New Year firecrackers
Preparations for the New Year : From the kitchen
Tug of war

Thank you and farewell to Taiwan bloggers and Shan Ding Lu readers. I have thoroughly enjoyed photographing and blogging on the meanderings of living in Southern Taiwan. I have also thoroughly enjoyed reading many of the Taiwan blogs. There is some fantastic content provided by many and varied dedicated bloggers. My RSS feeds will remain a constant tie to you all. A special thanks to Fotozon and the Taiwan Picture of the day for publishing many of Shan Ding Lu’s The Weekly Photo.

Thank you and farewell Taiwan.

People in the Neighborhood

Daliao is very working class. It sits right on the industrial saturated rural edge of Kaohsiung city.

Our immediate neighborhood is made up of ordinary working people. The type Australian politicians like to call “battlers”. They are also a wonderful mix of young and old. They are mostly native Taiwanese but a few KMT immigrants, Indonesian and Philippine maids and Vietnamese brides as well.

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Around Daliao


I have eagerly followed the local Taiwanese news and I’m especially interested in news associated with our local township Daliao(大竂).  Unidentified toxic gas releases at the local industrial park have kept Daliao to the national headlines recently. If you take a quick look around it is not difficult to see why this type of news item is indicative of the area in Taiwan we have chosen to live.

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Night time view across the small pocket amongst which we live.

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Shan Ding Elementary School sports day

Yesterday was the kid’s school sports day. It is held on a Saturday so parents are able to attend and join in the activities.

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To make up for having to attend on Saturday, school is out for Monday. I’m not sure what the working parents will do tomorrow. [Read more →]

What’s with the water

About 3am a few weeks ago I woke to the rather pleasant sound of flowing water outside. After checking that it wasn’t raining I wandered downstairs to check that the kids hadn’t left the ground floor water tap running. What I discovered was a burst water main that flowed a torrent of water straight through and past our garage.

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When it rains

A good tropical torrential rain is a wonderful thing. It is cooling and so refreshing. At this time of year Taiwan is blessed with so many torrential downpours.

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Typhoon Fung-wong has been bearing down on Taiwan for the past few days. Like a thundering bowling ball it hit the central east coast early this morning, hurled over the 3000m mountain range and left the central west coast early this evening. Though the winds were not too strong, the rain has been steady. And there is yet more to come over the next day as the tail of the typhoon drops its remaining water. It is now on its way to China and hopefully on course to Beijing for a final scrub down before the Olympics.

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Summer rain and frog spotting

The thunder clouds have been threatening for a while but today Kaohsiung received it’s first large showers of the plum rains that signal the start of the long hot humid summer ahead.

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A field of rice

Just across the lane by our house is a field that has been growing rice for the last 5 months. I was lead to believe that farmers could get two rice crops a year from their fields. Having watched the field opposite us I can say that while they may be able to, no-one down here in the south does. Some farmers put red beans in between rice crops but most of the fields used for rice have remained fallow for the remaining 7 months.

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Digging up the road. Again…

It absolutely astonished me the first time I saw a team of diggers came to dig up the road not more than a week after it had been freshly repaved. They did their job and roughly patched over the hole leaving a beautiful street with a large uneven blemish. When I see these things now it doesn’t phase me at all.

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It seems that each essential service is responsible for connecting to any new development. And these services typically run down the middle of the road. Most streets are a patchwork of different service entry scars, even the recently paved ones.

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Election day

Yesterday Taiwan held its election for president. This was a simple vote for one of two candidates numbered (1) and (2). Along with the presidential vote there were two referendum votes. So every voter had 3 ballots to fill out. An easy and simple affair.

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Ma Ying-jeou and running mate on the left. KMT, red and blue, number (2). Frank Shieh and running mate on the right. DPP, green, number(1)

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