New Zealand and Australia in 2 months

I had lunch with my junior high classmate at Giguo (聚北海道昆布鍋). I do not understand why it is very popular to eat hotspots in hot summer in strong air conditioning. This restaurant chain has a cheaper (almost half price) sister store 12 Hotpot ( 石二锅) of the same owner with similar manus but different grades of ingredients.

Emei Township was originally named from the curved crescent moon shape of the Emei Stream (峨眉溪). The tourist attractions include Emei Lake, Erliao Divien Tree, Fuxing Old Street, Mount Shitou, Qixing Camphor Tree, Qixing Tree, Shierliao Leisure Agricultural Region, Xi Mao Bu Hanging Bridge, and the Maitreya Great Tao Conplex that has a Maitreya stature bigger than the Stature of Liberty outside of the New York City Horbor.  According to Buddhist tradition, Maitreya is a bodhisattva who will appear on Earth in the future, achieve complete enlightenment, and teach the pure dharma. According to scriptures, Maitreya will be a successor to the present Buddha, Gautama Buddha.  There are quite a few self-proclaimed Maitreya around the world. I have no idea and do not care who is the Maitreya if it actually exists. Yet I recommend to check out Maitreya Great Tao Conplex which is free and pretty impressive. Be mindful about the open hours and dress code (no sandals, etc.).

I attended a block chain summit and a dinner banquet for the club of one-hundred alumni each donating one million dollars (清華百人會)as parts of celebration of 107 anniversary of National TsingHua University in Hsinchu. There were dance performance by 5 Elin models (伊林模特儿) and singing performance by 方悸惟。

I attended the 2018 Future Commerce Expo (2018 未來商務展) in Taipei Expo Park (花博公园) with a theme of “Beyond Boundary” and enterprises exhibit new business models that integrate new business models of industries, technologies, such as A.I., big data, cloud, AR, VR, MR, blockchain etc. unfortunately, I did not see anything impressive to compete with Alipay and other ecommerce platforms/tools prevailing in China.  I then attended the R&D showcases by  Institute for Information Industry(資訊工業策進會) a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO)  supporting the development/applications of the information industry as well as the information society in Taiwan. Clearly, Taiwan's competency is based on advanced/smart manufacturing, and has a lot to do to float over the IOT ocean.

I bumped into Bopiliao (剝皮寮)historic city block featuring traditional 18th-century architecture, plus an educational center. Bopiliao lies within Kangding Road, Guangzhou Street and Kunming Street in the Wanhua District and is one of the most complete historical streets conserve in Taipei City. Some of its significant historical meanings include being the main route from Bangka to Guting Village in the Qing Dynasty. In the late afternoon I ran into Huashan 1914 Creative Park (華山文創園區) That offers artists a place to develop their creations and non-profit organizations a venue to hold activities. Huashan 1914 Creative Park was opened in 1916 as Taihoku Winery during Japanese rule. It was privately owned winery that produced sake and ginseng wines, and bred moth orchids. I had dinner at Formosa Chang Taipei ChengDe Restaurant (鬍鬚張滷肉飯) with a friend. It's Braised pork on rice (famous Taiwanese comfort food) melt in my mouse and tasted better than others'.

Many of Taiwan's electronics companies, such as Acer, are headquartered in Xizhi, but I visited two biotech companies in Xizhi Science Park located within U-Town,a commerce center with multiple functions, such as entertainment, business, and dining areas, built by Farglory Group (遠雄企業).  There are hypermarkets, such as Carrefour and Costco, international computer companies, and retailer of consumer electronics and entertainment software, such as TK3C, and the Farglory Museum, exhibiting worldwide architectural history.  I had dinner at  1010 Hunan Cuisine  with my junior high classmate who is a deputy general manager of one of the biotech companies.