Cosplay at Petit Fancy 12

by Sander Tams 26. April 2010 09:18

Thank you for still reading my blog. I will now reward you with an article about cosplay during Petit Fancy 12 at National Taiwan University.

 IMG_4128

Yeah, this what I came for! Look at all those people and hair colours already. And there's even a dude dressed up like Mio from K-ON.

 IMG_4127

The impressive gym building at 台大. Inside this towering dome you can do anything from swimming to playing squash or buying doujinshi. Well. Last one was just for today. If you come on other days, you might catch a computer game tournament or some other awesome events.

 IMG_4129

This Kagami dude doesn't look all that happy. I can't see why...

 IMG_4131

Just before you despair completely, I can assure you there's a lot of girls dressed up like female characters too.

 IMG_4145

But you know... I might actually have female readers anyway, so I'll not skip over the guys. (Actually I have a suspicion that most of my readers could be girls, hah. If I have any readers anymore...) ^^;

 IMG_4141

So many people there...

 IMG_4151

I wonder what kinds of characters these people are playing. Some sort of fighting series like Naruto or similar, perhaps?

 IMG_4154

Chinese traditional clothes are awesome.

 IMG_4155

I don't know if there were more cosplayers or photographers really. At the Taipei Game Show I wasn't in doubt, there were at least 20 times as many guys with big cameras as girls in those halls but here at petit fancy I'd say it's probably around 50-50. But then: Every cosplayer had their own camera too.

 IMG_4158

More guys. I admire their open-mindedness.

 IMG_4166

Most of the people seem to come here in groups or, at least, pairs. Few of them are brave enough to come all by themselves. I'm not entirely sure about this beauty, but she seemed a bit on her own, which just made her so much more cute.

 IMG_4171

Taiwan is an awesome place. So many beautiful people around.

 IMG_4179

That is a pretty big gun.

 IMG_4188

Asians have mostly brown or black eye-colour. Even people that are half Caucasian are seldom to have another eye color since the genes for brown eyes are dominant. The use of coloured eye-lenses is very frequent here though, and not just for activities like this. Some young people will wear coloured lenses to school everyday as if it was any other accessory or clothing style.
Here, of course, the availability of these lenses come in quite handy. After all, manga characters just don't have natural eye and hair-colours.

 IMG_4192

I think this guy looked pretty cool.

 IMG_4193

And this is just a strange scene... I like it though.

 IMG_4218

I especially like this girl. I think the lightning could have been a little better, though.

 IMG_4219

A real, female Hatsune Miku at last.

 IMG_4227

This girl looks just slightly like a teacher I have. She managed to get a lot of attention with those big fans of hers, but professional utilization of my structural benefits of being a foreigner allowed me to get this picture over the heads of everyone else.

 IMG_4231

She's not the only one with big fans, though. These girls have fans too.

 IMG_4235

Ah, hate to break it to you but all good things come to an end. There's just a few more eye candies on boonbot.com that you can find if you click the link in the beginning of this post that says "National Taiwan University". You could also just click one of the pictures to get to my boonbot site.

Hope you liked it. Please let me have some responses so I can see if I still have a few readers! :D

Tags: , , , , ,

Events | Photography | Taiwan

Just dumping something random

by Sander Tams 17. April 2010 19:02

I didn't write lately. Again. I guess I do this when I'm not in a very good mood, and have been in a not-so-good mood quite often lately.

Still ought to write something, so I'll just dump this short chat I had with a previous classmate from KaiNan. Mind you I'm using a bit of experimental Chinese and very simple English. I just saw he was online (on facebook, woah!) and thought: Damn I really miss this guy for some reason. Those days were wacky days, and although I didn't really feel exactly satisfied with the way things was with the school, it was a nice time where I got to try a very wacky way of life. I kind of miss wacky.

Anyway, it's short:

23:43 SanderOnion! 很久看不見.
23:48 蔥HI (long)? time no se
Ha
23:48 SanderOh. Good.
23:49 蔥Recently?
23:50 SanderI often think about you (你們) Kainan students. Because I never really said goodbye.
23:51 Sander你的生活好嗎?
23:55 蔥Also good
00:21 Sanderdo you have test soon?
in Kainan?
00:27蔥Already finished
00:27Sanderoh, that's good
In my school we have tests so people are very busy. Even I have test now.
00:30蔥You must examine?
00:30Sanderyes
but only for some of the classes
00:33蔥Cannot be very difficult?
00:33Sanderno, I don't think so.
Because I will just take some tests in English.
00:37Sander但是,我的中文有進步很多. 可是,我寫很慢.
00:57蔥That refuels! I must sleep
00:58Sanderme too
晚安

If you don't understand half of what I am saying, then you can try and use a translator. Should even the English be nonsense, then perhaps translating it into Chinese and back again will yield better results? I highly doubt so, though. This guy really works hard for learning English and he's really mr. nice guy to the fullest extend I can imagine. With more people like him, I'm pretty sure everyone would be a little happier. There should be lots of those here, actually. Too bad society doesn't give a damn about such peoples qualities.

