Sweatin' to the oldies (in Chinese)

More mountain climbing! Yay! Until you get about two-thirds up and then, phooey.

But before you go hiking, gotta have a healthy breakfast.















These are called "chicken paws" in the menu. They just gave them to Marie at a fried chicken place she goes to. She says they must like her to give her free food. I shouldn't disagree but I wonder if this isn't the fast food version of the horse head in your bed.

We chucked the whole bucket. Marie said we should leave 'em out for the local dogs, but I'm worried about local rats and cockroaches.

Speaking of: I've recently learned that window cleaner makes a surprisingly effective roach killer. Part of life in the tropics, you have to deal with the occasional roach. They get in through the AC. I've never seen Marie hide under the covers until a roach flew in the bedroom one morning. She said she heard it go "oooph" when it hit the far wall. I went for the cleaner while she left the room, somehow without touching the floor....

Really cleaner works 'cause we've only seen a couple this entire summer, tho' we still have a lot of summer to go, here. Something about drowning them in ammonia. At least the area's clean after it's dead, which's a plus when it greets you on the kitchen counter. And I should be grateful it just walked out in the light and found me and not Marie.

But who cares!

The educational part of my hike yesterday was how I had a map and a guide book and I still ended up on the wrong mountain. I think I was one mountain west of Yangming mountain. I was definately on Zhongzheng mountain but I must've made a wrong turn at Albuquerque, so to speak.















I was really glad to find these trail signs, even if they took me to the wrong mountain they were rather comforting. Tho' it's pretty funny to see them while you're still in town.
















I love how people will build a row of three and four story apartments across the road from nothing. Sure, everyone wants the view, but I'm used to it being out the back of the apartment-house-condo.

I was aiming at "the tallest mountain north of Taipei" Yangming mountain. At not quite 1,200 meters I thought it'd be okay. I keep forgetting to convert. So I set out to walk up instead of taking the bus to a trailhead.















In my defense, I did get to see some really great scenery like this tower.
















And this temple or something like it. And it was a really nice day. The high point was about 94 so with the humidity it felt like 111 (so says weather.com). But I had a lot of fluids and a hat and lightweight clothing. I spent my day dodging from shade to shade and I was fine.

I don't know what this building is, but it was amazingly yellow. It's like a like detergent ad. As in, "gee Marge, how do you keep your building colors so bright?"















I'm still working on getting details of what this place is, 'cause I want to know. It was just on the side of this suburban road on the side of the mountain. Obviously, it's not little, but it wasn't as eye-popping as most temples are with the bright colors and dragons. More like a hotel, but it's not in a good place for that.















This's how I spent most of the afternoon. Some group had cut and placed more of the footpath stones through this bamboo grove. It was kinda stifling in there, but it was shaded, so there was a trade off. And every few hundred feet the trail would cross a road and I could get a breeze.

The road for cars and scooters, which was not made for two cars to pass each other, weaved back and forth, while the hiking trail shot straight up the side. It was a great physical example of switchbacks versus straight-up-the-mountain hiking.

I kinda like the straight-up idea, but I found myself considering each stairway and if I wanted to go slower and longer. I took a couple short curves on the road. Fortunately, the park at the top was the only destination and Tuesday afternoon wasn't a big hiking time, and I could hear everything coming.















This's an example of how confused this city and country is about pedestrians, or how comfortable people are with traffic, I haven't figured it out, myself. I'm just really careful when I hike these places.

You can see next to that black-on-yellow arrow in the middle, there's a railing. There are benches there and even a trashcan (which's really unusual for Taipei) and the view is great, terrific even. So they want people to come and rest and look, but you can see the shoulders of the road... there aren't any. Weirdos.

I did finally make it to the parking lot at the top of the mountain. At the time I still thought it was Yangming and I thought a bus would stop there and carry me home. So I decided to dig in and climb just another five hundred meters for the view, even tho' the parking lot was pleasant and pleasantly breezy after an hour or more in bamboo groves.
















But I did learn that when they say .5 km, they almost certainly mean, straight up. I found this sign after what felt like a half mile. It says, you have only walked .2 km, weenie.















I did meet this guy on the way up. He was very happy to sit and have me scratch him. He didn't want me to leave, but he didn't want to come up with me. I guess he'd seen the view plenty of times.















And it'd become a mantra for the day, "and what did I find when I got there? More stairs!" It was staggering after the afternoon, but it was worth it.



