Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Taipei + Tokyo = Taipokyo?

This is gonna be like Mr Toad's Wild Ride, so hang on kiddies! Here are a bunch of photos and comments in no particular order. I would do something prettier with a better written post and all that... but the jetlag is kicking my arse and I am fading into sleep rapidly!


A Taiwanese sports magazine with "Peepee" sitting large... pretty cool!


A little practice before the brand presentation/ "fashion show" at the Taipei launch. Look at all the folks standing outside watching- it was pretty cool feeling like we were somehow "important".


This is the bike parking sign at the site of the launch- Frog Cafe. I got one of their t-shirts because I loved the logo with the bike rider made from the frog face logo. I just love clean, simple and clever design.


Brand launch banners and somebody special... enough to make a fella smile...


I loved this really cool sketch of riders "at the rail" for a track race. Saw this in a bike shop I visited in Taipei. Oh yeah, they had Masi too... but this was really cool too.


Well... that's not very nice, now is it? "Pop art" stuff like this abounds in Asia. This was a sticker on the sidewalk in a small market are of Taipei.


A temple dragon keeping evil spirits away. This one was on a very small temple in a quiet neighborhood of Taipei... but was still many hundreds of years old.


This is a daytime "wives market", as it was described to me, in Taipei near a train station.


Taipei 101 at night with a fireworks display going on. Something about the building is simply impossible to ignore.


A good luck bouquet given to the Masi distributor in Taiwan for the launch. These traditional flower arrangements always blow me away. One of the many things I truly love about the local culture.


Paper lanterns lining the main entry way to the very impressive Buddhist temple in Asakusa, the area of Tokyo that I have stayed in for the past two years. The place is unreal in its beauty and power.


The view out of the window of my hotel in Asakusa, overlooking the temple in the background.


Riding the train from Narita airport to Asakusa. The trains in Japan are all clean and run on time and are very precise and predictable... simple enough for a simpleton like me to use well.


A beautiful cafe I had lunch in, in Taipei, at a really cool movie theatre. It is a truly wonderful spot in the heart of a very large metropolis.


Way cool sculpture on the street in a quiet Taipei neighborhood. Really cool and very lifelike.


The entryway to the Asakusa temple on my first morning in Japan. My morning ritual was to get up and walk to the temple either before or after my breakfast. It's just one of those places that calms your entire being. No wonder it is SO popular with the people of Japan.

If you're gonna drink a lot of Asahi Super Dry, don't drink and drive- ride a panda instead.


I found it pretty hard to walk in the dark and take a self-portrait without using the flash (to avoid blinding myself)... I look like I'm worried about a Buddhist Ninja attack or something.


This temple spire is insane! In the dark here, you can barely see the "antenna" on top. The whole thing is really, really cool.


The temple itself- it's several hundred years old and was once the seat of power in Japan. Now it is one of the most important temples in Japan. The crowd of tourists at the temple on a weekend morning is unreal. Thousands of people there... all day long.

More Taipokyo pictures to come- promise. Also, I need to get the voting going for the October contest that I never wrapped up... so I can announce and begin the new December contest! So stay tuned...

Tim

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