Taipei Trip and Meeting Old Friends

A trip to Taipei, some computer problems, being busy and a little tiredness made it more difficult to write my blog. A break from it occasionally, however, cannot be bad. On Thursday night, I stayed for probably the last time at our old apartment in Taipei. I have gradually become less and less attached to it over the last year and even before that when we were in Hawai'i, and am glad we are finally getting rid of it. However, we bought the place just over 20 years ago, and so in spite of some of the inconveniences of living there, there were many good times, too.

Perhaps my highlight on Friday, apart from a nice lunch with three ladies from a government institution that I occasionally do work for, was a brief visit to another government institution where I worked either part time or close to full time from 1992 to 1999, to the day before we left for Hawai'i. This institution has some 800 employees, and it is for the majority of them a place of lifetime employment. People who join the civil service here after graduating from college are assigned to a job or institution and are often still there when they retire more than 40 years later. So each time I visit (I last visited almost one year ago), I know exactly where to find most people - at the same desk locations and probably doing much the same work as before. Only one lady I wanted to visit was not there, and the person (another old friend) sitting at her desk told me she had already retired. Well, I guess that becomes more common as one gets older.

There are many people at this place that I used to see each day and chat with in the 1990s. Although I have since been living elsewhere, overseas and now in the south of Taiwan, each time I go there brings back many good memories. I again saw the policeman on duty there that always used to chat with me. In addition, I briefly spoke to several colleagues in the department in which I used to work over ten years ago, who still looked much the same but clearly showed some signs of having aged since then. There were people I saw that I attended a Bible study with in those days, as well as others who were concerned about me when I needed medical treatment at that time, one or two who helped me handle some of my financial paperwork when my family and I relocated to Hawaii, and others I worked with more directly in my job there.

We live in a world where people constantly come and go (including ourselves) and in which it is often difficult to make lasting friends, especially the older one gets. While I no longer have a regular job as such, through my work in Taiwan I am still in touch with a few people that I met over 20 years ago. While such relationships may be more professional than being purely based on friendship, the fact is that we have experienced life together at different points in time over a long period. A few of these long-term contacts are now in very high positions within society and to find out what they are doing, I usually only need to open the daily newspaper. Others are in the formative stages. For instance, any professor I am occasionally working with now may be a Cabinet member in the not-too-distant future.

While I cannot say I have very close friends (and I think that while family members are of course friends, they are not the same since I think friendships are largely voluntary and not based on blood lines or binding agreements), I have tended to have friends from diverse cultures and backgrounds. My interest in learning languages hasn't just been an academic interest or a search to better understand my own roots, but a way of making friends. Today at lunch at church my wife introduced me to a Chinese lady and her French husband who were visiting and it was a pleasure to talk with him in French. A good thing about talking with a native is that he can correct your mistakes as you go along, and so you can learn something, too. Certainly, languages are bridges between cultures, and I wouldn't have most of my Chinese friends without speaking to them in Mandarin or even Taiwanese in some cases. I don't think learning languages is that difficult. With the right environment, well prepared materials and some encouragement we can at least reach some degree of familiarity with a language. Perfection isn't necessary and to be honest there is still a lot more that we can learn about our own mother tongues.

Another interesting incident in Taipei on Friday was when a Chinese lady professor came up to me as I was picking up my medicine in the hospital and asked me: "Are you Bruce?" When she said her name I immediately knew who she was, and although I had known her through my work for several years we had never met. So how did she recognize me? "From looking at your blog!" she replied. She is one of a few people here in Taiwan I have told about my blog. I often wonder what is the relevance between articles about my swim workouts or with pictures of people dressed in Splish suits and my efforts to relate to people in government and academia in Taiwan. Well, I hope they don't think I am about to retire!

Which brings me back to the subject of writing this blog. I started this blog in March this year and it was through the encouragement of one or two friends at first, in particular Bree, that I persevered to keep writing even though I wondered whether anyone would look at anything I wrote. I see from many of my friends' blogs that Bree is a great encourager and you could say a great friend to many. As I write this she is probably on the bike in the Vancouver Half Ironman. I don't have many details of that race and maybe I will just have to check the news tomorrow to find out what happened. In closing, friendships are valuable, and while blogging is not necessarily the best way to try to make friends, it has in my own experience proved to be very useful. At least when I see some of your guys on a subsequent visit to Kona, we won't need to catch up on the past. It will just be necessary to get our goggles on and start swimming!

