If you enjoy any form of "international baking" you may have been confused about the various types of flour listed in recipes and available in super markets. Fear not! For this is nothing a little chart won't fix. :-)

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

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

Sometimes the weather is just too good to be sitting in a fabric covered box and rewriting code that former colleagues perpetrated. Last Friday was such a day.

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. :-)

View from the 五指山 (Wu zhi shan) parking lot. The city in the background is 新竹 (Hsinchu).

灶君堂 (Zao jun tang), one of many temples on 五指山 (Wu zhi shan). The god that is worshiped here is the kitchen god.

竹林禪苑 (Zhu lin chan yuan), which is part temple, part garden.

Behind the temple is the entrance to the 五指山登山步道(登頂步道), the Wu zhi shan crest hiking trail. Just head up the stairs, then turn right and left again under the roof. If you're not as blind as I was you'll notice the little red "登山口" sign on the post, which I only discovered upon closer inspection of the photo. Or, as in my case, you may run into the friendly owner who can give you hiking tips.

There's also a little map of the area. Unfortunately it is not really complete as several trails are missing. The trail actually continues after the 中指峰 (Middle finger peak), so you can easily hike the entire hand.

Also, there is a small unmapped trail going down from the saddle between the 食指峰 (Index finger peak) and the 中指峰 (Middle finger peak), but it's quite steep and I don't know where it ends up.

(Click here for a larger version)

The back of 竹林禪苑 (Zhu lin chan yuan) where the hiking trail begins.

After a short walk you reach this point where the two hiking trails (the lateral and the crest one) connect. However, the lateral trail is closed at this point and given the sturdy quality of the sign that seems to be more of a permanent than a temporary state. You can, however, access the lateral hiking trail from the entrance on the other side.

The trail is pretty good to walk. It either consists of stairs or looks like this.

There are many beautiful trees on the way and the forest is quite diverse.

拇指峰 (Thumb peak).

The stairs down from 拇指峰 (Thumb peak) onwards.

The "pass" between 拇指峰 (Thumb peak) and 食指峰 (Index finger peak).

食指峰 (Index finger peak) has a somewhat obstructed but nevertheless nice view. Plus, you can learn something about the local aborigines.

The pass between 食指峰 (Index finger peak) and 中指峰 (Middle finger peak). To the left there's a small and steep trail going down. It probably leads back down to the lateral trail and 灶君堂 (Zao jun tang) but I haven't tried it yet.

It's beyond me how someone can lose his shoes on the mountain, but at least somebody was gathering all the trash ...

Once in a while there's a point like this where you can peek out of the forest.

Benches close to the 中指峰 (Middle finger peak).

This part of the forest really reminded me of Switzerland. The forest is much less dense than elsewhere and the ground is merely covered with twigs and leaves. You don't see this a lot in Taiwan.

This photo might as well have been taken in Switzerland! This is what our forest hiking trails look like. :-)

The big shocker once you get to 中指峰 (Middle finger peak) - a bunch of ugly antenna towers. Luckily I had been warned on the way by fellow hikers who told me how disappointed they were when they discovered these. Apparently those were put up fairly recently and it does take away a little from the nice scenery.

Despite the antennas in the back, the view from 中指峰 (Middle finger peak) is great. And how often can you tell people that you stood on the middle finger and had lunch there? ;-)

The great view from 中指峰 (Middle finger peak). The little village on the left is 北埔 (Bei pu), on the right is 竹東 (Zhu dong), and in the background you can see 新竹 (Hsinchu) and 竹北 (Zhu bei).

With the antenna towers also came this little road, so you can actually drive a car up to 中指峰 (Middle finger peak). If you do, however, you should be prepared for scornful looks from hikers. :-)

If you continue towards the last two fingers you'll pass through this bamboo forest.

There's a great view from between the last two fingers. You can see quite far and you might be able to see the military base on top of 樂山 (Le shan) if it's not surrounded by clouds.

The last two fingers don't seem to have official names, by the way. The ring finger goes by the odd name of 無名峯 (No name peak) and the pinky is sometimes referred to as 小指峯 (Pinky peak).

This is the last view you'll get if you turn around at the pinky. Neither of the last two peaks has a real view.

The trail, however, continues after the pinky. These are the little signs for reference. (Click here for a bigger version.)

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)

The Taipei government spends quite some effort on traffic education. (Interestingly enough these traffic education ads can often be found in bus or subway stations but that's not today's topic. :-)

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?

