Skywatch Friday: Sunrise and Sunset at Bryce Canyon

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Skywatch Friday: Kodachrome State Park, Utah

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Today's Sunset

Stormy Night

Early in the evening, a thunderstorm was raging behind 觀音山, probably somewhere around 桃園.  It put up an amazing show of lightening as seen from our balcony.

Skywatch Friday: Southern View from Danshui

Skywatch Friday: Spring day at Boston Common

Grace took this picture on a chilly but sunny day at Boston Common in late March.

Skywatch Friday: Longfellow Bridge, Boston

The Longfellow Bridge also known as Salt-and-Pepper Bridge, it crosses Charles River and connects Boston with Cambridge.

B & W version, which one do you prefer?

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Skywatch Friday: Sunrset at Paris

Grace took this beautiful sunset of Paris in October, 2010

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Skywatch Friday: Sunrise at Boston

Grace took this image of Backbay of Boston in the early morning about two weeks ago from her room at Royal Sonesta Hotel.  The Hotel is at Cambridge side of Boston by the Charles River.  The bridge is Longfellow bridge, which also known locally as Salt-and-Pepper Bridge due to the shape of the central towers.  The Red Line of the Boston MBTA subway system goes over the bridge.  You can see the train on the bridge in the image.  The main pier under the central towers has sculptures resemble Viking ship.  Some legend states that the Viking on their way to Iceland and the New World has reached as far as Charles River.

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Skywatch Friday: Sunset at Munich

Grace was at Munich, Germany in late November for business.  It was only a month after we came back from an almost three weeks tour in Europe.  Here is the view of Munich skyline just before sunset from her room.

The sun went down and the moon rose.

The sky finally exploded into this kaleidoscope color.

Here was the final golden sun light of the day filtered into her room.

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Skywatch Friday: Sunrise at Dasyueshan (大雪山) National Forest

We were greeted with fantastic sunset and a view of forest night dwelling animals when we arrived at Dasyueshan National Forest.  The next morning, the temperature was near freezing.  We braved the cold just before dawn to go out for some early morning bird watching.

We were again greeted with a spectacular sky of sunrise.

Here the sun showed its face for a very fine day.

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Skywatch Friday: Sunset at Dasyueshan (大雪山) National Forest; Camera-Critters #153

After my trip with "Natural Kingdon" on Thursday, January 24 to Fu-shan Botanical Garden, we went with them again for a two-day tour to Dasyueshan National Forest for birdwatching and natural tour.  The mountain range is about 3000 meters heigh and is located at the center of Taiwan.  It used to be a major area for timber production, now it is completely preserved and famous for bird watching.  When we arrived at the top of the range, it was almost dark.  We were treated with this amazing sunset.

We were not idle after dinner, the guide took us out for a drive in the forest and searching for animals using spot light.  We were very fortunate to see this Formosan serow (長鬃山羊), Capricornis crispus swinhoei.  

This is White-face Flying Squirrel (白面鼯鼠), Petaurista alborufus len.  They stay high-up on the pine trees.  Their eyes shine like ruby when we scan the tree top with spot light.  They are so puffy and cute.

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Skywatch Friday: Okinawa sunset

When we arrived at the Hotel during the first day of our trip to Okinawa, we saw this amazing light from our room window.

Afterward, during the last day of our trip, we saw this amazing sunset when we were on the tour bus.  I quickly snapped several shots.  This one came out really good.

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Skywatch Friday & ABC Wednesday: C is for Chicago

I (Grace) went to Chicago in early June.  Chicago has become a more and more livable city with many historical landmarks and modern ambiance.  Here are some famous buildings along the Chicago River.  On the far left hand side is the newly opened Trump International Hotel and Tower.  The building with the clock tower is the Wrigley building which is the Headquarter for the Chewing gum company.  Behind that is the Tribune Tower which is the Headquarter for the major daily newspaper, Chicago Tribune.   The road between the two buildings is the Michigan Avenue, also called Magnificent Mile.

Here is a close up of the clock tower of Wrigley building and the neo-gothic style of the Tribune Tower.

I took the photograph from the lobby of the Restaurant Sixteen at the Trump International Hotel and Tower.  Here you can see that the Wrigley building has two towers: in the front (South Tower) is 30 stories tall, and in the back (North Tower) is 21 stories high.

Here is the small dining room beside the main dining room with fantastic view, clean design and more intimate seating.  

I took this photograph from my hotel window at 5:30 AM.  This is the other side of the Chicago River.  The twin "corncob" towers are the famous Marina Towers Condominium.  You can keep your boat at the lower dock, park your car at the lower levels, and live on the top levels.  A true Marina City with shops, restaurants, and cinemas.

Here is the same place late at night.  You can see the dark blue sky and the reflections on the Chicago River.

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Skywatch Friday: Daxi (大溪)

After my stop at Keelung harbor to photograph the Black-crowned Night Heron and Black Kite, I continued my trip on Expressway 62 toward east and arrived at Northeast Coast National Scenic Area.  My first stop was FuLong Railroad Station.  FuLong has a very nice sandy beach, because of the easy railroad access, it has been a popular beach going place for a long time.  I remember taking a train ride to Fulong with my parents for the beach when I was very little.  The reason for my stop over was to buy a Bento for lunch.  Fulong is a major stop for the East Coast Railroad.  The train leaving Taipei often arrives at the station around meal hour.  Many vendors sell Railroad Bento on the train side directly to the passengers.  Through the years, The Rail Bento of Fulong has gotten very famous.  I arrived at 11:30 and there was a long line waiting outside of the famous Bento stores already.  One Bento only costs NT$55 (about US$1.5).  Tourists before me were buying 10s of Bento.  I felt I was such a looser to only buy one, I braved myself and bought two!!

