THE NEW GATE OF TOKYO TO THW WORLD

Haneda Airport once a domestic airport with very limited international flight services. Small terminals and ineffective infrastructure could not support Haneda becoming a new gate of Tokyo.

By end of Oct., 2010, the new terminals' construction completed, created a new era of Tokyo. Haneda provides more international flight than ever, and brings great convenience of traveling people; people save time and cost than flying through Narita Airport.

Due to the ambition of Haneda Airport's management, the Haneda Airport now is not only the new gate of Tokyo to the world, also an attraction site to tourists. Inside the international terminal, there are a lot of gift shops, restaurants and great fun for whole families.

Haneda Airport is reborn!

YOKOHAMA, A CITY OF MIXED CULTURES

Yokohama City, about 40 minutes away from Tokyo by train. It is the second largest city of Japan in terms of population, also a popular tourist site.

Because of Port of Yokohama opened in 1859, and quickly became the major trading location with foreign countries. So Yokohama has a very unique mixed culture than other cities in Japan. You can see some western style buildings and also the largest China Town in Asia.

After visiting popular tourist sites, don't forget the night view of Minato Mirai 21.

More photos of Yokohama

THE VENETIAN, MIXTURE OF FUN AND GREEDINESS

"The Venetian" may be the most famous recreation spot in Macau. The Venetian provides the service of hotel, shopping, nice dining, performance, and casino (may be the most attractive part). Most people can enjoy stay or visit at The Venetian.

I think it is fun to stay at The Venetian one time, but I will not go there again. Since I am not crazy about casino. There should be more fun in Hong Kong than Macau to me.

Photos of Macau

SHORT VISIT TO JUMING MUSEUN

Had a chance to visit Juming Museum(朱銘美術館) which is a nice place to enjoy the master pieces of Juming. Due to the tight schedule and the heavy rain, I could only see less than 50% of the exhibition.

I will arrange another visit soon.

TRANSITION

Jan. 1, 2006 driving for friend's wedding
Dec. 22, 2008 at Shei-Pa National Park

After more than 9 years, I finally sold my 2001 Mazda Premacy which has been working for over 130,000km. Since old friend is gone, here comes the new friend, the 2006 Ford Escape which is almost a gift from my uncle. Though this Ford is more than 4 years old, uncle put only 12,000km on it.

This Ford Escape meets my requirements very much; SUV type, safe, big trunk, can handle some rough road, and no fancy electronic stuffs. And it still runs like a new car.

I think this Ford will bring a lot of fun to our family. I will take good care of it for sure!

FAREWELL HOWARD

Howard Fang: July 2, 1959~September 15, 2010

Shooter (Howard with his "smoking hearts") and RO (me)

Dear Howard,

I think we have known each other for over 10 years. It all started because of having the same hobby, Survival Game. Later, you guided me to appreciate good watches and I also taught you to enjoy photo shooting. We also share joys and sorrows. There was nothing but friendship between us.

All friends were shocked by your sudden leaving from us. Now you can not join our activities, but we will remember you and keep you in mind forever.

May you rest in peace.



One of your good friends,
James

STEEL FISTS OF SOUTH KOREAN ARMY

Because of 60th anniversary of Korean War, there is a special exhibition "Inside the DMZ" at War Memorial of Korean. This exhibition tells stories about Korea from Korean War to Today's Korea. Because 99% of the instruction of this exhibition are in Korean, so I could not fully understand all the displays.

But there are 2 items definitely getting everyone's attention, the K2 Black Panther Tank and K21 Infantry fighting vehicle. These 2 advanced armoured vehicles are the pair of steel fists of modern South Korean Army to against the invasion from the north. From my personal point of view, I think K2 and K21 may be the best fighting vehicles among all Asian countries, also are capable to compete with some cutting edge tanks of western countries.

Inside the DMZ

A JAPANESE ROAD WARRIOR FROM LEXUS

Lexus is always the symbol of high performance (and high price) Japanese car; the sedans and LSUVs of Lexus are quite popular in Taiwan, and compete with European luxurious brands such as Mercedes and BMW. But Lexus has never offered a super sport car to compete with European super sports car, such as Porsche or Ferrari.

Now there is a Japanese road warrior from Lexus. The LFA sets the new milestone and gives people a new brand image of Lexus. This super car is truly a monster based on the Formula One experience and technology of Toyota. LFA will be another hot shot for super car fans or collectors, since there will be only 500 cars produced.

To promote the brand of Lexus, Lexus Taiwan brought one LFA to Taiwan for a road show. Now they are working very hard to get few LFA to fulfill Taiwan market. So we may see this super car on high ways in Taiwan soon.

BTW, the price of LFA is about €375,000

Lexus LFA

THE BEAUTIFUL EAST COAST OF TAIWAN

When people visit Taiwan, most of them visit the major cities on the west coast of Taiwan, such as Taipei, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung. They hardly go to the east coast of Taiwan to visit Hualian and Taitung, due to inconvenient transportation.

Hualian and Taitung give you a very different feeling of Taiwan compared with those cities on the west coast. Because the beautiful mother nature and the indigenous cultures. I love Taitung most, because I can see beautiful Pacific Ocean and the magnificent Central Mountain Range, also the pure air the easy life style.