Let's talk dead serious for a change. Taiwan has a ridiculously low rate of people who wear their seat belts, especially on the back seats, and an even lower rate of people who understand what the seat belt is for. The worst part is that many cars either have no rear seat belts or that they're disabled or crammed under the seat cushion, so that even if you want to use them you can't.

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?

For Taiwan's centennial celebrations, earlier this month, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall was lit with the projections of artwork submitted by people from various countries. Here are a couple of them:

Taiwanese weddings have a myriad of customs, too many for a single person to know or for a single couple to follow.

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 ...

This is one of Taiwan's typical wedding cookie boxes.

Opening the box exposes the first layer ...

... which hides another layer underneath.

This is the entire cookie content of that huge box. When I buy cookies in Switzerland this amount might come in two simple bags.

Let's weigh, shall we? 596 grams.

The amassed trash from just one box of wedding cookies.

And the pile of individual cookie wrappers next to a Swiss Army Knife for size comparison. Again, let's weigh ...

744 grams of trash for 596 grams of cookies. That's a cookie to trash ratio of 4:5!

So there you have it ... 596 grams of cookies and 744 grams of trash. Multiply that with a - moderately estimated - fifty guests of the bride and you get the impressive amount of 37.2 kilograms of mostly non-recyclable but easily avoidable trash.

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:

The refreshingly simple box of IRIS wedding cookies.

好望角 (Hao wang jiao) shares its name with the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The view doesn't quite measure up and the snack stands at the top don't even come close to wild Ostriches, but it's much more convenient to get there.

So with autumn slowly approaching we decided to take the opportunity of one of the last summery weekends and head south, about a scooter hour away from Hsinchu. It's basically a hill, a few kilometers of coastline and a handful of wind turbines, but despite its simplicity it makes for a beautiful scenery.

A wind turbine at the top of 好望角 (Hao wang jiao).

The coast and the hills around the area are a small wind farm.

I don't know what it is with people pointing into their photos - photos are supposed to lead the viewer's eye to the right place. This girl was exclusively taking photos of her finger. Apparently the beautiful landscape doesn't speak for itself.

We picked a great day to go there. After a week of freezing cold weather (temperatures between 20-25 °C ;-) we had real summer temperatures again.

The trail down to the coast.

The beautifully decorated blue sky.

From here there are two trails down to the coast.

Wind turbines on the hill of 好望角 (Hao wang jiao).

A small scarp where long-buried shells and other sea animals are visible in stacked sediment layers.

The some eighty meters high hill of 好望角 (Hao wang jiao) as seen from the coast.

Wind turbines close to 海角樂園 (Hai jiao le yuan).

A wind turbine at 海角樂園 (Hai jiao le yuan). Literally the name translates to "Cape Paradise" but if paradise has that much trash and broken glass lying around I'd rather stay out of paradise.

Pebble beach at 海角樂園 (Hai jiao le yuan).

Tidal ponds near 海角樂園 (Hai jiao le yuan). Note the beautiful tires enhancing the scenery ...

An old railway tunnel. You can actually walk through but because we didn't know where we would end up we decided to take a raincheck.

The second trail back up to 好望角 (Hao wang jiao).

Two months ago, in preparation for our 雙北 biking trip, we had biked to 東眼山 (Dong yan shan). To be more precise, only to the entrance of the 東眼山國家森林遊樂區 (Dong yan shan National Forest Recreational Area) because there's nothing to see inside if you're sitting on a bike. Anyway, the area looked so nice at the time that I figured on this long weekend (Moon festival) I could take Ivy there by scooter for a bit of hiking to the top of the mountain.

We were a bit skeptical at first regarding the weather but we ended up lucky since the sky up in 桃園 (Taoyuan) was less cloudy than back home. The view at the top is great indeed but I'll let you see for yourself:

The head of the 東眼山志繼山步道 (Dong yan shan & Zhi ji shan hiking trail) is located along 成福道路 (Cheng fu road) about 1-2 kilometers before the entrance to the 東眼山國家森林遊樂區 (Dong yan shan National Forest Recreation Area).

There are two places where the trail would be very easy to miss if it weren't for the omnipresent little flags that hiking clubs hang as part of a little "been there" tagging game.

Not the entire trail is that hard to follow. Most of it looks something like this.

Even though the trail runs along the ridge, which, incidentally, is the border between 桃園縣 (Taoyuan county) and 新北市 (New Taipei city), there are not many places where you get a view because of the dense vegetation. Once in a while, though, there will be a tree missing and you can see the view, complete with one of the many beautiful butterflies.

The top of 志繼山 (Zhi ji shan), roughly half an hour from the trail head. Unfortunately there's nothing to see here, so for the view you have to keep going to 東眼山 (Dong yan shan).

