March 12, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan. Aiguo West Road near Xiaonanmen. "Nanmen" meaning "south gate", this was probably originally part of the south wall fortification surrounding the original Taipei City, which was no more than the current western part of Zhongzheng District and a little north of Taipei Main Station. It's hard to imagine Taipei a hundred years ago.

This shot didn't work. I was trying to get that busted up motor scooter that get left by the gate. The gate is on an island in the middle of the road, with a roundabout going around it.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. You're My Best Friend (Queen)
2. Anata Dake o - Summer Heartbreak - (Southern All-Stars)
3. Paquita (Tabu Ley & Africando)
4. Mothership Connection (Star Child) (Parliament Funkadelic)
5. Long Painting (50 Foot Wave)
6. Stop Your Sobbing (The Pretenders)
7. Five O'Clock Drag (Duke Ellington)
8. Stone the Crows ("Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat")
9. Pencil Rain (They Might Be Giants)
10. Ugly (Smashing Pumpkins)

March 9, 2008 - Taipei, Taiwan. Nanjing East Road near the Guangfu North Road intersection. This is my new neighborhood after I moved in the beginning of March. I had been in this area before, albeit rarely, on rides. Needless to say, I never thought I would one day live here.

I had also been here once before to a music venue called "The Living Room", which is across the street directly to the left off this shot. I heard that it was closing soon after I moved here, which peeved me (just my luck), but I think the place has been picked up by new management and will continue having live music.

They're building an MRT (subway) line under Nanjing East Road, and this is a fenced off construciton area. The fencing and traffic lanes are constantly changing to accomodate construction. It makes for hairy riding, so I avoid riding my bike on this road. The line is scheduled for completion in, like, 2013, by which time I certainly hope to be back in the U.S.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Shoot Him (The Sugarcubes)
2. Home Sweet Home (Peter Gabriel)
3. New Jersey (100 Watt Smile)
4. Bitter Memories (Bakufu Slump)
5. Schizophrenia's Weighted Me Down (Cat Power)
6. Beneath, Between and Behind (live) (Rush)
7. The Roof is Leaking (Phil Collins)
8. Every Ghetto Every City (Lauryn Hill)
9. Shulaba La Bamba (Southern All-Stars)
10. No One Has Ever Loved Me ("Passion" - Sondheim)

February 10, 2008 - This is so long ago, it's distant in my memory. It was a Lunar New Year family outing, but it was distant family to me, so it's all appropriate - my cousin's wife's family, and I got invited along because I happened to run into my cousin's wife on the street the day before.

That mound is a stone oven we built. This is a family activity that's more for kids, so it was dirty and interesting. It developed from a real kids' activity in Taiwan a long time ago. Some in the older generation remember making these ovens in the neighborhood and barbecuing food. Now it's organized in these special parks that provide the oven base, there are rocks that need to be collected to build the oven, and the park provides the food, too, as part of the fee.


I forget exactly where the park was, about a 25 minute drive out of Kaohsiung, towards Tainan, I think. These are my cousin's wife's family members, they were very nice and I had fun there.


Later in the day after the fires died down and the food got eaten - not very good cooked that way, but the point of the activity was to have fun with the kids, not to feast on good food necessarily, so it was still successful. And with kids, playing in the dirt becomes primo.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Here We Go! (J-Walk)
2. Loved Despite Great Faults (Blonde Redhead)
3. Give a Little Love (Rilo Kiley)
4. Clones (We're All) (Smashing Pumpkins)
5. Uptight (Everything's Alright) (Stevie Wonder)
6. Message to Prez (The Maupin/Williams Project)
7. Offline PK (live-ish) (Pinback)
8. One Flower (Guo Brothers & Shung Tian)
9. Colored Spade ("Hair")
10. Not A Day Goes By ("Merrily We Roll Along" - Sondheim)

Visit down south

February 6, 2008 - Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Grandparents' gravesite. I know I've shot this many times already, but just documenting going there again. I asked my cousin what it said, and he wasn't really sure. Apparently what gets written on gravesites is a complicated matter.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Sickfile (Archers of Loaf)
2. Chikai (Ayaka Hirahara)
3. The Other Way of Stopping (The Police)
4. It's a Hit (Rilo Kiley)
5. Pink India (Stephen Malkmus)
6. Into the Heart (U2)
7. Rumpofsteelskin (Parliament Funkadelic)
8. I Can't Escape From You (The The)
9. I Gotta Move (The Kinks)
10. 查某人 (林強)

February 4, 2008 - Starbucks, across Roosevelt Road from the Taida campus in Gongguan. Long exposure as the light was fading. So long ago. Back then I had already decided to move from Xindian City to Songshan District. I probably had decided at that point that I wasn't going to enroll for another semester of language classes, and would dedicate myself to self-study, which is what I was probably doing at Starbucks.

Back then, I could still drink coffee. Insomnia has killed my coffee drinking. Back then rehearsals had probably just started with the band. We didn't know half a year later we'd have a weekly gig at the bass player's new live bar/restaurant. Back then I had no idea I'd be working. I wonder what I'd do different back then if I knew where I'd be now. Not sleeping, that is. So much for the Zen adage: "When hungry, eat; when tired, sleep". But what if you have insomnia? Shut up, kid.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Natsu no Utage (Chitose Hajime)
2. Untouchable Face (Ani DiFranco)
3. It Ain't Easy (David Bowie)
4. In Every Corner (Julie Plug)
5. On Mercury (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
6. Jhumra (Himalayan instrumental music)
7. Sweet Thing (live) (David Bowie)
8. (You Made Me) (The Thief of Your Heart) (Sinead O'Connor)
9. That's All (live) (Genesis)
10. Mexican Seafood (Nirvana)

January 17, 2008 - Xindian, Taiwan. So long ago, opening frame on this roll, which is why it's cut off. Although I'm not sure why it's cut off on the right. Shouldn't the opening frame be cut off on the left? Maybe my film is messing with my mind.

That's where I used to live. I think at that time, I had just told my landlord I would probably stay there indefinitely, but then my current apartment came to my attention through family members, and a month and a half later I moved. My current landlord is my cousin's uncle. Which could mean my father, which would suck since he'd be charging me rent (bastard), but no, it's an uncle on her mother's side. I don't have enough good things to say about her mother's side of the family, all of them wonderful people. My cousin perhaps being the least among them, having blood mingled with my side of the family, haha!

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Hateful (The Clash)
2. Hate My Way (Throwing Muses)
3. Symphony No. 41, I. Allegro vivace (Mozart)
4. The Nuttycracker Suite ("Thoroughly Modern Millie")
5. Power to the People (John Lennon)
6. Little Amsterdam (Tori Amos)
7. Song of Complaint (Askarian & Khatchaturian - "Passion" sources)
8. Oliver! ("Oliver!")
9. Admiral Perry (David Byrne - Music for "The Knee Plays")
10. Worse Than Detroit (Robert Plant)