Oregon Zoo

On July 24th, we went to the Oregon Zoo.  We had a good time and saw some interesting animals.

Polar Bears.

Warthogs

A young Asian elephant.  Fortunately it didn't get stuck like that.

Giraffes

A bigger version of Madison.

Lauren, totally ignoring the black bear behind her.

How much lazier could you get??

Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI)

On July 23rd Lauren and I went to OMSI with Christy, Seann, and Megan.  OMSI has an decommissioned submarine (the USS Blueback) as one of its exhibits, of which we went on a tour.  The Blueback is the last diesel-electric submarine produced by the navy, and the first sub to use the tear-drop shaped hull.  Also, the Blueback was apparently used for some of the scenes of the movie "The Hunt for Red October".

A view of the sub from above water.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but that's a Tektronix oscilloscope in the bridge of the sub.

Torpedo tubes.

The submarine has three diesel engines.  Each can produce up to 1500 horsepower. 

Old Train Bridge

One day a while back our group at work went to lunch at a place over in Helvetia (west of here).  One the way back we stopped to check out an awesome train bridge that was built a long time ago.  It is no longer in use.

Here is where it crosses the road.  It's very tall, and has some thick logs supporting it at the base.  In this picture are two of the people I work with, Andy and Terry.

This is one side of the bridge, looking west from the road.  There's another part that looks just like this on the east side.  It's quite a long, tall, and impressive bridge for something built so long ago.

Balcony Gardening

Here are a few pictures of plants that we have on our balcony.  In total we have hops, basil, cilantro, thyme, rosemary, cat grass (for Madison), mums flowers, and a few small tomato plants on our balcony right now.

Our rosemary plant.  We started it in our garden in Corvallis.  We dug it up and potted in when we left the Corvallis apartment.  This plant provided the rosemary that we used in our competition-winning homebrew.  Our thyme plant can be seen in the lower left corner.

The hop plant we have on our balcony.  It's mostly there for decoration at this point.

Madison checking on the plants.

Wulai

On Saturday I visited Wulai a small town known for hot springs and aboriginal culture.

View of the river

A very small train that we rode to the waterfall.

Aboriginal dancers

Wulai waterfall

River Sampling

Earlier this week I went on a two day river sampling trip to the Jhuoshuei River in western Taiwan and the Gaoping River in southern Taiwan.

A temple overlooking the Jhuoshuei (muddy water) River.

The temple surrounded by betel nut trees.

The Jhuoshuei River.

Sun Moon Lake

Fulong and Maokong

On Saturday, some friends and I took the train to Fulong Beach east of Taipei for a nice swim in the Pacific Ocean. On Sunday, we all took the gondola from Taipei up into the mountains to the Maokong tea plantations and teahouses.

-Roxanne

Fulong Beach

A temple near the beach

Riding up the Gondola

Making our tea

View from the teahouse

Jonathan, Tali, me and Marcella outside the teahouse where we had some tea that was grown nearby.