May 16, 2008 - Intersection of Xinyi and Keelung roads, looking east at Taipei 101, the 2nd highest building in the world. Somehow that doesn't have the same impressiveness as saying "the tallest building in the world". Oh well.

It's been raining for more than 24 hours straight. It may have let up for short periods of less than an hour, but I think it's been pretty much constant since yesterday morning. I think it's from a typhoon to the southwest that isn't predicted to come near us, but the rain is dumping down on us.

So I couldn't do any riding yesterday, on my rare day off with no work and no rehearsal/gig, but I'm quitting my job next week, going in for weekends for maybe a month longer, so I'll have a lot more time soon. Although I'm supposed to be using the time to really try to nail down the language before I leave.

I was hoping to ride out to Taiwan's east coast. I'm doing more day riding now that the Summer heat is gone. It's still hotter than San Francisco ever gets, except during their laughable "heat waves", which to me is just comfortable, but it's all relative.

The other day, I found a road from Xizhi (汐止), just east of Taipei, that goes south to Pingxi (平溪), that I did during the daytime. Day riding still sucks because of the traffic and pollution, and Route 5 out of Taipei wasn't exactly pleasant, but once I got off that main road onto 北31 to Pingxi, it turned out to be a great ride. The climb went up to 655 meters (over 2000') before descending down to Pingxi.

And strangely, I was worried when I started out before noon that it would be uncomfortably hot, since the sun was shining and it was already probably in the low 80s. But as I got out of Taipei and headed up the mountain, it clouded over and the temperature came down, and it was a pleasant climb. I was even worried about rain.

But as soon as I started descending, the clouds disappeared and the rest of the ride was all in sunlight. As good as it gets.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Ai Suru Hito Yo (Sakura)
2. Samurai Showdown (RZA - "Ghost Dog")
3. Cracked Actor (live) (David Bowie)
4. Yume no Tamago (Ichiko Hashimoto - "RahXephon")
5. Chan Chan (Eliades Ochoa - "Buena Vista Social Club")
6. Wonder (Natalie Merchant)
7. Walking in Space ("Hair")
8. Giant Steps (John Coltrane)
9. I'll Be Back (The Beatles)
10. Got To Get You Into My Life (The Beatles - Anthology)