Kaohsiung - President Department Store

August 12, 2006 - Oh, I thought this was Kaishuan Road that my cousin lives on. I went down to Kaohsiung to check out a language school down there, to which I was thinking of transfering. After visiting the school, I was driving with my uncle and stuck Bebe out the window and shot. But this isn't Kaishuan Road (I really don't know the roads down there that well), I think it's Heping Road because wee in the distance is the new President Department Store. I'm a little confused about my geography down there right now.

This is what is left of the original President Department Store on Wufu Road:

The original President was just as grand as the current one, but back in the day, it was really grand. It was, like, the pride of Kaohsiung (Kaohsiung didn't have a lot to be proud of back then). Then between my visits (years) a fire gutted the building and, oh, look what I just found:


December 30, 1996 - Almost 10 years ago, the fascade of the original President after years of being gutted and abandoned. It looks like it was undergoing reconstruction, but it never happened. Or maybe they were preparing to take it down and reducing it to what is left now. The new President has a modernized "P" in the same place. Actually, the new "P" is also in the second lomo (can't really see it in the first shot, even enlarged). The original President was some 12-13 stories, had an amusement park on the roof, and, I think, two glass elevators under the "P". A super-tuff place to play for an 11 year old.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Super-Tuff (XTC)
2. Lower East Side (Delinquent Habits)
3. Lie in Our Graves (Dave Matthews Band)
4. People (King Crimson)
5. Live With Me (The Rolling Stones)
6. Children of Production (live) (Parliament)
7. That Means a Lot (The Beatles - Anthology)
8. Girl School (Rebecca)
9. May Queen (Liz Phair)
10. Dirty Pool (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)

JAG

August 11, 2006 - 和平東路, Taipei, Taiwan. I swear this bashed in motor scooter has been sitting on the sidewalk outside my current school since I got here. It's been moved around, at some point it was lying on the ground. It has a license plate, so it shouldn't be hard to track down the owner. But apparently proper disposal is not a high priority. This is, in fact, Taiwan.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Tried to be True (Indigo Girls)
2. Too Many Tomorrows ("Sweet Charity")
3. A German Requiem, V. Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit (Brahms)
4. Behold! The Night Mare (Smashing Pumpkins)
5. Here Come the Horns (Delinquent Habits)
6. Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, III. Allegro (J.S. Bach)
7. Mardi Gras in New Orleans (Dirty Dozen Brass Band)
8. Clear and Great (Throwing Muses)
9. Not What You Want (Sleater-Kinney)
10. New Nails (Mission of Burma)

holy smokes

August 8, 2006 - Taiwanese are very superstitious people. I'm sure there's a kinder way of saying that, but I'm not trying to be kind here. I've had just about as much as I can take of Taiwanese burning shit in front of their stores, as if the global warming wasn't bad enough. Oh yea, I saw the Al Gore movie. Rode my bike to see it, too.

I'm just kidding. It was only really bad when my downstairs neighbor saw fit to burn "ghost money" in a cauldron in the hallway. I don't know what they're doing in these shots outside next door to my apartment, although there is evidence that ghost money was burned - an annoying inconvenience as you go down the street and feel the acrid sting of smoke in your eyes and hairy nostrils.

But if they want to erect an altar in front of their store and burn incense for good fortune, so be it. Something about it made me feel bold enough to walk right up and stick Bebe in their midst and shoot. Maybe something about obnoxious begets obnoxious.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Yer Blues (The Beatles)
2. You Wonder How These Things Begin ("The Fantasticks")
3. The Sun Has Got His Hat On ("Me and My Girl")
4. Nobody Home (Pink Floyd)
5. Let's Spend the Night Together (David Bowie)
6. What a Piece of Work is Man ("Hair")
7. Give Me Love (Give Me Peace) (George Harrison)
8. Soma (live) (Smashing Pumpkins)
9. Karma Police (Radiohead)
10. It's Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It) (The Rolling Stones)

Taipei Geography Lesson

August 7, 2006

On a footbridge crossing Zhongxiao West Road (忠孝西路) in the Taipei Main Station area. The tallest building on the right is the Cosmos Hotel, which is where I was going to meet my uncle for dinner. Taipei Main Station is off to the right behind where the buildings end. This is looking west close to sunset. Zhongxiao Road is a pretty important road. All major north-south roads north of Zhongxiao are designated "north", and south of Zhongxiao are "south".

