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Riding the high speed potstickers

Um...it was kind of foggy when this picture was taken. Yeah...

We had some friends over for Thanksgiving dinner and we ended up talking about various things, but the most memorable topic was Taiwan‘s most advanced public transportation system, the high speed potstickers (鍋貼 or guō tiē), which is not to be confused with the high speed rail system (高鐵 or gāo tiě).

Many people know about Taiwan’s high speed rail (HSR) system.  The HSR runs north and south along the coast from the capital city of Taipei to Kaohsiung, a distance of roughly 200 miles.  The trains have a top speed of 186 miles per hour, so travel by HSR is considerably faster than by normal rail or bus, but slower than taking a plane.  You can read more about it here.

The high speed potstickers (HSP) is an auxiliary system that runs east and west and is little known beyond the residents of Taiwan.  Actually, the HSP is such a well kept secret, many residents also do not know of its existence and slog along by bus when they need to travel from the east and west coasts.  It is understandable since the HSP travels considerably faster than the HSR and is much quieter.  Because the railcars are made of potstickers, albeit a special recipe for potstickers due to the need for durability, they can be consumed at the end of their scheduled run.  I’m pretty sure employees of the HSP eat the potstickers.

Aside from the very limited schedule, there are a few other cons to traveling by potsticker.  You have to remember that these are potstickers.  They are cooked in oil.  There can be a great deal of oil in and around the stations and on the potstickers themselves.  Oil is not something that is easily cleaned off clothing when you’re on the run.

Also, the friction of the potstickers traveling at high speed on the oil coated rails, so they don’t stick, cook the potstickers.  If you’re riding a late potsticker, it can be unbearably hot.  It will smell delicious though.  But remember, it’s highly frowned upon to sneak bites of your transportation.

On the topic of scents, some of the potstickers may have a pork/leek filling.  While quite delicious, leek does have a tendency to stink things up.  You might want to take that into consideration when you’re traveling to a formal engagement.  Durian are allowed on the pork/leek potstickers, though, in case you’re transporting durian.

I’m definitely going to try and find a high speed potsticker station the next time I’m in Taiwan.

Penmanship adventures (1)

At long last, here is an update on my penmanship adventures.

Recall how I said that I would just be going through all the hands in my calligraphy book?  Well, it turns out that I never opened it after writing the first post.  I dug it out of my closet.  I dug out my sketch pad that I had been using to practice my calligraphy.  I even dug out my calligraphy pens.  But that was the end of it.  They just sat on my desk for months.  At first, I was just too busy during the beginning to really put much effort into practicing all the different hands.  Then as time went on, I had some serious motivation issues and then finally I was just lazy.  I still continued to whine about my handwriting though.

But recently, I saw that there was a sale on Improve Your Handwriting and I decided to purchase it.  The book is considerably smaller than my calligraphy book and I don’t have to carry my oversized sketch pad and special pens along with me either.  I just stuff some note cards into the book (I have SO MANY) and I can do some exercises here and there when I need to take a break from the task at hand.

And so, here you are!  Some scans of my exercises.  I’ve only through the first six chapters of the book.  The beginning chapters introduce you to various problems that you might have with your handwriting and help you to diagnose what needs to be improved.  You start some exercises in chapter 6 of the book.

These were relaxation exercises from the beginning of the book.  I figured I might try them with my right and left hand.  I like writing with my left hand now and then, but normally I write mirror image (since I think English is a right handed language and does not suit a left handed writing position).  I believe Da Vinci used to do that as well.

Here are the first exercises that are supposed to help improve basic writing strokes.  They were supposed to be pretty straight and even.  Um…they look fairly decent.

Here are more exercises to help improve basic writing strokes.  It seemed like making a lot of u’s and m’s to me.  They were supposed to be straight and even.  Um…yeah, not so much.  Both these and the previous exercises were done with my right hand only.

Oh, and something else I’ve learned along the way is that I may not be able to use a fine point pen when writing in cursive.  My cursive would probably improve if I used a medium point pen.  That’s actually something I already suspected and it’s kind of nice to have some confirmation, I guess.  I’m also not entirely sure if I’ll continue to cultivate my cursive hand.  I may just switch to italics.  We’ll see.