After a much longer stay in Israel than I planned, I’m now back in Taiwan. Was great seeing everybody and everything in Israel, even though I did miss Taiwan. (Photo : My two lovely sisters and I at the Sataf, overlooking the mountains surrounding Jerusalem on a beautiful sunny day)

I know very little about Japan and I’m not part of the Japan blogosphere, but after Chinalyst a Japan based blogger suggested that I duplicate the site to provide the same platform for the Japan based expat bloggers. I spent about 3 hours doing small tweaks and introduced Japanalyst. It hasn’t been doing very well, mainly since there was no one to promote it. Every once in a while I would get an email about something …

Being away from Israel I haven’t heard about this film coming out, but luckily, I stumbled across “Noodle” in a nearby DVD rental shop, and how glad I am that I did.

A Chinese female foreign worker, working for an Israeli woman - Miri, goes away for one hour and disappears leaving behind a sweet Chinese kid that knows absolutely no Hebrew. If you were Miri - what …

My current status and future is an issue that constantly preoccupies my mind. Entering the big three O, I am regularly faced with the eternal question of whether the path that I’ve chosen for myself is indeed the right one for me. I was watching an “okay” Hollywood movie the other day which had this one short story that made an impression on me about one Zen master. Sharing this story with some of my Taiwanese friends it was fascinating to hear that they actually recall variations of this story taught to them by their parents when they were little. I’d like to quote the story …

Just wanted to point a small amazing fact I came across the other week. When working with Michael on something technical I became aware of the simple fact that since beginning of 2005 Michael Turton has written over 2800 posts and has over 10000 comments on his blog averaging over two posts a day - any day. Don’t think  it’s impressive? Check out this Wiki webpage detailing the most prolific bloggers in the world. Many of them are paid bloggers blogging for a living (e.g. Bill Belew), some of them make huge sums of money off their blogs …

Just a quick note to let those interested know that - concluding the first academic year in Taiwan I’ll be heading out within 2-3 weeks for what seems like a short visit to Israel. What would happen after that I’m still not sure. Since it currently seems like my time in Israel would be very limited, do contact me and let me know if there’s anything I should know about in advance or if you maybe wish to meet.