Hey Doc

(Christmas decoration at Breeze Shopping Center)
Three weeks ago, Christmas decorations were up at many stores in Taipei. We are still almost two months away. In the light of seemingly slumping economy, no wonder merchants are anxious to kick start the buying spread. The only complain I have is " do we have to listen to the Christmas songs for two months?".
Taiwan government has decided to rescue the country's economy by issuing economic stimulus coupon to every citizens. The merit of this plan drew many debates from 'experts'. How effective is very questionable but the people are very happy to receive extra money that they can spend.

(UFO house)

I received a special email today, an email I sent to myself three years ago. In the Fall of 2005, I participated a project conducted by Forbes.com called "eMail Time Capsule". The project was part of a special report on communicating and was designed as an experiment to allow readers to communicate with their future selves. Although the span of the future time was up to 20 years but I picked for 3 years. So there are still 17 more years to go for some people. BTW, 19% of the participant chose 20 years. Go to forbes.com email time capsule for more information. If this interests you, futureme.org had taken over this project. So, send in your email time capsule. Make sure your email provider is solid that they will be around when the email is scheduled to send.

Speaking of time capsule, San Tsu, a sleepy coastal town about an hour drive from Taipei has the most talked about abandoned structure in the world, the UFO house. The construction of this ocean front resort started in 1970's but it was never finished. It lies there empty for over three decades. Some says the company ran out of money before it can finish it, some thinks the project was doomed from the beginning because of the wrong building materials were used. Mixed of concrete and fiberglass can not withstand the force of the coastal weather. Some even believes that the place was haunted by the worker who were killed during the construction. This site came into the spotlight recently because of the rumor that the city is going to bulldoze all the building for a new development project at the site. People are flocking over there for photographs of the last memory of the place. To see more of the photos, go here.