Now, if we turn around...

...we look east. The road crossing Zhongxiao Road right there, going left-right in this frame is Zhongshan Road (中山路) (don't get me started about how hard these names are to remember because the words and sounds are so similar). So the left hand side is Zhongshan North Road (中山北路), and on the right is Zhongshan South Road (中山南路). Now, Zhongshan Road divides major east-west roads, and designates them "East" or "West". So while I'm standing above Zhongxiao West Road (忠孝西路), on the other side of that road is Zhongxiao East Road (忠孝東路).

You'd think that this important intersection would be somewhere central, dividing Taipei into somewhat even quarters, but that's not the case. It's skewed to the northwest, so that the majority of major roads in Taipei proper are designated "East" or "South". So for example, while Nanjing East Road is quite long, you can't go far on Nanjing West Road without falling into the proverbial (and literal) river.

The logical reason for this is that the intersection was designated early on as the crossroads, and then Taipei naturally grew to the east and south. I'm still awaiting some sort of confirmation of this, because it's difficult to assume logic in this city. This design can easily just be out of bonehead administration for some unintuitive political reason.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. The Air (Modest Mouse)
2. Talby (Pinback)
3. Another Day (live) (Sting)
4. It's Too Late (Carole King)
5. Twenty Four Hours (Joy Division)
6. Start (Peter Gabriel)
7. Love Child (The Supremes)
8. Man With An Open Heart (King Crimson)
9. Li Hai (Wu Bai & China Blue)
10. Donna ("Hair")

The Butcher of the KMT Memorial Hall

August 7, 2006 - Chiang Kai-Shek memorial. Flatter myself not, this is a pretty damn good shot for a camera I hold in front of me and shoot without particularly aiming at anything. Bebe has a viewfinder which is pretty damn useless, although I've never actually tried it.

This is from Zhongshan Road, on the way to the Taipei Main Station area where my uncle's company has a Taipei office. When he comes up here, they usually have a company dinner and he often invites me along.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Sunset Hill (Marillion)
2. Me & Sarah Jane (live) (Genesis)
3. Crashing the Afterglow (Versus)
4. Chamber Symphony in C Minor, I. Largo (Shostakovich)
5. Vivace (Remix) (Nokko)
6. Just Like Anyone (Aimee Mann)
7. Yeah! Nen Matsu (Bakufu Slump)
8. A Gentleman's Excuse Me (Fish)
9. Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! (The Beatles)
10. Rock On (Smashing Pumpkins)

Default shot

August 7, 2006 - My lomo fisheye default shot of the Daan Park footbridge, from the northeast corner of Heping East Road and Xinsheng South Road. I love how the fisheye can get all four spans of the footbridge, albeit uneven in this shot.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Cherry (Spitz)
2. Whatall Is Nice (Ani DiFranco)
3. Ruby My Dear (Thelonius Monk)
4. David Watts (The Kinks)
5. Do the Evolution (live) (Pearl Jam)
6. Glory of the 80s (Tori Amos)
7. Welcome (The Who)
8. Mr. Soul (Neil Young - unplugged)
9. Dancing in the Streets (Martha Reeves & the Vandellas)
10. Andy Warhol (David Bowie)

Eastbound Train

August 5, 2006 - East side of Taipei, I think it might be called the Nangang (南港) area. It's by the Songshan Rail Station. That area is still a bit of a mystery to me. I ride out there and think "what do these people do?", "where do these people go?", "why do they need their own rail station (aside from Taipei Main Station)?".