Tags: , , ,

Dagligdag | Taiwan

HuaJiang Bridge

by Sander Tams 11. April 2010 09:11

That Bridge somewhere over near Jiangzicui. I went there again. And even bothered with finding it's name through Google Maps. HuaJiang Bridge it's called.

This Thursday it rained again, so I decided to go for it. School ends early on Thursdays for me, so I went and saw a film in the library! My school has this kind of MTV like place where you can go borrow a bunch of films and watch them there. For free, (but only if you're studying there, of course.) You can watch them by yourself, or you can have a room for watching them in groups, should you have good classmates that aren't busy running to work part time as soon as they're off from school. So I watched The Happening.

After getting disappointed over yet another American film, I go home and pick up my umbrella and DSLR Camera. When I go home I usually take bus from Xinpu MRT station for a few minutes. I then find a free bus back to Xinpu station almost right after walking out the door, and decide to walk all the way to HuaJian Bridge from there.

At the time I arrived there, the weather had cleared a bit so it was quite light, also because I went there so much earlier in the day. I decided to take some photos, then read in my Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. Great book, great writer. Under a bridge like that is almost the perfect place for reading such books! It's like climbing into the bottom of a dried up well for me, going to that bridge during rainy days.

If any of you guys have read Haruki Murakami, please feel free to share your thoughts. Or if you have had something with bridges or other special places that normal people would just pass by. I'm now going to show you some of my creations from that day. I used Adobe Lightroom to capture them out of RAW files and decided to put some creativity into some of them.
Enjoy.

 Under The Bridge

This was taken later on the day, a few minutes before I went to have dinner I believe, so it was rather dark, especially since the rain had increased. Exposure time is 8 seconds, no flash. Have been working for a good time in Lightroom to make the bridge itself more visible and reduce the high exposure from light in the background. Look closely and you will see the roof of Taipei's second tallest building (Shin Kong Life Tower) far away on the left side of the bridge.

 Two Stray Dogs

 The Other Side

The other side.
You'll also find Taipei 101 in the distance, second tallest building in the world. Damn you Dubai.

 IMG_3047

The bridge earlier on the day looked like this seen from below. Mind you it was raining all day.

 IMG_3032

Standing atop the bridge, this is what I see: Taipei City seen from afar on a rainy day.

 Rainy Day

 IMG_3091

 IMG_3079

It was a little cooler this Thursday compared to Tuesday when I went here first. It was not that bad though. There were this guy running around (exercising) in the area below the bridge with no shirt on for a while, so it wasn't that cold. I sat pretty still though, reading my book.

 Logistics

 IMG_3097

Finally I decided to part with the bridge. I was starving and believed I had to hurry a little if I wanted to go to Taipei and eat. I got to Taipei Main Station faster than I had expected, though. So I was able to stay around for a while after, drinking expensive coffee and buying really, really sweet candy. Might as well have been half as sweet as usual Danish candy, which meant that the classmates with whom I shared the candy would leave most of the jellybeans and extinguish the not-so-dense candies.

Hope you liked the pictures. Here's a Slovenian guys take on the bridge during less rainy daytime: A day of a good walk from Jiangzicui to the Huajiang bridge. I also took few more pictures than these. Some more of them made it to boonbot.com and you can see all picture from this bridge here: HuaJian Bridge.

If you feel like using any of the pictures that I've taken and put on this page, feel free to do so. I assume you will be nice and attribute and put up links, should you decide to redistribute them in some way (on the web or any digital media as well as newspapers or books.) Please have a talk with me before you start using them for commercial purposes, though. If you want to use them at a website with heavy traffic, please mind that hotlinking could put a strain to my small webhotel solution.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Dagligdag | Photography | Taiwan

What a lovely souvenir

by Sander Tams 7. April 2010 18:56

Allow me to make a short post today.

Every Wednesday I have Speech and Debate Class and then Pottery and Aesthetics afterwards. The latter is in Chinese so I usually can't participate in the class. Did have a question today though, and I was a bit surprised as I was handed this thing as reward. For asking a question. Wauw.

 IMG_2987

Actually I did notice on our first class that the teacher would hand out these as a reward to students with questions, but I was assuming that it would only be to get people to listen to something very important.

He's still giving out little gifts though. The teachers is a quite respected artist here so his works aren't worthless. Beautiful aren't they?

 IMG_2988

Taiwanese students don't really ask questions in classes. At all. You really have to have some extraordinary situation to get them to ask just a few questions, and even though this teacher is giving away gifts for every question he gets from the students, there's not many to come for.
I think this is partly caused by the high schools not really expecting questions from the students and because everyone is under so much pressure from their parents about having to be number one student, so they don't dare ask a question that might show some weakness. Poor teachers.

