School started!

In fact, school has already started for 2 weeks!... This semester, both Hannah and I are teaching a lot of classes. We are fortunate that even though there is a cut on budget, we are still given more tutor slots than most of our friends. On top of tutoring and demonstrating for labs, Hannah is also helping with disabilities. The labs that we are tutoring and demonstrating this semester includes Biosci 101 (Essential Biology), 107 (Cellular Processes and Development), 91F (Foundation to Biology). I am also working on a couple of field trips - Biosci 104 (North-head field trip) and Marine 202. Thus, it looks like both of us are going to have a full semester.

On a daily basis, we try to wake up early in the morning (4.45am!), do a quick 30mins work-out and take the bus to the ferry terminal. We are working on a exercise routine call T-25, which only takes about 25mins per day. Although it is only a short 25mins, it is still hard, and there are some moves which are kicking both Hannah and my butt.. We had decided to start taking the bus to save some cost of petrol, and at the same time do some exercising / walking.... Hannah does most of the cooking, while I take care of the doggies (their meals, poop-picking etc). It seems the roles and duties of both of us just fall into places quite nicely.

In between, I also have to find limited amount of time to work on my PhD research. At the moment, I am busy analysing the data from the previous experiment (which I hope to get some results soonish, in a couple of weeks). I have to go back to Taiwan again in June for another set of experiment, and at the same time attend the Asia-Pacific Coral Reef Symposium (APCRS) 2014. I had managed to "impress" the panel enough to gain a scholarship/ grant for the conference, and I would be competing with 9 other selected students from around world. Not feeling much at the moment, but I am sure I would be getting more nervous as the dates gets nearer.

I started working with Jet on a more regular basis... we re-start our training from basic sit, down, come and stay. I wanted to go back to Schutzhund training, but there is just so much drama going on in the club!.. I will talk more about that after I go back for training in April, and see what really happened there!

Haven't done any diving since we were back. However, the water at Enclosure Bay looked really tempting the last week when we were there taking seawater for the fish tank. Hannah and I talked about it and we decided that due to limited budget, we would do more shore diving from Waiheke or follow the locals (a few people on Waiheke have come together to dive together on a regular basis) out to nearby waters.

Here it is - quick summary on daily events... now back to marking papers and preparing documents for student/ spouse visa application submission tomorrow!
(NB- and as always there will probably be tons of errors due to non-checking!... sorry about that)

Taiwan & Singapore round-up

It has been 2 weeks since we were back from Singapore. I have been busy with analysing my experimental data, but I thought I would take a break and post my thoughts on the Taiwan and Singapore visit.

Taiwan
This was the longest time I spend in Taiwan. And as like before, I NEVER really travelled anywhere, and spend most of the time in Academia Sinica lab and Kenting NMMBA. The nice was fruitful. I return from the trip with sequences from my experiment 1. I was nervous that the results would turn out bad and I need to re-do some of the samples. However, it turned out that the sequences are within acceptable range. I have a total of more than 120,000 sequences for 49 samples, which makes for a long of work in the upcoming weeks.

Besides working on my experiment, I managed to make a few important contacts in both NMMBA and Academia Sinica. I hope to be able to develop these contacts into a working relationship. Keeping fingers crossed....

A good thing about this trip was the well-deserved week-long vacation at the end of the three months. Hannah and I toured a few tourist-must-visit locations, and you would have probably read some of her posts. Also, at the same time, it gives Hannah the opportunity to see if she likes the environment in Taiwan - who knows if I or she will get an opportunity to develop our career further there.

Did you notice the Academia Sinica lab is mostly girls!?

Singapore
Singapore was mostly spending time with family. Hannah and I have visited most of the tourist spots during previous visits, so we planned to spend more time with my family on this trip. We helped my mom with the Chinese New Year shoppings, playing and talking with the nephews and just hanging out at home. Again, Hannah will probably give a more detail account of our Singapore trip...

I also took the opportunity to visit a fellow PhD student/ friend in National University of Singapore (NUS), just to check out if there is any possibility of post-doc in Singapore. Singapore has a very "realistic" government and thus most of the science research that are carried out in Singapore has an applied aspect rather than just exploratory science. One of the most prominent research that is going on in the country now is the study of biofilm and wastewater treatment - the universities are starting to pay more attention to the microbial aspect of these issues and according to the "grapevine", more than SGD1 billion has been injected to fund the programs!.. Needs to check this out further!

We also had the time to catch up with friends - Alfred and Cheryl, and god-daughter, Olivia; Linda and Francis. One of the memorable time on this Singapore trip was the post-reunion family dinner. It was a rare occasion that the whole family gathers around the dinner table. It was fun...

In the meantime, we are home, back to the grind!

Disclaimer -  there may be spelling and grammar mistakes.. no time to check... too much data, too little time

Day 24 - Taroko Gorge

After Alishan, we were prepared for Taroko Gorge to be very crowded - and it was. However, it is lauded as a wonder of Asia, and so we really wanted to see it. And - spoiler alert - it was worth it in the end although we got pretty cranky and frustrated at times with the buses of irritating, pushy tourists. 

Taroko Gorge is famous because it is an extremely narrow and deep gorge, with the two sides only meters apart in some places. It is also the only suitable pass through the mountains that form the backbone of the country. As such, it is where the KMT built the highway used to connect the east coast to the west. It was an extremely treacherous road to built and many men died in its construction. A shrine built over a spring - called the Eternal Spring Shrine - is dedicated in their memory. The original road that they built is still there and actually still used in sections. Other parts are now only used as walking paths, and still others are now closed as falling rocks have made them too dangerous. Unfortunately, some of the coolest parts are the closed ones. The one part I was most excited about - the shrine - was closed as the bridges leading to it were being rebuilt. We decided instead to take the Shakadang River trail, which follows a side gorge formed by a tributary of the main river. 

After we finished that trail, we continued to walk along the side of the road. I decided to stay along the old road which would eventually lead to the Eternal Spring Shrine, and see how close we could get, and whether it was still possible to see the other buildings - the temple, bell tower, and pagoda. We walked up to the temple and discovered a hanging bridge that led a back way to the Shrine! After Sonny took some deep settling breaths, (heights makes him uneasy and the bridge was quite high) we set out on an adventure. There were signs everywhere warning us to beware if rockfalls, and with good reason! While we  were crossing the bridge and several times on the walk we heard and saw rocks falling, and many if the metal railings and posts had large dents in them, and piles of stones next to them. It was not the most relaxing walk but it sure was exciting!

As we walked further and further along the trail, I started to get really excited thinking we might actually make it to the shrine. Unfortunately, it was not to be. We arrived at a small cave in the cliff that had been turned into a shrine to Guanyin, and just beyond that the trail was rather emphatically closed (see below). I could see why as well, there were some huge piles of rocks on the narrow ledge.

To show you how high the bridge was.

After that adventure, we caught a bus farther into the gorge, and went to see Swallow Grotto, which is a section of the gorge where the walls are pitted with holes that the swallows use as nests. It is also the narrowest part of the gorge that is still accessible, as the Tunnel of Nine Turns is now closed. 

Our last stop of the day was a small village all the way in the gorge. The sun was setting and the steep sides blocked it even further so my pictures are dark. We walked up and explore another temple for about 20 minutes before it closed, then we ate some over-priced and under-whelming food while we waited for the bus to take us back to Hualien.

Once we reached Hualien, we walked around and looked for better food while we waited for our train back to Taipei. Suddenly, the sky started filling with fireworks! It was a pretty good show, and everyone sorta stopped and watched it for five minutes, then when it finished, just went back to life. We walked back to the train station and boarded our train for the three hour ride back.