Now, on an ordinary trip all the photo and track log processing would take longer than the trip preparation. However, when you try to use your hard-earned frequent flyer miles to get a free Singapore Airlines flight the workload timing shifts a little bit forward. Given their abysmal web site (made, by the way, in a country whose average software engineering skills I am confronted with on a daily basis at work) and their helpless support staff it's a miracle we even made it to Singapore.

Fortunately, once we landed, things took a turn for the better. We had an evening flight, but with our hotel located right next to the airport metro line we got there early enough to be able to take a stroll around the city. So, we headed to one of the centers of night life, Clarke Quay along the Singapore River.

Interestingly enough the feature to report a problem has also disappeared. Perhaps a sign of Ostrich effect?

Anyway, until they get that fixed the ever-growing map on OpenStreetMap depicts the area more accurately:

The chart may be a little specific to someone who lives in Taiwan and bakes a lot of Swiss, and occasionally German and American, recipes. Nevertheless, I hope this may be useful as a rough reference.

The covered flour types:

* Germany: Typen 405, 550, 812, 1050, 1600, 1700
* Switzerland: Weissmehl, Halbweissmehl, Ruchmehl, Vollkornmehl
* US: All-purpose flour, High gluten flour, First clear flour, White whole wheat flour
* Taiwan: 低筋麵粉, 中筋麵粉, 高筋麵粉, 特高筋麵粉

(Click the image for a bigger version. If you don't see an image please donate your current browser to a museum and upgrade.)

More details and numbers: Wikipedia articles on Flour, Mehl, 麵粉

I've been wanting to go hiking the peaks of 五指山 (Wu zhi shan, literally translated "Five finger mountain") for a while, especially since I had already been to the road-accessible top several times by bike.

Even though it's not particularly high 五指山 (Wu zhi shan) is one of the most remarkable mountains in the area, partly because of its peculiar shape. Here's a picture of the mountain that I took last year on a trip to 觀霧 (Guan wu):

The hike is neither very long nor very strenuous, but given that you're hiking across five hills and back there is quite a bit of up and down involved as you can easily see from the topographic map and the altitude chart:

The entire hike is less than 6 km long and took only slightly over three hours including a 20 minute lunch break. Of course, without stopping every few minutes to take photos I might have shaved off another few minutes, but then I wouldn't have anything to show to you. :-)

I've been contributing a lot of my biking and hiking routes to OpenStreetMap recently and this one is no exception. I hope this will be useful for fellow hikers. (If you zoom out there are some rendering issues, i.e. you'll see outdated tiles, but with time that problem should disappear.)

(Click here to view a larger map)

To the average European reading these advertisements is akin to reading about the sky being blue or fire being hot. However, as you will find out quickly if you visit Taiwan, traffic ticks a little differently here and what is common sense to me may appear curious to the average road user.

Here's one such example:

There are at least two important words here that many Taiwanese seem to have trouble with:

*方向燈 ("indicator").* Based on my day-to-day experience there's a fair share of motorcyclists and car drivers who don't have a clue what that little lever with the two arrows on it is for. And, even among those who know that pulling it does more than trigger a funny clicking noise, beliefs like "people can see I'm turning anyway" or excuses such as "nobody's around to see it" are widespread.

*前 ("before").* Of the few people left who regularly use the indicator many of them have a lot of work to do in the timing department. There are people who blink two intersections too early because they intend to turn somewhere within the next 150 meters. Those are bad for traffic flow but at least rarely dangerous. But then there are the ones who blink at the same time they start turning, fully convinced that everybody is now aware of their intention and it is safe to turn without as much as a glance in the mirror.

The two single most effective accident avoiding patterns are *looking ahead* and *communicating your intentions*. Indicating properly is an important link between these two. It's common courtesy at worst and life-saving at best. Quite potent for a flick of a finger, isn't it?

That's why I've been wanting to post a link to this little riddle for a while. The article to go with it is here.

Guess what this is (click for a bigger version):

Hint: Wear your seat belt!

...

Another hint? It's not caused by the head hitting the windshield or dashboard.

...

The answer is that it's the CT scan of an unbelted _back seat_ passenger. The person's head slammed into the post of the front seat after the car was hit by another object. (Note that the accident was out of the control of the car's driver.)

Is this how you want to remember your child or friend's face for the rest of your life?

One of the most commonly followed is the "tradition" of giving a box of wedding cookies to the bride's guests. Calling it a tradition would be a little bit of a stretch because this is apparently a relatively new phenomenon. People used to give wedding cakes, which are truly Chinese-style cakes with different fillings. But in a trend of imitating Western culture those are slowly being replaced with Western-style cookies.

Unfortunately the packaging of these wedding cookies is so elaborate that they not only demand a fair amount of patience to eat, but also result in a huge pile of unnecessary trash. Let's take a little tour of such a box of wedding cookies ...

In all fairness, at least these cookies were good. Many wedding cookies I've had - and trust me, there were a lot ;-) - belonged into the 'just okay' or 'who baked these sugar mounds?!' category. There even seems to be a pattern where the quality of the cookies is inversely proportional to the fanciness of the box.

One of my favorites so far was the brand that one of my friends picked. The cookie wrappers aside, the simple and useful box has made a good home for my Clif Bar and Luna Bar stock: