Skating with Andrew Chang in Taichung

Skating with one of my favorite skaters in Taiwan, Andrew Chang. I use to skate with him almost every week when I lived in Taichung, Taiwan between 2011 and 2012. Since coming back to Taiwan, when we go skate together, we spend half our time skating and the other half just talking to each other about our passions, families, careers, etc.

(below video edited by Andrew)

April 2015 Newsletter

The Last 10 Days I was in Taiwan

Its been a long time since I lived in Taiwan. Because of complications with my computer and hard drive space among other things, I haven't been able to upload any of these photos. I finally went through the last pictures I had of Taiwan and uploaded them. I haven't done this much stuff in this short of time in a long time. I miss it very much and the cultural experience among many other things that Taiwan has to offer.


Rainbow Village and Taichung Overlook
2012/11/03 - 10 Days Left

Taichung Docks
2012/11/04 - 9 Days Left



Burning Clothes
2012/11/06 - 7 Days Left

Night Skate Session and Overlook of Taichung at Night
2012/11/07 - 6 Days Left


Hitch Hiking
2012/11/09 - 4 Days Left

Burning Clothes Part 2
2012/11/11 - 2 Days Left

JiJi
2012/11/12 - 1 Day Left

Cat Tea
2012/11/13 - The day I left Taiwan

Taichung Panorama - 台中, 台灣

This is the longest panorama I've ever made and one of the hardest to process. You can view it in full detail by clicking on the photo, it will take you to my flickr.

This photo has so many forgotten memories spanning it. Just the process of finding this place is a story in itself. I love looking down at the buildings and trying to recognize different places (which is actually pretty hard because of the similarity in the buildings). This was taken in 2012-11-03 and I never touched it until today, 2014-05-12.

Crowded Streets

Its been two months since I've been in Taiwan. And I'm beginning to miss it more and more. I miss the crowded streets, the tall buildings, fireworks in the morning, the friends, adventures, and the ministry there. Many times I have dreams about being there again but then I wake up. I don't know what the future has for me, but I would love to someday go back to Asia to stay.

China/Taiwan Pollution

This video is about China, but in Taiwan it was a similar circumstance. The moment I arrived in Taichung, Taiwan, I notice that my vision distance was significantly reduced. Almost everyday that you look up to see the sky, all you would see is a grey smog, clouds don't exist there. Rarely when that was a good wind that is blown through the sky would clear up forming shapes of clouds. You would notice mountain ranges that you couldn't see before because the pollution was limiting your vision. I have never seen dust collect so quickly before, you constantly have to clean everything. When you wash your clothes if you let them hang dry to long they will be dirty from the dust and pollution. Rarely did I feel like washing my clothes made them much cleaner. This is one of the reason they wear the masks to protect themselves from breathing in all the pollution.

Guy Mariano and Justin Eldridge in Taiwan

I got to meet and skate with two very famous pro skaters from the company known as Girl Skateboards.

Self Portrait - Wall Ride

I set the camera up and told it to take 30 pictures one after the other. The camera kept missing all the shots, showing the trick before or after I landed it. This was the only shot that had a make.

Wall Ride - Andrew Chang

Idol's on the Drive

Sometimes the idols just get a little too dusty in those old creepy temples. The best way to fix this is to put that idol on the back of your car and drive until its looking spic and span again. In Taiwan as part of their worship to their gods they drive them around on tours through the city.

Taiwanese Family Bonding

Typhoon Saola Damage

Typhoon Taiwan

We have a Typhoon today. That means the rest of Taiwan is shut down except for SYME. I arrived to work this morning soaked. I live in the mid-west coast. We mostly have high winds and lots of lots of rain. There hasn't been much damage besides a couple of flower pots knocked over and one tree that smashed a car.

Taiwan Night Market - Yi Zhong Night Market (一中街)

It is habitual for the Taiwanese to head to the night markets every weekend. If you go on vacation they will tell you about the famous night market in that city (having such a small country you eventually realize that everything is kinda famous).  The streets fill up with crowds of mostly college and high school students.

The night market food and atmosphere is one very similar to a carnival. They have corn dogs, candied; strawberries, tomatoes, and Taiwanese plums, many different kinds of teas, and lots of clothing stores.

Sleeping on the Job

Some people don't consider the fact of the crowds of people when trying to drive a car or scooter down the streets. For everyone else they take the next road to avoid the crowd.

What makes the night market so special is the strange smells. I would describe it but my description might offend those reading this. The stinky tofu stand is the easiest thing to find, as to the smell that helps you find its location. The Taiwanese love to share their strange foods with you and feel like your the one missing out if you don't try it. Here are some first timers trying out the stinky tofu.

Skating the Taichung Canal

Antonio Chen - Casper Flip

Me - Kickflip

My Favorite Yellow Curb

Go Skateboarding Day 2012 Taiwan

I posted on facebook and called my Taiwanese friends, but none of them wanted to skate today.

New Apartment

Working on unpacking all our stuff.

Jake and I moved into a small three story home being rented by a few different foreigners. The "headmaster", Dave has been renting the house for about 5 years. He makes croutons for some local Italian restaurants, writes articles for multiple magazines, teaches English and also has a son living in Taiwan who owns a small local magazine.

For the past year after working all day at SYME, Jacob and I would go home to not really get away from work but to enter work throughout the night, teaching English and trying to interact the best we could. It was a lot of fun, but after being here for over a year you need to be able to go home to relax from the 7:30am-8pm day. It has also allowed us to meet a lot of new people that we would have never met before.

Skating with the Spaniards

I went skating with these two guys living in Taiwan who both speak Spanish. Isun (above), is originally from Costa Rica. His father is Taiwanese and his mother is Costa Rican.

Antonio is 100% Taiwanese but grew up for most of his life in Chile. Skating with these guys I might come home knowing more Spanish then Chinese.

All the photos in this blog were of actually events, which contained attempted tricks but not tricks that were actually landed with the exemption of the last photo.

Nike Skateboarding in Taiwan

Nike Skate team's Justin Brock, Youness Amrani and Wieger Van Wageningen came to Taiwan along with a couple of their European riders Marek Zaprazny and daniel Lebron. Sadly I didn't get to run into them myself but one of my friends did. I regularly skate at a couple of the spots you will see in the video. Here is a link to the video the posted up. http://youtu.be/IExlXdMkgKg?t=15s