Pictures from top to bottom: (1) The 25-meter community pool I swam in the late 80's and 90's; (2) View from rooftop of Taipei apartment; (3) The study room, now lifeless and almost empty; (4) A nearby dog (with an owner). The trip back to our former neighborhood is worth it just to walk the hills and say hi to the dogs who will still remember me.

Natalie Coughlin Breaks Women's 100 Back World Record

美國的女子100米仰泳冠軍考格林 (Natalie Coughlin)
Natalie Coughlin recently broke the world record at the 100m backstroke, which also gave her a spot in that event at the Beijing Olympic Games. At Athens, she won gold in that event, too. Natalie grew up in California and is of Irish and Filipino ancestry.
I had the opportunity to briefly meet her when she visited Kona together with a team of girls from the University of California at Berkeley (her alma mater) one winter vacation, possibly the end of the year 2004. She was not swimming, as her foot was in a plaster cast. From this video, it is clear she is fully healed from that.
Today, I swam 3,900 meters, and most of it was good solid swimming. Only that, at the end, I was too tired to go better than 1m 30s in the 100m race against my friend. Well, I suppose we get tired sometimes.
Tomorrow I will be in Taipei and am not sure if I will swim. I will see what I feel like when I wake up.
Enjoy the video. Natalie is a joy to watch. Sad that the girl who got third and had swum really well during the trials doesn't get to go to Beijing. That's competition for you.

Hackett's 400m Freestyle at the Australian Olympic Trials

澳大利亞人哈克特(Grant Hackett)在男子400米自由泳比賽中

While this race took place in March this year, with the Beijing Olympics fast approaching it is a good idea to look at the swimming of some of the people who are likely to dominate certain events there. Besides, in this 400m event, the photography is good enabling viewers to observe Grant Hackett's swimming technique. In particular, watch his hands, especially from the time they enter the water to when he takes the catch.

Grant Hackett was born in 1980 and won the 1,500 meters freestyle event at both the Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004) Olympics, and has a very good chance of winning gold again in Beijing at that distance. He is no doubt the best in the world at this distance and has been for probably a decade. He is one of the fastest in the 400 meters, and in 2001 covered the distance in 3m 42.51s, and time that only Ian Thorpe (who is now "retired" from competitive swimming) has bested. Hackett is 6 ft 5 in tall and weighs just under 200 lbs. So the bigger people amongst us can take heart. Not that this matters so much. Libby Trickett of Australia who holds the 50m and 100m world rccords is relatively short in stature compared to the ladies she raced against.

As to where I am at at present, the pool is more crowded with the summer vacation upon us, and parents bringing their children to the pool, as well as older children coming by themselves. Yesterday I covered 3,850 meters in all in what can be described as a "sluggish" workout. Today I fared a little better, again covering 3,850 meters in all, with 3,000 m in an hour exactly (despite some lane congestion), and races against my friend of 100 meters in 1m 27s and 50 meters in 40s. Of course, these times are very slow compared to those of the best, but at least we can learn from the best and get better. A lot of it comes down to training. We are all human and are each gifted physically in various ways, and so if someone else can do it, then we can certainly improve on our own times so far. At the end of training today, my arms felt like they were going to fall off. Even holding the handlebars of the bike kind of required a lot of effort. Hopefully, after recovery I will be a little stronger.

Chrissie Wellington Wins Frankfurt & Just Misses World Record!

Chrissie Wellington winning the Ford Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawai'i last year! A few minutes ago, she won the Frankfurt Ironman, in a time very close to the all-time women's Ironman record (missing it by only 31 seconds)!

This morning I had my last swim of this last week, and afterwards I felt a little tired. I swam a total of just over 24,000 meters this week. My workouts were slightly shorter on average than in previous weeks, more around the 4,000m mark, but I did try to push a bit harder more often in each swim. The highlights of the week were a 100m in 1 25s and some video footage of me swimming taken by our elder son, James, which enables me to see what my swimming looks like, and so that I can make some needed adjustments.

However, the main highlight of today was the Frankfurt Ironman race in Germany. While I originally wanted to see how Chris McCormack would get on, since this race had been talked about for a long time, I ended up watching fellow countryperson Chrissie Wellington have a fantastic and absolutely brilliant race.

Chris McCormack of Australia won the Frankfurt Ironman in 7:59:55.3 (a truly great time!). It was a hard fought race, and it showed what a true champion Macca is. Well done, Chris! Eneko Llanos of Spain looked as if he was going to win until fairly late in the run. He had a great race, too. However, I think the spotlight in this race was as much on Chrissie Wellington of Great Britain as on Chris McCormack. After her performance, who could have any doubts she will win Kona again this October. Ways to go, Chrissie!