After lunch, I drove to my next destination, Daxi Harbor.  The above image is Turtle Island, as you can see from its shape.  It is a volcanic island and the only active volcano in Taiwan.  It used to be a military restricted area and now allows limited access to tourists.  The surrounding area is rich fishing ground and Daxi Harbor is right opposite to Turtle Island.

The harbor is really quite small but a very active fishing port, and now is quite a tourist attraction.  The first part of the road leading to the port is lined with vendors selling all kinds of cooked or fried seafood, such squid and crabs.

The area around the harbor then is an active fish market.  The fishing vessels arrive in the early afternoon to unload their catch of the day.  The Coast Guard inspects the cargo and the vessel first, then the fish is loaded onto the land.

The fish and crabs are sorted right away, the bad ones are thrown away into the harbor and the good ones displayed for the buyers.

The fish is not giant Tuna or Swordfish alike.  The coast is very rugged, they are small rift fish, smaller and very colorful.  Very suitable for Chinese cooking!

There are also plenty of shrimp, squid, octopus and different shell fish.  The little octopus on the left should be quite good for some Italian pasta.

I bet you have not seen the red crab on the left before.  They are quite tasty actually.  The other crabs which had been turned upside down were to show that they were she crabs.

Well, my main purpose to visit the harbor was not the fish but the water birds that hovering around the harbor to pick the left over fish and crabs in the water.  Check them out on my Camera-Critters blog this Saturday.

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Kew Gardens I and Skywatch Friday

Grace was in Europe for a business trip in early May and stopped by London for a very short visit.  However, She still found time to sneak out to Kew Gardens for a half-day visit.

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, commonly known as Kew Gardens is in southwest London.  It was created in 1759 and contains the world's largest collection of living plants.  The liviing collections include more than 30,000 different plants and the herbarium has over 7 million preserved plant specimens.  The gardens are visited by 2 million visitors every year.

This is the famous Palm House.  It is a green house specialized in growing palms.  Palm trees need constant tropical temperature and the palm houses were built in the Victorian era as status symbols.  The Palm House in the Kew garden was built between 1844 to 1848.

The Kew Palace is the smallest British Royal Palace. It was built in 1631 by a Dutch merchant and later on bought by the Royal family.

This is Queen Charlotte's Cottage looking over through a field of bluebells.  The cottage was a wedding present of King George III to Queen Charlotte.

This is the building known as "Museum No, 1".  It is across from the Palm House and was opened in 1857.

Temperate House has twice the floor space of the Palm House and is the world largest surviving Victorian glass structure.

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Skywatch Friday: Chase Garden Creek

Last Tuesday, I went with Audubon's Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary to Chase Garden Creek of Yarmouth, Cape Cod for a three-hour Kayak Trip.  It was a perfect day with temperature just around 70F.  This picture was taken from Gray's Beach toward west over looking the Sandy Neck.  The lighthouse of Sandy Neck can be seen at the left hand side in the distance.

This is the view of Chapin Memorial Beach from Gray's Beach looking toward northeast.  Overall it was a very nice trip.  It was the first time that I did kayaking, I have only done canoeing before.

Paddling up the Chase Garden Creek was also very interesting with various sea birds and ospreys in the mash land on the  two sides of the creek.   The water was very shallow and tide was going out.  Here Ian, Director of the Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary was explaining to us about the features of the horseshoe crab that he picked up from the sand bottom of the creek.

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ABC Wednesday: F is for a Fine Day; Sky Watch Friday; Weekend Reflection; Today's Flower

Some of you may notice that I have posted another "F" for ABC Wednesday, but Grace thinks that one is too sad and heavy, so I post a happier one here. Sunday, February 14 was Valentine's day but it is also the first day of Chinese New Year. This year, it is the year of tiger. Both China and Taiwan has 9-day holiday. But the weather in Taipei was cloudy, rainy and cold (15℃). After two days holed up in Taipei, Grace and I decided to take the High Speed Train to Kaohsiung, the Southern port city of Taiwan. It is 250 km from Taipei and the train ride was about 1 1/2 hour. We left early in the morning of Tuesday, February 16.

The cold front had moved south with us, the weather in Kaohsiung was also not ideal. The first place we visited is an old temple by a lake. There are two towers on the lake and connected to the temple by a zig-zag bridge. The special things of the towers are the tiger and dragon in front of it.

We walk in through the mouth of the dragon of the first tower and come out from the second tower through the mouth of tiger. Since both Grace and I are dragons in Chinese zodiac, and this is The Year of Tiger, it was fitting that we visited this temple and hope it will bring us luck this year.

We then had a fabulous lunch in a Spanish restaurant. The chef is a real Spaniard. It is located by the River of Love of Kaohsiung. Both the food and decor are very authentic.

After lunch, we went to visit the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Art. The museum is in a new development district of the city. The modern architecture is located in a very large park. A lot of kids were in line to view the exhibition of "PIXAR 20 Years of Animation", which we skipped.

No camera was allowed in the museum, so we show here the beautiful lotus and water lily in the pond of the park.

It was a long day already, we had a three-hour rest in a Motel. Taiwan's motel has nothing to do with the motel by the highway in the US. Each motel room is like a film set, often with swimming pool in the private garden. After we have fully rested, we visited again the "Dome of Light" at the main station of Kaoshiung Rapid Transit. It was created by Italian Maestro Narcissus Quagliata. We have visited it last year with Grace's father.

Here you can see Grace was photographing the Dome. There were musicians playing under the Dome, the acoustic was fantastic.

It was late when we finished photographing the Dome. We went to the famous night market by the station to have some dinner/snack. There were so many people that we were totally squeezed. But the food was delicious and it was time for us to catch the train to go back to Taipei. Although the weather was not too cooperating, overall it was a fine day out.

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