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Today is my last day in Taipei, Taiwan and the last day of my trip. I’m pretty satisfied i saw enough of the 4,492 booths at Computex the past few days.

Today I went to a computer market in the city since Computex isn’t really for buying one of something, they wanted you to my hundreds. After a while I spotted what I was looking for, a SATA hard drive adapter for my laptop. I didn’t buy it though since the price was kind of high compared to what I could find on EBay.

I filled up on Taiwanese and Japanese food since it was my chance. I did read an article that it is best to not eat any food before a long flight to combat jet lag and adjust the to a new time zone the quickest. But oh well!

In the evening I took a bus to the airport for my 11:10PM, June 7th flight to San Francisco. The China Airlines flight was delayed a bit, but no problem. The flight showed some movies, including 10,000 BC, Step Up 2: The Streets, and CJ7. I arrived in San Francisco at 8:00PM, June 7th.

Today I wanted to visit some of the 1,725 exhibitors I missed and take a closer look at some of the bigger ones. I started at Nangang just like yesterday. Zalman was showing some video games displayed in 3D (glasses required) on LCDs. I think that looked pretty good. There were many companies trying to get the attention of buyers. So there were numerous booth babes and other activities. Abit showcased a Counterstrike game match between the top player in Taiwan and the top player in Indonesia.

Thermaltake had some interesting products. Many of their fans have some kind of LEDs embedded on the blades of the fan and when it spins it displays information like RPM and Temperature. The same company was also showing off a 2000 Watt Power Supply.

I noticed Taiwanese companies are selling double layer recordable Blu-ray discs. So if you have the correct drive, you can burn 50GB on a single disc. I imagine it is pretty expensive though.

There were some wild computer cases around. I saw water cooled, ones with tons of fans, but I liked the trend of big fans. Many cases have a single large fan, maybe 12 inches in diameter or larger. So I think they can run that at a low RPM and move a lot of air without too much noise.

Later I returned to the other location of the show. I saw the main ASUS booth which was very crowded. They were named the top brand in Taiwan this year because of the Eee-PC. I’ve noticed a lot of other travelers using that computer in hostels since it is so tiny and inexpensive. I have to say ASUS had some of the most impressive products, including audio cards and motherboards.

The four buildings yesterday aren’t quite big enough to hold the entire show. A new exhibition center called Nangang opened up this year just time time for Computex and it is the largest building of them all. It is located in a different part of the city, so I decided visit this site today.

The Nangang Exhibition Hall had most of the important companies on the upper floor, which was a smart move to get everyone out here. There was Intel and AMD from the US and all the major Taiwanese motherboard companies like MSI, Foxconn, Gigabyte, and Abit. There were tons of memory companies, like AData. Cooling companies like Zalman and Thermaltake. Things were more exciting here since many companies were using computer games to show off their hardware.

The hottest thing this here are the ultra portable PCs. Intel was showing around 10 different implementations using their new efficient Atom CPU. Intel also had a section showing overclocking of their CPUs. For example, they had a 3GHz CPU running at 4GHz with air cooling. There were more extreme demonstrations too. I noticed some companies had canisters of Liquid Nitrogen around. I saw some demos where they would pour the liquid directly onto the CPU and they got one up to 5.5GHz. It isn’t very practical though since you have to continuously pour the liquid on the CPU since it evaporates.

One of the reasons for visiting Taiwan was a chance to see the 2nd largest computer show in the world, Computex. It is located in a series of halls surrounding the world’s tallest building: Taipei 101.

I was a little concerned about registering and getting into the show since it seems to be open to only “professional buyers” for all the days but the last day. So I had to give them some company name, phone number, fax number, plus a business card and I was able to get in. Good thing I brought along a couple 7 year-old business cards from home just in case. It worked, I got a International Visitor badge that says “Lon Matero, United States.”

I started in Hall 1 of the Taipei World Trade Center. I noticed a lot of networking companies with wireless cards, routers, antennas. There was a bigger booth for Enermax, who makes the power supply in my computer at home. They were showing off a power supply running like 10 hard drives, 4 video cards, 2 CPUs all at the same time. There were more companies on the 2nd floor. One showed me a demo of a router that can connect to a G3.5 phone signal. They were getting pretty good speeds, 60KB/s or so average. I think hard to get that in the US. In Asia I think you can get unlimited data transfer for dirt cheap using these: $15-$20 a month.

Another antenna company asked for my business card, so right away I used up my only two cards (well, they weren’t accurate anyway). Throughout the day it got pretty uncomfortable since these companies are selling and they want my “company” to buy and possibly resell or distribute in the US. They would all ask for my card and information on my company which I didn’t have. I think it is unusual for someone to come all the way here to this show without a company sending them.

I checked out Hall 2 (all WiMAX technologies), Hall 3 (mostly consumer electronics), and TICC which has some smaller showrooms and meeting rooms. It was strange when I visited Analog Devices. They had a few prototype hardware designs running, but I wasn’t sure exactly what they did. After being confused after a while, I asked someone but then he wouldn’t talk to me because he thought I was a competitor at an American engineering company and these products were confidential. So I left and decided that was enough for one day.

Ever since yesterday afternoon it has been raining. I still had places to see, so I set off anyway. I borrowed an umbrella from the hotel and took a bus to the National Natural Science Museum. The highlight here was the Science and Technology of ancient China. The four big inventions where there: compass, paper, printing, and gunpowder. Some others like an ancient seismograph and a two story tall water powered astronomical clock.

