Things that grow out of the soil...: Lecture Day

Today I gave my first lecture while here. I got together this morning with the dean, who arranged for my visit, and she told more about the audience I was speaking to. I had been planning on reading the lecture and showing a Powerpoint slideshow, but after our conversation I realized it would be better if I just talked my way through the lecture without reading it, just outlining the argument based on the Powerpoint. So that's what I did, and I think it went fine. Here are some pictures from before and after the lecture.

At the beginning of my prelecture walk.

This was just a big flowerpot-type thing with little lilies growing in it. There were also some little guppies living in it but I couldn't get a good pic of those.

A very rootsy tree

I had heard that there were some monkeys that lived in the forest around campus, so I hiked up these stairs and into the forest.

My host told me a story about the monkeys: A few years ago, one of the students had a large amount of money stolen and the theft was reported to the police. The police opened an investigation, but then the next day the investigation was closed when a monkey showed up in front of the student store and through a whole bunch of money into the air.

No monkeys but a bird.

I started walking down this trail once I got to the top of the stairs.

I didn't see any monkeys.

But I did see this tree with a face in it.

Wearing a scarf

I went back down to the main part of campus and saw this stone table and chairs.

These seemed like cool benches.

Sidewalk mosaic

Still walking, pre-lecture.

I saw this tree that had a hole in the trunk and I was impressed with the gardeners that they had succeeded in saving it even though it had gone through such trauma.

And then I looked more closely, and as far as I can tell, the gardeners not only saved the tree from the trauma but also induced the trauma, removing a big piece of the trunk to let the roots grow in a funky way. I wish I knew how to do things like that.

I thought of W and S, and that they would like to see this squirrel

I liked this green building, mainly because the paint was buckling.

I liked the sea life sculptures on the pillars holding up the motorcycle parking lot.

My walk took me to another view of the dogs' kingdom, where the canal hits the beach.

I was disappointed that there was a seawall keeping me from the beach.

They don't have one of these at my home university.

This was on the exterior wall of the Department of Marine Environment and Engineering

This rose was waving quite a bit in the wind

Pon-Pon Man

On the other side of the green building with buckling paint, it turned out this was a US-Taiwan Center. It was closed so I couldn't go in.

It looked like there was a car of some political significance parked in a display garage next to the US- Taiwan Center

After the lecture, we went out onto a balcony and I associated with another of the university's guests, visiting the Department of Marine Ecology and Engineering.

A pic with the other guest and his host, and my host also.

It was windy up there.

Then I was taken by some students on a five-minute ferry ride to another island.

I was interested to see so many motorcycles on the ferry.

The sun was setting as we sailed toward dinner on the other island.

Still, scenes from the ferry ride.

I saw these and they reminded me of becak in Indonesia.

There was a lot of seafood on this island, but I'm not sure if this was seafood. It would depend on what species of snail I was looking at.

Interesting to see squid on a stick for sale.

As we walked, we passed a temple that I wanted to look at.

They said it was third-class, but that was just a lie. It seemed good to me.

This pic reminds me of the cover of Wilco's album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, even if this isn't in Chicago. These towers were inside the temple, maybe 10 feet tall, with little compartments, each containing a little statue as far as I could tell. I asked what this was, and my host said that people can buy a statue and have it placed in the compartment and then have their name written below the compartment.

Moving back into the street.

Beginning to look at the selections of food along the road. The idea involved ordering the food on the street and then going into the restaurant to wait for it to be cooked.

At first when I saw this sign, I thought it was a mistake or mistranslation. But then I saw the illustration and realized they had named their ice cream parlor exactly what they intended to name it: "Modern Toilet Ice Cream"?

I was offered frog tonight, but I opted not to have them. I've eaten frog a handful of times and have nothing against frog, But tonight I didn't want frog.