I did an entire 360 pan. The mountains behind this one are obviously larger. That was disappointing, especially how big they still looked. I had to save those for another day. Obviously it doesn't do as much in this small frame, but it's overlooking the entire Taipei basin and as the camera pans it goes from east to west. You can see all the way from downtown Taipei and 101 to Danshuei and the Taiwan Strait.

The amazing part is, I'm on the wrong mountain. This's only about 650 meters up. It sounds better when I say it's a little more than 2,000 feet, but until I got to the parking lot, I thought I'd climbed almost 4,000 feet. Talk about a let down, or a didn't-go-so-high.

But it was still a lot of fun. I did discover that by not being on the right mountain, there was no bus to take me back. I had to walk down a half hour before I found a bus stop, which took me to the metro, which took me home.

Oh, in the video, technically, I think you can see our neighborhood, if not our house.















And I saw this and I remembered mom telling me I needed to take pictures with people in them. So, there you go, ready-made self-portrait opportunity.

Up the mountain

The typhoon thing has been really weird. It did so much flooding damage in the south but Marie and I went to the mall that weekend. There's a place called Miramar with a movie theater and shops and an arcade and so on. It's got a stop on the new MRT line, so we went to see the new route, which's an elevated train so it's like a really smooth, double-decker bus ride, instead of riding a fast earthworm.

It was rainy but it was only about 30 C (85 ish) after all the typhoon rain, so it was much more comfortable. Ironically, the 80 percent humidity made you want to move so you'd have a breeze.

We had lunch there, which was a little disappointing, only 'cause it was rather bland. Usually the steamed potstickers are tastier than that. Go figure. And we saw the ferris wheel, which's big enough they light it at night and can be easily seen from Taipei 101. It's like the Eye in London.



In retrospect, since there was a typhoon in the area, it made sense we didn't go for a ride (I'm pretty sure I saw a few people on it, but not many). But we were looking at it and Marie said, "I'll bet they aren't air-conditioned." And that's where we left it.

On our way back, we got donuts. Have I mentioned that donuts are a dessert or snack, here? Like, in the evening? They are. You want donuts for breakfast, you gotta plan ahead, and then not eat 'em when you get home. (That's the hard part.)
















I haven't tried this–'cause Mochi rings are really chewy and I don't care for 'em; they're practically gum, there's nothing like 'em in food Americana–so I don't know if it's corn-flakes kinda corn or corn corn, but they do love corn here. And, you could be forgiven if you thought they like to misspell things (it says "Corn Curmb").















And this we saw when Marie was trying to find a keyboard for a friend . I've seen these pink guitars in lots of guitar stores, but I didn't have a camera. Mostly this's for my dad. I'm sorry he didn't get to see this while he was here.

Really, the best Hello Kitty is the Hello Kitty wine (I am not making this up) but this's a pretty good second.

But I finally went hiking again on my day off! Ha! I went to the same area I went last month. So in the photo of the trail in the woods, I came from the direction the photo was looking.

This was particularly entertaining 'cause I forgot to look at a map before I left home, so I wasn't even sure what stop I should get off at. I did find the stop, but the map in the station didn't have any details about where to find the other end of the trail (so I could do it backwards to make it seem different). So I just wandered up to where it said the trailhead was and I took the right fork of the trail instead of the left I took last time.

It worked out very well. The trails are marked, but really, once you get away from the city, which's pretty sudden, there isn't a whole lot you can do but follow the trail.

So after following a canal out of the urban area–chasing herons all the way–and going up the trail and lots of stairs and more trail but mostly lots more stairs. I found something that looked promising.



More stairs!

That's the city below (that's how far up I'd already hiked) and these stairs run up into the foliage and they keep going.

After these stairs, I found this edge just away from the trail, so you get an idea of how high I'd hiked. It took a little effort to get to, and I wasn't very close to the edge, mom. I stuck the camera out.



My best guess, with a little help from Google, I was somewhere from four to five hundred meters up. It's hard to be sure, but it seemed like even more.
















I found this marker a little farther along. It says 4K+0M, but I don't know from where. I was really confused when I found this one five meters farther on.
















So, I really don't know how far I went, but it took a couple of hours and 32 ounces of water.

Unfortunately, I didn't remember to bring any dry clothes for the 95 degree, sixty percent humidity day, but there was a breeze and shade, tho' that didn't stop profuse sweating.

But this's the amusing part of Taiwan. Almost 500 meters up a steep hillside, there's a Chinese inspired pavilion. Surprisingly, it's not painted bright red.
