Chrissie had a good (wetsuit) swim, apparently 48 something minutes. While she was in the lead on the bike for what seemed like a long time, she was only a little more than two minutes ahead, and that gap was narrowed to a matter of seconds. However, at transition, she was at least 8 minutes ahead of the second woman. Her race, was not without its problems. Late in the bike, she seemed to lose all her water bottles and was not able to replace the water she needed to take in her nutrition for an unspecified distance until she finished the bike course. When she was briefly interviewed in transition, it did not seem to have affected her. When asked if she was concerned about the girls behind, she just said she was running her own race. Her unofficial time at T2 was 5:48.36.

As she ran well the first few miles and extended her lead, the focus shifted away from the competition to whether she could complete the fastest women’s Ironman in history. Here is a collection of news snippets that were posted on the Ironman live coverage website:
How fast will Chrissie go? Wellington completed 14.2 km of the run in 6:48:12. That gives her 2:11:48 to do 28 km and still go under nine hours. That's 4:42/ km. he's running at 4:10/ km right now, which would get her to the line in 8:44! That would be the fastest time ever for an Ironman!

(At 7:10 into the race) The women's race heats up ... for second! Currently leading the women is Chrissie Wellington (#60) -- she's on world best time pace and is running away from the rest of the field.
(7:18) Wellington probably has no idea ...That she's on pace to smash the world best time here today. Wellington only became a full-time triathlete in January of 2007 -- since then she's won three Ironman races, including the Ford Ironman World Championship. She is so inexperienced that she refuses to use tubular tires because she "wouldn't begin to know how to change them."So, you can be sure that she doesn't know that Paula Newby-Fraser's world best is 8:50:53, set at Ironman Europe in 1994.
(7:23) Wellington through the half-marathon. Her overall time to that point was 7:17:49 -- which gives her 1:32:11 to set a world best. All she has to do is run a half-marathon in that time!
(7:34) Nicole Leder goes through the half-marathon. She's in second, but she's 17:45 behind Wellington.
(7:51) The Wellington report Now the big question is whether or not Chrissie Wellington is on her way to a world best time here today. If she can average 4:24/ km for the last 13.5 km, she will get Paula Newby-Fraser's world best time.
(8:16) Wellington passes 34.5 km ...Her time is 8:10:59 to this point. Less than eight km to go -- she's still on track for a world best time here today.

(8:33) Is that 8:50 slipping away? Chrissie Wellington went through 37.6 km in 8:30:49 -- which means she has exactly 20 minutes to run 4.6 km -- a tough challenge!

(8:36) Smiling to the line Chrissie Wellington has a big smile on her face as she works her way towards the finish line here at the Romer. She has three km to go, and about 13 minutes to do it to get a new world best time.

(8:41) Go Chrissie Go! Says our Ironmanlive writer Henry Budgett, who hails from Great Britain.As he just pointed out, though, Wellington isn't particularly driven by times or records, so it'll be interesting to see if she actually does push over the last few kms of the run here to break that 8:50:53 time that has stood for 14 years.Wellington probably had the run course record in Kona in her grasp last October -- instead she cruised into the finish, enjoying the last few minutes of her amazing race.Wellington's parents are watching her for the very first time in an Ironman today -- how's that for a nice present for mom and dad?

Freestyle Swimming Footage

While in Kenting at the open air pool, I was able to persuade our sons to film me at swimming. This is the first time in my life that I have had a video like this. I used to think I had quite a good technique, and now I can immediately see a few errors in my stroke (like my left hand coming over too much, and my feet coming apart), not to mention the flip turn, which still has me a bit baffled. At least I am doing them without getting a lot of water up my nose. So I have a few things to work on. Hopefully, I will become a little more streamlined and a little faster as a result.
This is a 25 meter pool, and you could say I was trying to swim fairly hard but without losing my stroke since I appear to have swum 50 meters in about 40 seconds. I took like 16 strokes one way and about 17 the other, no doubt due to a fairly weak flip turn. These days when swimming a little slower, I tend to take 15 to 16 strokes per length.
While I learned to swim as a child, I did not have any formal training until I did a lifesaving course in Taiwan in 1997, at which point in time I received a lot of helpful advice on how to swim freestyle. In Kona, I received quite a lot of help from Steve Borowski of Kona Aquatics when I attended Master's swimming as well as his 101 classes for a few years. However, since we were in a fairly large group setting, advice only came intermittently. In addition, at that time, I did not have any video footage.
Of course, just correcting a few mistakes isn't going to suddenly make me faster, and correcting them may be easier said than done, since my body has probably adapted itself to the wrong technique so that it may be hard for me to do something else. However, I will try, and that will give me a reason to continue swimming, as sometimes I wonder why I swim anyway.
In the future, I would like to attend a class taught by Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen, who runs Aquatic Edge. However, that will depend on a lot of things like my happening to be in Hawaii when she is actually running a workshop at that time. Anyway, I can dream of being taught by the best teacher around for now.

Picture of me in the ocean at Chialeshuei. The sea was really calm, which was a surprise to me as last time I was here (in February) the sea was rough and there were a lot of surfers.


Swimming freestyle 50 meters seen from a side view. The background noise is that of a lawn mower!


Swimming freestyle from the front and behind. From this angle, the weaknesses are more obvious. Maybe nerves (because I was being filmed) contributed to the poorer technique. In any case, I have plenty of things to practice now. Again, thanks to James and Morrison for filming and the still photos, too.

Family Trip - Kenting, Southern Taiwan

On Thursday morning I first went to swim near as usual at the pool near our home. I was a little tired and after slightly fewer meters than normal I went to the jacuzzi for five minutes or so, and then back to the pool to slowly warm up for the 100m race. While I still lost the race (by about 0.5 secs), at least I was pleased that I covered the distance in 1m 25s, this being my fastest so far, and showing that the improvements are still coming even if they are microscopic. One of my turns was not much good either, but I managed to gain on my opponent going down the stretch. Shortly afterwards we raced over 50 meters and I just edged him out, finishing in about 40 seconds.
However, the big highlight of the day, and of today also, was the family trip we had to Kenting (墾丁) near the southernmost tip of Taiwan and about a two-hour drive from our home. Our elder son drove and did a very good job of that. We borrowed his friend's car as we still don't have one of our own. With gas prices, I am not sure I even want one.
The first day we arrived down there shortly after lunch and went to Maopitou (貓鼻頭) (lit. cat-nose-head), where one of the rock formations looked like a cat's nose and head. The sea looked beautiful, and had I been with my Kona swimming friends, I don't think we could have resisted making our way down to the shore and going in. However, had I tried to do anything like that myself, I guess the whole population of this island would have considered me to be nuts and I would probably have been put in prison.
A little later we were driving around where most of the hotels are and it reminded me of Waikiki - just shops and people, and some ocean and mountains out there is the distance. One of the only beaches we passed in that area was one close to the big hotels which was packed with people paddling in a fenced off area about two feet deep, with plenty of lifeguards and whatever else to prevent anyone trying to do anything more adventurous like trying to swim away from the seawater paddling pool.
Fortunately, our hotel was an almost ten-minute drive away from the beach up mauka (墾丁國家公園) and was a lot quieter and had some good views, as well as green grass. It also had a 25 meter outdoor swimming pool, and guess what, it was pretty empty most of the time. Here it seems only small children like to swim and they have a lot of fun, but are clad in inflatable arm bands and little inflatable boats so that they don't actually swim, at least not without artificial support. An adult might accompany them, but usually to make sure they don't stay in the water too long and can get to the next activity on time. So I was able to swim freely, but it was also rather lonely. In the real world I have few swimming friends. I just read about them on the Internet.
My family wanted to go to another swimming pool, which we did, and could because the two hotels were part of the same hotel chain, and so we had the privilege of using the other pool. This other pool was in the crowded part of Kenting (墾丁) and the hotel rates were much higher, way beyond what I could or would be willing to afford. It was like a playground, and there was no way I could ever have done any training there.
We tried to watch the sunset, but we miscalculated and ended up on the other side of the island. However, the views were beautiful. We had a good buffet dinner back at our hotel where we were staying which was part of the room deal, and I surprised even my family by eating probably more than the three of them put together.
The next morning the pool at our hotel opened at 8 am, and so I got in a training session of a little more than an hour and covered 3,050 meters. This wasn't something I had planned, so it was a kind of bonus. However, again I felt like I had just flown in from another planet. After a large breakfast, we eventually packed out things and drove down to the Oluanpi lighthouse (鵝鑾鼻燈塔), where we walked around for about one hour in the middle of the day - ouch! The sun was really strong. After countless photographs, we headed back to the car and drove about 15 minutes to Chaileshuei (佳洛水), which is normally a good surfing beach, but the sea was very calm today, and just ideal for a swim. However, we were in a bit of a hurry, so the fact that I even got wet was quite an achievement. This is where I went for training with some foreign triathletes in February, but the sea was very rough then, and I thought it darn right dangerous at that time. One thing that surprised me was the huge contrast between Kenting (墾丁) and Chialeshuei (佳洛水). Kenting is packed with tourists and is very noisy and you are not free to do anything as far as some serious swimming is concerned. Chialeshuei (佳洛水) is almost empty, except for some avid surfers, there are no stores, and just a few bed and breakfast type places. It is the ideal place to have a good rest.
From Chialeshuei (佳洛水), our son drove the car home and we got back in about 1 hr 45 mins. It is about 80 miles, which means one could bike, spend the night at a guest house, swim and then bike back the next day, or at least bike most of the way back and try and take a train for the latter half of the return journey where the areas are somewhat more built up. Fun if you have friends to do it with, and not fun if you do not.