 IMG_2989

Honestly. High Schools, at least, are crap here. I can say that with some high degree of certainty because it's just so easy to see. (Besides, I went to a vocational high school myself. One that is rumoured to be somewhat worse than other schools in Taipei. It was a vocational one. I feel sorry for my previous classmates. They are good kids.)

It's probably some sort of cultural problem. People are just used to the high schools being crappy and learning people not to think, so they just accept it the way it is. Of course that makes for a lot of frustration amongst teachers in other education institutions. Especially the foreign teachers that I've met. But I guess it's the way it is all over Asia. I hear that Taiwan should be somewhat better than so many other Asian countries.

 IMG_2994

Anyway. I'll see this little trophy as a nice souvenir. ("Earned" free stuff just feels so much better than anything else won't you agree?)
I don't know what's more impressing about it: The packing or the content. Anyhow, this quite made my day I'd say.

Tags: , , , ,

It's raining today.

by Sander Tams 6. April 2010 16:53

Still alive and reporting from Banqiao, Taipei County, Taiwan. Been a bit gloomy lately, so I'm sorry for not having had the mood to write much.

Today it rained a lot. In the morning, it was a little cloudy and over the afternoon the city would start looking foggy when looking from the higher floors. Then it started raining a little, then more, then a little less. I decided to take a walk towards Taipei city by that time. Was told that it was impossible to walk all the way. I'd have to take a bus or MRT past the river as there isn't a lot of bridges for pedestrians. I don't know about that. Seems it's possible to cross the river walking next to the highway but I wouldn't do it for the fear that people might get angry. Besides, it rained.

I got off from school in Xinpu and got as far as Jangzicui pretty quick. Walking to the river from there on was a mystery to me with all those highways and roads and stuff over there. I did find a pretty nice place though, below one of the big highway bridges connecting Banqiao and Taipei. I did have to turn around a few times to get there, and apparently all the stuff they have over there is old gas stations and metal junk yards so not many people will bother to go there I believe. Especially on a rainy day. By the time I decided to rest for a while, (or rather, couldn't move further without walking into a river,) the rain was now so strong that I would rather stand under the highway. At that time it was raining like a heavy Danish rainsquall, but without all that wind and briefness that goes with those. I took some pictures with my puny point and shoot camera, depressed for not having brought the big gear. Next time it rains on a hot day, I'm going to bring it there I hope.

 DSC06969

 DSC06970

 DSC06972

 DSC06976

 DSC06977

 DSC06978

 DSC06983

Amazing how few raindrops the camera manages to catch, isn't it? I can assure you it was raining cats and dogs, but these little point and shoots just doesn't do the magic like a DSLR. * Sad face *

While I was there I felt really strange. Been reading a lot lately. Especially Haruki Murakami and I felt like I could just aswell have been in one of his books. It was really jazzy there. Dark and not so crowded in a somewhat far off and quiet place. The sound from rain slipping down over the border of the bridge and cars driving around up there above was just awesome. And then it's like the end of a small world. Usually it gets really cold whenever the rain comes. (It is a bit cold now, actually.) But at that time, the air was still hot from the last few summerdays we've had, so it was pleasant. Also. Just standing below such a giant structure that such a bridge is is something I don't do everyday. I do skitter around below grand highways daily, they're everywhere, but it's quite some months since I stood below a bridge this size. You should try it. Go find a big bridge by a river and stand under it when it rains a lot. Haha. I hope you've read Haruki Murakami yourself. Otherwise you have probably no idea of where I'm trying to get with this writing. I hope you enjoyed it, though.

Can't promise too much with all these things going on, but I'll try and drag my DSLR over there sometime.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Dagligdag | Taiwan

Ads

Boonbot

Please note that I now do most of my blogging on Boonbot.com. There, you can also find many photos that I take. Try and have a look at my post about Taipei Game Show 2010 or my posts about Computex. My little article on a few of my favourite Taiwanese Foods has also gotten quite popular.

E-mail subscription

Need some extra e-mails? Put in your adress here and feedburner will send you some free ones whenever I blog.

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

About Me

My name is Sander Tams.
I am an exchange student from Denmark in Taipei, Taiwan.
I'm mainly focusing this blog on how it is to try and live a life as the locals here as a foreigner, commenting on the differences in culture and whatever I find amusing or interesting.
Have fun with the info about my life here. 

 Me

Should you decide to leave a comment when you drop by, please enter only your own name and personal website or blog, should you have such. Any comments linking to a non-personal website such as a commercial one will be deleted unless related to the article in a usefull way.

Add to Technorati Favorites

RecentPosts

RecentComments

Comment RSS

Privacy

This website participates in the Google Adsense Programme. This means that third-party advertisers participating in the Google Adwords Programme can place cookies in your browser and utilize web beacons to analyse and optimise advertisement campaign efficiency. If you will not allow this, please leave this site at once and delete eventual cookies already downloaded by your browser.