In the afternoon I visited the nearby city of Changhua. And from there I took a bus to the 2nd oldest town in Taiwan, Lugang. I spent some time walking around there and then back to Taichung to pick up my bag and then head to the High Speed Rail station.

The High Speed Rail opened in 2006 with speeds up to 300km/h. The 700T train was made in Japan, and it is the latest model used in both countries. I think the tickets are a little cheaper here though.

I spent a night in Taichung, which means Middle Tai. It is funny that the other places I stayed were called Tainan and Taipei, which mean South Tai and North Tai. So I guess I have everything covered!

Today I took the bus to the very center of the island, the city of Puli. My destination was Chung Tai Chan monastery, a modern skyscraper like place surrounded by mountains. The same architect that designed the current world’s tallest building designed this place.

The only way to get there is taxi or walking 6km. I chose the taxi since I didn’t know the exact way to get there. It was an impressive place. I think I saw the tallest doors I’ve ever seen. Inside the entrance hall were four colossal statues used as columns to hold up the roof. It looked like something from a fantasy setting like Lord of the Rings. I soon found out I couldn’t see much of the monastery since only one section is open to the public. I asked some information at the reception desk and they were able to arrange a tour by one of the nuns.

After going through the public area again (Hall of the Four Heavenly Kings & The Great Majestic Hall), my guide took me up the elevator to the 5th floor to see The Great Magnificence Hall. There were no photos allowed here, but I saw a large gold disc behind a statue and on the opposite side was a plain looking Chan Meditation Hall that holds 300 people or so. Then it was up to the 16th floor and I saw a wonderful 7 story wooden pagoda in the enter of a large room with two 30m tall windows on each side. On the walls were 10,000 Buddha images. From here, we walked the wide stairway that leads outside back down to the 5th floor. Looking at my small guidebook of the building, there are still more non-public areas I did not see including the Great Enlightenment Hall containing a four-story high statue.

The entire building is 108m tall and it was one of the most impressive temples/monasteries I’ve seen anywhere. I was going to try walking back to the town of Puli, but it started raining. So I decided to eat in a vegetarian restaurant located just outside the gates. The rain did stop after a little while and I walked, but I didn’t know exactly how to get back. There was not a wide road leading away, but some small narrow roads. Finally one guy on a motorcycle tried to help, but we had trouble communicating and he drove me a little bit the wrong way. Finally I got on the right path and walked back. I was going to see if I could get a ride from someone. The Taxi was too expensive for one person, so I compromised only taking it one direction.

Walking down the main road to the city, some people on motorcycles said hello to me. One guy asked “Puli?” I said yes, and then he road away. I thought he was giving me a ride. About half way back it started to rain, so I got more desperate for a ride. I tried putting my thumb up to signal a car, but no luck. Finally a lady on a motorcycle stopped and gave me a ride in the rain, so I didn’t have to walk the rest of the way.

I took a morning train to Kaohsiung, followed by a bus to Fo Guang Shan, a large modern monastery complex. When I arrived, I asked for a place to put my luggage since I was carrying my full backpack. One of the shaved headed nuns told me it was 11:30 and I can have lunch up at the Pilgrim’s Lodge. I ate a nice vegetarian buffet lunch. And it was a donation type place too.

Then I gave myself a tour around the place, through huge halls, museums, art galleries, statue parks, and even a Disneyland style attraction featuring moving models of people.

On my way to leave, I tried to time myself to catch the bus, but then there was an “X” next to the time of 14:40. Someone explained that bus doesn’t run anymore, so I had to sit for another hour.

I was heading back to Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s 2nd largest city. It seems more dirty and more like China in this city compared to Taipei. Since it isn’t too attractive, I’m just passing through. I got a train to Taichung.

Tainan is the old capital of the country up until about 100 years ago, when it was moved to Taipei. Today I took a walk around the city. This included Koxinga’s Shrine, Temple of Five Concubines, Lady LinShui’s Temple, Confucius Temple (I walked in without paying for a ticket by mistake), National Museum of Taiwanese Literature, Altar of Heaven, God of War Temple, Mazu Temple, City God Temple, and East Mountain Temple. At these temples you see many people burning large stacks of money. It isn’t real money, but fake money that is supposed to go up to their ancestors in heaven.

Across the street from my hotel was a big bookstore. I found the English section on the 4th floor and read some Taiwan travel guides for ideas. And I did get some last minute places to go to.

I found a bar that had a place I could sit down and use a wireless Internet connection in the evening. I ordered a bowl of Vegetable Soup which seemed pretty healthy.

I checked out of my cheap room in Taipei and got on a train headed for Tainan. I took one of the slower trains, so it was about five and a half hours to get there. It was nice to have an air conditioned ride though.

After arriving, I checked a couple hotels. There was a hostel, but it was way outside of the city so I don’t think it was worth the trouble. One of the hotels had free Wi-fi, and I got their security key. But I decided to go for the other one across the street because it was cheaper. I found out if I sat on the stairs by the lobby I could steal the Wi-fi signal from the other hotel.

I took a trip to a mountain recommended in the book. Since it was a weekday, there are barely anyone there. There were trails near small rivers and others near the peak with nice views where I could see all the way out to the sea. There were a number of temples, the majority of which were built into caves on the side of the mountain. I ate a vegetarian lunch at one of them.

Below Lion’s Head Mountain was Emei Lake. Next to the lake there was a 72 meter tall statue. Afterwards, I took a trip through Hsinchu Science Park. Many of the world’s leading semiconductor companies are here. Also this is where the companies are that manufacture recordable DVDs are located.

For dinner, I visited a Japanese restaurant that had some barbeque. It seemed similar to the Korean BBQ I’ve tried before though.