The first stop on our family outing - Kenting is behind us in the distance

The hotel 25m pool - More or less maintained just for me!

At the up market resort pool. Living the high life.

View of Chialeshuei (in the distance) at sunset.

Our hotel doubles as a museum for Chiang Kai-Shek, who liked the area.

Kenting's pointed mountain. We climbed it when the boys were small.

The pool - My first time in an outdoor pool this year.

At Oluanpi - the southernmost tip of Taiwan

Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻)

Jumping in front of the Oluanpi Lighthouse (鵝鑾鼻燈塔)

Special thanks are extended to James and Morrison for their great photography. We had two smallish cameras with us, but both had problems, and the problems got worse over our stay down there. Looks like I need to buy a new camera.

Feeling Tired Today

Our younger son's room on the 4th floor of our home. Note that we had curtains especially fitted. This room also has a very good air conditioner, which makes no noise, because it is a very good Japanese brand and the motor (which is outside the room) is separate from the blower. The glass in the doors on to the lanai is slightly tinted and is reputed to provide UV protection. This is essential here. The sun during the summer months appears to be brighter and stronger than in Hawai'i. Fortunately, the sun does not shine into the room. The afternoon sun is blocked by the building opposite.

Monday was my so-called rest day (no swimming), and Tuesday I had a relatively normal swim. Today (Wednesday) the swim went OK, but as soon as I got on my bike to return home, I just felt a lot more tired than normal. While I stayed up the whole morning, around 12:45 pm I went for what was supposed to be about a 20-min rest, but ended up sleeping about one hour. I felt fairly tired and weakish much of the afternoon. I guess at my age, it catches up with you.

On Tuesday, I first swam 4,200 meters in 1hr 22 mins, of which the last 1,000 meters was at a faster pace (about 18 mins). That was a good way to finish that phase of the workout. After a few minutes resting and a slow 100m warm-up, I raced my friend over 100m and did 1m 27s, losing by a second. We then raced a 50m and I just lost that swimming it in 40s. Total distance, 4,500 meters.

Today, I first swam 3,500 in about 1hr 10mins, but I was struggling to keep my pace towards the end. I then swam 50 meters at a time, a little slower than moderate (around 50 secs each time) with something like 20 second rests in between. That got me up to 4,050m. Then a rest, and slow warm-up then a 100m race. I had one bad turn (where I was too near the wall so I could not push off), and I did not have a lot of energy, so I only did 1m 31s. Then we raced over 50m, and that was a bit better as I did that in 40 seconds. Total distance today, 4,300 meters.

I think today I just needed to catch up a bit on sleep. I also probably haven't eaten so well these last few days, and that may have sapped my energy. Tomorrow morning, I will go to swim as usual, but we will go on a trip later in the day, and I will miss Friday's swim training.

I realize that good rest is very important. There are always many things we need to be doing, and it is easy to be constantly busy. I don't think it is just age. I remember getting very tired sometimes as a student in my early 20's. It was very tiring just trying to think what to write when starting to work on my Masters' thesis. Fortunately, I do not have too many things that have to be done very urgently, and so I will try to be a bit more laid back these days. Hope you are all getting adequate rest. We all need it.

Today I also added a couple more "video bars" in the right-hand column. The top one currently focuses on Japanese anime movies (this time Miyazaki's "Memories of Yesterday") and is all in Japanese. These clips are short reminders of the movie, which I am sure all Japanese will be very familiar with. I particularly liked this movie, and watched it over and over again when in Kona. The middle video bar focuses on swimming (this time Alexander Popov as there is some useful instructional material), and the bottom one on music (this time the Japanese artist Kitaro). Since I have also installed the Playlist music player which turns on automatically, it may be necessary to pause the sound on this unless you like listened to two things at the same time. Maybe some multi-taskers can handle this.