The trail is apparently not very well frequented, so I had to wield a stick in front of my body the entire time to avoid collecting spiders and their sticky homes.

At this point we entered the 東眼山國家森林遊樂區 (Dong yan shan National Forest Recreational Area) where the nature trails make way to stairs and other overdeveloped trail forms. There's a little pavilion along the way that provides a bit of the view. Still not beautiful enough though, so we kept going ...

The stairs leading up to 東眼山 (Dong yan shan).

The entrance to the lookout platform on top of 東眼山 (Dong yan shan). It's not exactly reassuring to see a "Only 5 people at a time on the stairs" sign but we've crossed weaker looking bridges on our previous hikes, so it didn't scare us off.

Finally at the top we asked a nice yet geographically slightly challenged couple to take a picture of us. I call for better geography education in Taiwan! :-)

The view at the top is indeed rewarding because you can see all the way to Taipei. It's not clear on the picture but you can see 觀音山 (Guan yin shan), 陽明山 (Yang ming shan), and even Taipei 101 with your bare eyes.

Looking southwards we only saw a big cloud creeping over the higher mountains in the distance. Judging from Google Earth you might be able to see 雪山 (Xue shan) on a clear day.

According to the map the 東眼山步道 (Dong yan shan hiking trail) actually continues towards the East, so that you can eventually reach 拉卡山 (La ka shan) and 雙溪山 (Shuang xi shan). Indeed, the trail does continue if you pass the stairs and under the view platform. If this overgrown little sign is any indicator at all 拉卡山 (La ka shan) can be reached in 160 minutes and 雙溪山 (Shuang xi shan) in 200 minutes. Going there and coming back would be a solid one-day hike, so I guess we'll save that for some other day.

Having enjoyed the view we went back down the stairs where the triangulation point is (interestingly enough not in the highest point) and enjoyed our lunch in the shade.

The way down is even fancier than the way up. And the closer we got to the park's tourist information center the clearer it became that this is where city people take their kids to "see nature".

There's something to be said for the design of their bathroom, both inside ...

... and outside.

The last few hundred meters between the park's entrance and the restaurant look like this. And sure enough you can see people with high heels getting their few hours worth' of nature. :-)

If you're like me and always give people the benefit of the doubt you might be disappointed here: I suspected this might be the wheelchair-accessible section of their forest trail, but alas, shortly after a flight of stairs set an end to that thought.

In their tourist center they have a bunch of cute animals made from the forest's ingredients.

After exiting the park area we had to walk along 成福道路 (Cheng fu road) for about twenty minutes to get back to our scooter. Traffic was very light though ...

... and the approaching sunset made for a nice view.

For reference, here's a picture of the park map. Click here for a bigger version.

And, as always, the track log:

We like to go to the zoo once in a while, and this time I had the proper equipment for it: a 55-300 mm lens for my DSLR. It's like wildlife photography for people without patience and money for expensive photo equipment. :-)

Formosan Wild Boar

Addax

Formosan Serow

A Formosan Rock Macaque with a background of fake rain.

Black Sugar, the zoo's Formosan Black Bear was tirelessly (haha, get it?) playing with a tire.

A Southern Pig-tailed Macaque. Does this remind anyone else of that annoying little creature from Lord of the Rings?

Southern Pig-tailed Macaques

This was hilarious. The Malayan Tapirs were just being fed but the Siamangs immediately started stealing the vegetables and sneaked off with them. The tapirs couldn't care less though - they seemed more interested in the green leaves.

Another Siamang approaching to steal the tapirs' food.

Asian Elephant

A very happy Bactrian Camel.

All the camels seemed extremely happy, just like this Dromedary.

A Giraffe clumsily sitting down, so it could eat the grass from a more comfortable position.

An unidentified bird sitting on a White Rhinoceros.

An unidentified turtle

團團 (Tuan tuan), the male panda, doing what he does best: lying around in the same place he was when we visited him two years ago. With that sort of energy level it's no big surprise that Pandas are endangered.

The poorest Pelican you'll ever see. It's hard to imagine how he can survive with half his beak missing but he seems to manage. When he drinks he just quickly snaps back his head, so that the water won't flow it.

A healthier specimen of a Pelican

African Elephant

"Drink water, eat rabbit"

Because pictures say more than words and because drooling on your mouse or keyboard might make the Logitech stock price go up ...

The legendary Chocolate Cake, now with sprinkles!

Zopf, a traditional type of Swiss bread.

A totally new shape of Zopf. It's actually a long, ordinary Zopf turned into a knot. :-)