Sunday, May 01, 2011

RAWRGHH!!!!

Dang it, I do, I really do want to get this blog off the ground. Like the kites in the previous posts. Fly, lomoblog, fly! I'll be the flatulence wind beneath your wings.

Shot 2 and a half bloody years ago, here are the last shots from that ride before I went crazy and stopped posting. Fortunately this isn't a current events blog, and pics are just pics, even 2 and a half years later. That's the extent of me being philosophical:
Looks like kind of a fishing village on the east coast of Taiwan. I say "looks like kind of" because I image fishing villages being isolated, but northern Taiwan is largely urbanized and these fishing harbors aren't exactly isolated. Fisherfolk don't even need to live near their boats and non-fisherfolk also inhabit these parts. Or not. I don't know. I don't have the documentation. Sometimes I just like to make shit up. Get off my back.

Shipping containers piled up at Keelung Harbor. The bike ride goes up the coast from Ruifang to Keelung - the largest port in northern Taiwan. I think Kaohsiung in the south is Taiwan's largest port.

After reaching Keelung, the ride heads west back to Taipei. I've been exploring cycling routes between Taipei and Keelung that don't go on what are basically highways, and I've found a network of back roads and riverside bikeways that accomplish this. This was at one of the access points of a bikeway. A fat, laughing buddha. Which is a Chinese folk creation. Has nothing to do with Buddhism per se.

An impressive bridge tower which I can't help but think was built more for show than to hold up a roadway. Seriously, if I took a wider shot, it's just a short piece of road that hardly warrants such a structure.

空に咲く花 Sora ni Saku Hana (Chitose Hajime)

2 comments:

joyce said...

how come the chinese made buddha fat and laughing? i love your lomos, post on, brother.

koji said...

Thanks, Joyce! I seriously need to upkeep this blog, if for nothing but to keep up with links to others including yours!

The fat, laughing buddha probably had more to do with making foreign Indian Buddhism palpable for the local Chinese communities. The connection made people feel like they were doing good for themselves, praying for prosperity, when the symbolism in the fat, laughing buddha (greed, indulgence, attachment, desire) is counter to the teachings. I think he is based on a real monk, but the symbolism got twisted.