Wandering

I did it today. Got out and walked the city without supervision, and it was great! =D

The morning was spent in Guandu looking at the mangrove reserve there. Hmm...that place is quite modest compared with Sungei Buloh, but there was the ever present wind. And all that time spent memorising the physical geog stuff came in useful, finally =P Heh, geography is only justified when one goes out of boring old Singapore. In Taiwan, I saw mangroves, a real hot spring, real faultlines, real mountains, and had a dormant volcano thrown in for good measure. And to top it all off, they say there's a typhoon on the way...

Anyhoos, after we got back to school, YS and I went hunting for a bank so I could change some of the emergency Singapore money to make up for my expenditures on gifts ordered from Taiwan. The odd thing about Taipei banks is that they open real early at 9am, but close at 3.30pm, and the only bank that accepts Singapore dollars is like next door to where I live, so wandering around the banks near school was useless. But it did give us a chance to explore the school district and the Shilin Road, and looking for something while not knowing exactly where to find it, and relying on your own resourcefulness, is fun in itself =)

YS was looking for a camera, cos her digicam had run out of battery and she didn't have the charger for the funny Canon battery. So after the bank hunt proved useless, we scouted the road again for cameras of the analog age, cos she had lots of film left (it's a long story). After a while, though, it occured to us that buying a battery charger would probably be cheaper than buying a photographic antique, and that took us on a trail leading from a Shilin photocopy shop that sold her type of battery, but not the charger, to an electronics shop in neighbouring Zhishan district that sold the charger but didn't have it in stock. So tomorrow she'll have to pop down to get it again. But in getting there, we walked up and down the road between the school and the Shilin Metro station like twice over, and took two buses. Hehheh, I gotta say I was pretty proud of that impromptu navigation =P Shows that we can survive in hectic Taipei.

For dinner, we went to the largest Sogo outside of Japan, the Pacific Sogo in East Taipei, which is a twelve-storey complex that puts Taka to shame =P We had some Ma La Huo Guo, which is basically steamboat with really spicy and hot soup. The food was all right, but we had to pay NT300 for the atmosphere, which was really heartbreaking seeing my limited supply of NT dollars being gouged out mercilessly. But afterwards, I got off one Metro stop early and found my way to the river, and followed it home, cos we finished really early and there was a ton of time before I needed to be home. The riverside path is really peaceful, and populated enough with joggers and dog walkers to be safe at night. And since where I live is next to the Diplomatic Complex of Taiwan, it's perhaps the most secure place in the whole city. Strolling along the river among parks and trees swaying in the strong wind, and all alone, was refreshing and really a singular experience. It reminds me of all those times in Lyon...there's the same feeling of freedom and anticipation here. Of expecting something to happen when rationally you know that the odds are that nothing will happen.

Hmm...but I expected that all the Texprog people would go out together tonight, given that this is the last day of their exams. After today, they're supposed to devote all their time to entertaining us. Heh...while that may not be as hot as it sounds, the lacklustre response today was also a bit...worrying. Me, I would be glad that the exam is over, no matter how it went. But their exams are regarded much more seriously than our common tests, or even promos, and on top of their memorisation and tuition for the exams, they have to entertain us. And yesterday, instead of being given time to study, Young was forced to prepare for the farewell dinner on the 8th. It's really pressurising for them, and it seems that some of them really didn't handle it properly, their dual commitments. To be sure, it's quite ridiculous to expect them to be able to deal with everything at the same time. I wonder what the heck the organisers were thinking.

And on the one hand, I feel really sympathetic, and want to be as supportive as possible, but on the other hand, it's clear that some of them want to forget all about it, and pretend that everything's gone fine.

The thing is that due to the crappy timing of this trip, they only effectively have two days to play all-out with us, and those are the last two days that we will spend in Taipei. I feel, really, that time is running out, and although there have been really worthwhile experiences, that there's still a potential left to exploit, and we won't be able to push it to the max at this rate.

Oh well...anyway, a word about Guandu, which is in the suburbs of Taipei. The peace and quiet of the streets there are a refreshing change from the congested avenues of the capital. Where Taipei is all dust and noise and killer cars, Guandu is empty streets, twittering sparrows and fresh winds. Taipei is exciting, but Guandu is definitely healthier. And the landscape there is really rich and well preserved, so much so that it seems like the nature reserve not only protects the natural landscape, but the cultural terrain and historical weight too.

And the thing that I think I will miss most about Taipei is, undoubtedly, the wind. Singapore air is positively stagnant compared to the bracing breezes and powerful gusts that swirl around these streets and the mountaintops. Here, the air is powerful.

And three scenarios when you don't feel like moving...when your toilet seat has become warm, when you're under the cascade of a perfectly adjusted shower, and when you're burrowed in a warm bed.

pondered by phoenican @ 1.12.04