Taomeow

Very refreshing. In my then-atheistic old country we used to celebrate the New Year with the same gusto that was reserved for Christmas in the non-atheistic parts of the world. This is the picture of the last New Year's tree I saw, located within a short walking distance from where I lived. It wasn't the main one in the city, and therefore not the biggest -- but it was nice, and fully real. Our Grandfather Frost is not unlike Santa, but dresses somewhat differently (the hat especially) and doesn't go down the chimney, nor scrutinizes kids for who's naughty and who's nice, everybody gets a present. Adults didn't exchange presents, those were exclusively for kids -- whereas adults just threw and/or attended a party, usually the biggest party of the year.

I grew up with a song (by a brilliant singing poet) dedicated to musing about the reasons Captain Cook got eaten... though apparently modern revisions deny it. In any event, I am quite foggy on his route so I wouldn't be able to say if he be sailing north before, after, or instead of being eaten. That's a possibility. (Have you read 1421 or 1434 by any chance?)

Looks like it's not south west of anything at all... well, maybe something on that coast that is not as south west as this place. Some stray rock to the northeast of those rocks?.. However, this only concerns Western maps which, for reasons of the West not having had the yin-yang revelation and its relevance to us humans (who have our cold feet below, interfacing the earth, and our hot heads above, interfacing the Sun), counterintuitively place South (yang, the top, overhead stuff, where the Sun is in relation to everything on earth) on the bottom, and North (yin, the below, underfoot, where the sun don't shine) on top. Not so on taoist maps. In the canonical taoist Luoshu layout southwest is not far from where that South West Rocks is... perhaps a feng shui master was the one who named that place? In any event, I feel compelled to insert an interlude depicting a delightful case of a Western influence on a member of an Eastern culture. (They are not all delightful IMO, far from it... but this one is.)