During my trip to Dihua Street I made my first ever visit to the quite delightful Xiahai Chenghuang Temple (大稻埕霞海城隍). This is the home to statues of the Taipei City God Chenghuang and his wife, as well as a legendary Chinese matchmaking deity and 600 other gods. No surprise therefore that it is said to have the highest statue density of any temple in Taiwan (though I am not sure who measures such things).
Built in 1859 on a fengshui-friendly “hen’s cave” location that ensures prosperity for the surrounding areas and people who worship at it, the temple is very small in size but this only serves to heighten the atmosphere as you step inside to view the mysterious incense shrouded statues of the various deities standing on front of the main shrine.
The restaurants may not have been particularly fancy on Dihua Street, but the food itself was excellent with all manner of popular dishes such as hand-made shuijiao (Chinese dumplings) on offer at the stalls in the market.
Even if the bench I sat on was pretty basic, it was comfortable enough to allow me to stay there for ages and simply watch the world go by before putting pen to paper and composing a haiku – though sadly I was unable to inject the subject of food into it no matter how hard I tried.
Inspired by the sunny weather yesterday, I sprang myself from my home office cage and headed down to Dihua (Tihua) Street in the east of Taipei.
Dating back to the 1850s, the street is one of the oldest commercial centers in the city, but apart from during the Chinese New Year holiday it is not particularly busy these days as people increasingly opt for the glitz and air-conditioned comfort of modern shopping malls like Taipei 101 and Breeze Center instead of the heat and noise of the traditional markets.
It’s good to be back in Taipei after my trip to India and China – even if I’ve been suffering from a nasty cold ever since I stepped back on this island.
Thankfully, I’m feeling a lot better now and I’ve found some time and energy to put together this short video showing the sights and sounds of Taipei's historic Longshan Temple, which I visited a while ago. I'm not sure what festival was being celebrated at the time I went there, but the temple was very crowded with people and there was a vibrant atmosphere around the place.
Chips, motherboards, cases, batteries, LCD screens, and connectors: neatly displayed like fruit and vegetables i(or should that be exotic spcies?)in store after store in the crowded warrens of Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei market are all the ingredients you need to build a mobile phone.
Currently, this would in all likelihood be an affordable feature phone rather than a top of the line smartphone, but Android and no doubt Windows 7 mobile based devices are on the way, and, besides, the low cost mobile phone market in both China and emerging countries such as India and Latin America is massive – over 100 million units a year.
Following yesterday’s Lantern Festival, the Chinese New Year celebrations are well and truly over and all the colorful decorations are being cleared away (including these [formerly] auspicious oranges) as China gets back down to serious business.
I can’t help noticing that some “experts” are almost gleefully warning of a Dubai-style property bubble in China as real estate prices continue to rise in various cities throughout the country. But then how would they be able to make money without a crisis?
Here are a couple of photos of the new VIA EPIA-P710-D Pico-ITXe expansion module that we announced last Thursday.
The module works in tandem with the Pico-ITXe-based VIA EPIA-P710 board, and features three Mini-PCI Express slots that can be used to integrate a wide variety of Wi-Fi, GSM, 3G/3.5G, GPS and GPRS modules into intelligent vehicle management devices for applications such as fuel management, active scheduling, advanced routing, asset monitoring and the latest emergency, safety and rescue features.
Sorry for the lack of updates this week. It’s been very busy as the old Lunar New Year winds down and everyone gets ready for the coming of the Year of the Tiger.
Here’s a short video showing the sights and sounds of the Beijing Imperial Academy just next to the Confucius Temple. This was where generations of promising young scholars were prepared for the ordeal of taking the incredibly rigorous Imperial Examinations.
Daily Snapshot 