If you have a chance to Visit Taiwan and have some time to spend out of major cities, I do recommend you to go to Taitung to experience the different Taiwan.

More photos of Taitung

END OF LOTUS SEASON

I was supposed to avoid the burning sun yesterday, but I just wanted to test my new toy, the Sigma 18-50 F2.8 EX DC Macro lens. So I grabbed my gear and went to AnKang Farm of National Taiwan University(台灣大學安康農場) to take some photos at the end of lotus season.

Thanks for the burning sun, I got some nice photos, also sun tan.

more photos

A NICE RESTAURANT TO ENJOY YAKINIKU

My wife and I always enjoy yakiniku (the Japanese BBQ) whenever we visit Japan, because the Japanese beef (Wagyu beef) is really tender and juicy. The real Japanese beef is not legal in Taiwan, so a restaurant imports the Australian Wagyu beef instead. We visited this place when we celebrated my wife's birthday. All I can say is "As good as what we had in Japan!". It is really a nice place for special occasions.

This yakiniku restaurant group named "Kanpai"(乾杯), but only 2 locations named "Kanpai Classic"(老乾杯) serve Wagyu beef.

A GREEN CAR FROM BMW

Recently BMW had an event in Taiwan to promote their hybrid technology and the new hybrid power automobile, so they brought the new concept car "BMW Vision EfficientDynamics" to Taipei.

It was a nice experience to get a close look at this high tech concept car. But I also have a different thought on recent hybrid automobiles. Green power, energy efficiency, and environment friendly are all import issues to us. We do want to show our passion to support hybrid technology. But when we take a look at the car market, only luxurious models offer hybrid engines. It seems we have to be rich, then can be a environment friendly person. Hope governments and automobile manufactures, and maybe petrol companies can put more efforts on cost-down of hybrid cars, so not only rich people can support this green technology.

MORE PHOTOS

WHAT AN EXTREME SPORTS DAY

The fourth day of the disty meeting was the activity day. I chose extreme sports; including air balloon ride, clay pigeon shooting, and ATV (All Terrain Vehicle) ride. It supposed to be an easy and exciting day, but it turned out to be really an extreme sports day.

Due to foggy and windy weather in Jeju Island, we did not see anything from the air balloon ride, but had very nice air to breath. In order to entertain our guests, we went to the racing circuit near the air balloon ride location for go kart racing. Go kart may be small, not as fast as really formula racing car, but it really gives you the feeling of race and G force. After the race, we started to feel the muscular pain.

Then we went clay pigeon shooting. It was easy to pull trigger for 16 times to fire all 16 rounds shot gun shells. But the shot gun was long and heavy, so we had to load, aim, fire and unload for 16 times. No problems! We were solders! We enjoyed the recoil, the pleasure of hitting targets, also the side affection - pain on shoulder.

Nothing could stop us from looking for fun! After a big lunch, we went ATV ride. Off road AVT ride is always boys' dream and it really shows our manhood. So some of us took the 2nd ride; 15 minutes per trip.

So now you can imagine how we felt, especially we did not do so much sport in a short period of time. Thought we felt a little bit tired, bur we had great fun on such an extreme sports day.

PEACE FOR KOREA

This South Korean patrol boat was sunk by North Korea in 2002
hit by 5 rounds of 85mm canon and many many rounds of machine gun shots

Recently got a chance to Seoul, Korea. So I took half day to visit War Memorial of Korea. It was quite an interesting timing to visit this place, due to 60th anniversary of Korean War and the "sinking boat" crisis between South and North Korea.

Most part of displays at War Memorial of Korea are for Korean War, I learned there were over 20 countries helped South Korea to defeat the communist forces of North Korea, China and Russia. Many soldiers and civilians died during that war in 3 years, but South Korea was able to escape from the evil of communism.

Recently, though "sinking-boat" crisis did create some tension, but both countries do understand the price to break the war, so they take actions with caution. No one will forget what happened sixty years ago.

I think that is why people built museums for memorial of wars. We need to remind people what wars damaged our lives and civilization, so we should not make the same mistake ever.

More photos

MODEL GUN COLLECTIONS(7) - S&W M945 BY KSC

KSC S&W M945 and S&W HRT knife

.45 ACP family; S&W M945, SiG GSR, and Colt M1911A1

Again a BB pistol form KSC which a Japanese brand product but made in Taiwan. This is a Smith & Wession M945 pistol. I bought this pistol mainly for IPSC shooting, because it comes with a single stack magazine, so it meets the requrements of production class of IPSC.

But the problem is its plastic slide did not last long and broke during competition. Later I got a matel slide for it, but hard to find a proper recoil sping. Than it became just one more item of my collections. The reason I did not sell it because its appearance is quite pretty and classic, not like other modern pistols.

NEW COLLECTION - EVA AIR FLEET

During the biz trip to Tokyo last month, the airplane model set was on sale on EVA Air flight. So I bought this Herpa 1:1000 EVA Air fleet set as my new collection. Surprisingly, they make quite detail landing gears for such small scale models. As usual, I took some photo for them with some editing works by Photoshop.