Notes from Taiwan: Taipei Miscellany

Taipei wakes up slowly. My first day here started early on account of jet lag. I stalled waking until 6:45 AM, but my body refused to get the rest it needed beyond that. Alice and I spent the next few hours in aimless pursuit of coffee. There are many shops to be found, but none that cared to open before 10 o'clock. . . . and even then tardiness is the norm.

It is impossible to adequately describe the humidity here. Swedish saunas would seem parched compared to a normal day once the sun has towered over the sky-rises. Even relatively young buildings here appear old. Tiles and bricks all quickly gain the appearance of a public shower in a college dormitory. The air carries a weight that clings to everything. The sun here is not as scorching as in Texas. In Dallas when one ventures outside at mid-day they get the feeling that the sun is carrying out an angry vendetta against them. The logical conclusion is to flee for shade and wait for nightfall. Not here. Here the sun seems removed from the experience of heat. It seems to merely be the commandant of the air, which obeys its commands even in its absence, but ever-so-much-more in its presence. Either way, the simple act of walking overwhelms with the sense that the air is attacking you; coagulating around you. Its purpose being to immobilize, and drown the individual suffering its fervor.

The streets here are a hurried, partially-tamed chaos. Scooters equal or outnumber cars. The line at stop-lights leaves a large space for the mass of scooters that make their way to the front: most of them preferring to drive on the dashes as between them. Like any city of this size the motion is endless and partially disorienting.

I have walked more in the past 3.5 days than in the few years that have preceded them. I wake up sore every morning, but I've come to realize that restful vacations are wasted ones. Or so I'm telling myself, while trying to ignore the pain in my heels. Luckily parks in Taipei have short "trails" of fixed, rounded stones designed to increase blood flow to the feet of the elderly. I am loving my old age.