But! Because it's Taipei (second most people per square mile on earth, look out Calcutta!) there's a couple of guys there reading and napping on a Tuesday afternoon.
















Just a little farther up the trail (it was mostly level at this stage) I found this shelter. The unexpected thing is it's completely made of concrete. Maybe some kind of plaster, but it's really solid. No water, insect, or mold damage on this thing.

There's also a little temple on the other side. I was going to take a picture, but it felt awkward 'cause, yes, someone had either come up the 500 meters from the city or from the town a kilometer on the other side of the hill to pray. And no, this's not accessible by car, scooter, or bus. If you own a goat, that might work.



But this's why I came up here. Babbling brook and no city noises or concrete walls. The little old lady (you can hear her humming) almost bumped into me as I was standing on the bridge. I guess not that many people come through. But she was funny 'cause she was up the trail, above me on the stairs, and she starts offering me some kinda juice box, a beer (no joke), and fruit. I'd have taken a video of the exchange but the end of that video was when my 2 gig chip filled up.

I'd have considered taking something, just to be polite (I think) and maybe make her feel better (I hope) but I was really afraid the juice box looked like it was asparagus (yes, asparagus juice, in a kiddie box, with a tiny little straw, bleeeech), and I've been kinda ill on beer lately (like an allergy, thank you very much), and the fruit, well, my bag was already kinda icky. I didn't think the fruit would be edible when it got home. Accepting anything felt kinda wasteful.

I kept thanking her and telling her I (politely) didn't want any, but I almost had to beat her off with a stick.

It wasn't hard with her, but we say "bu yong" a lot, which's the polite way to say "I don't want it" and I notice it's easier in a foreign language to be polite when someone's shoving a flyer in your face 'cause you don't really understand what you're saying. You just know this's what you're supposed to say.

I headed on down the trail towards the Outdoor Classroom of Water and Soil Conservation of Guizikeng. Incidentally, Guizikeng is the name of the trail and the area and the mountain.















There were a zillion gecko-salamander things that kept running underfoot, but way too fast to photograph. But this frog sat still.

For a moment I wondered if he was dead, 'cause I kept getting closer and closer but he didn't move or even blink. Then I nudged him with my toe and nothing. Then I brushed him with a leaf and nothing. Then I tapped him with my finger and POW! Like he'd been spring-loaded and just trying not to laugh. He jumped a couple feet up and a couple across, tho' he was going downhill. I went the other way, also pretty quick.
















This's pretty funny. After being in Nebraska for a couple of months last summer and seeing a few more backroads than I remember, seeing a sign for a town pointing down this dirt path, it just made me think that there are still plenty of places where even Nebraska infrastructure seems pretty well done.

And really, this was just a path 'cause it was leading away from the hiking trail. It goes a hundred yards across these kinda peapatch gardens to an asphalt road that leads to the town Xiaopingding. Not like you'd ride your scooter over this narrow dirt road a mile or something.
















Finally, I wasn't quite sure what to make of this. There's like a cottage industry here of people seem to survive on recycling everything (except glass, which has to be done industrially). So I wonder if this pile is a garbage dump (there's a golf course around the corner), a recycle center (leave it and someone will haul it away eventually), or someone's drop site before they sort it and take it to exchange for cash.

So that was my day off.

I didn't mention the ants who seemed out in force, or how pleased I am that I don't seem to be tasty to mosquitoes or ticks and I don't think there are ticks, here. And I didn't mention the huge spider I saw silhouetted against the city at a distance of twenty feet but I could still tell he was missing a leg. But that's how busy the day was, too many other things.

Weather the weather

To everyone who pays attention to the weather in this corner of the world: we're fine. We got two days off out of the the typhoon last weekend, which means a lot of money, but it was really great to have a three day weekend.

I got the impression that they don't like to shut down for two days because of the weather. I don't understand what it means when the city shuts down, 'cause the garbage trucks still came through. But that's when Kojen cancels classes: when the city says they're closed due to inclement weather (but in Chinese).

But I think the typhoon fooled people, 'cause it really looked on radar like the thing hit the island and squished into a big rainstorm. So it was pretty easy to just enjoy the cooler weather (80-85 and 80 percent humidity, don't ask me why it wasn't a hundred, that's what our little gauge said). We went out shopping on Saturday and saw a movie with friends on Sunday and found a great tex-mex place called Yuma.

But here's a little look at our experience.