People in guard boxes in Taiwan are very suspicious people and like to think they are important and wield some sort of power. There was one off to the left of this shot that I hadn't noticed and was eyeing me suspiciously. Who knows for what evil agenda I might be using these toy camera shots?

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Next to You ("Bounce" - Sondheim)
2. Leave This Off Your Fuckin' Charts (Public Enemy)
3. All I Want (Skunk Anansie)
4. Better Things (The Kinks)
5. What Do You Think? (The Sundays)
6. Bop Gun (Endangered Species) (Parliament)
7. Radio Gra (Unwound)
8. I Sleep Forever (+/-)
9. Aneurysm (Nirvana)
10. Superstarr (MC Solaar)

南京東路

August 5, 2006 - This is the aforementioned Nanjing East Road (南京東路), strangely empty, strangely quiet. Makes me want to ride in the middle of the road. It does look like Chinatown, just with wider roads. Can't believe how sunny and clear it is. In my time here, it's rare. Sucky Taipei weather.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. In the Cage Medley (Genesis live)
2. Manatsu no Kajitsu (Southern All Stars)
3. Making Plans for Nigel (XTC)
4. Skateaway (Dire Straits)
5. Abdulmajid (David Bowie)
6. Boogie Stop Shuffle (Charles Mingus)
7. Maori Chant (The Neville Brothers)
8. G-Song (Supergrass)
9. Diary of a Madman (Ozzy Osbourne)
10. Dirty Fascade (Shannon Wright)

The Living Mall

August 5, 2006 - Believe it or not, this is a department store, I think between Nanjing East Road (南京東路) and Bade Road (八德路) in the Songshan District (松山區). The Living Mall, I think it's called, some architecturally high concept...department store. It is, indeed, a complete sphere with the other side inside a more conventional box structure. It's pretty neat, the inside is neat, too, but in the end, it's a ...department store. I dunno, I guess I'm just prejudiced about this sort of high concept architecture should be for something more high concept. Like SFMoma. I love SFMoma as a modern art museum, but if it were a...department store, I don't think I'd ever go there. Especially to shop.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Plateau (Nirvana - live unplugged)
2. Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (reprise) (Bela Fleck & the Flecktones)
3. 4:50 A.M. (Go Fishing) (Roger Waters)
4. With Yours (Tara Jane O'Neil)
5. Alone Tonight (Genesis)
6. Overkill (Men at Work)
7. Number 7 (100 Watt Smile)
8. Sleep to Dream Her (Dave Matthews Band)
9. Beatown (XTC)
10. Walter Bishop Jr. (The Williams/Maupin Project)

Taipei Pot Plant Auction

August 4, 2006 - I love this place. It's my favorite place to buy pot plants. Even though, as everyone knows, upkeep for pot plants is expensive. But if you're not interested in "upkeep", if you know what I mean, you can always come back to this place and try to get a good price on a new pot plant in auction. The penalty for drug trafficking in Taiwan is death, but apparently auctions don't qualify as "trafficking". "We're not trafficking, it's just a friendly neighborhood pot plant auction".

iTunes soundtrack:
1. D.J. (David Bowie)
2. Kayleigh (live) (Marillion)
3. Mad Dog God Dam (Elastica)
4. Les and Ray (Le Tigre)
5. Shotover Hill (Supergrass)
6. Stella Was a Diver (Interpol)
7. Lyrics to Go (A Tribe Called Quest)
8. Not for the Life of Me (reprise) ("Thoroughly Modern Millie")
9. Where Am I Going? ("Sweet Charity")
10. Four Letter Word (Echobelly)

Jingmei Evacuation Gate bus terminus

August 4, 2006 - Riding out of Jingmei No. 2 Evacuation Gate. Whatever that means. Not sure what they evacuate. Maybe Taipei's bowels. Anyway, it's one of the elusive entryways to the riverside bikeway system. If you look for one, you'll never find it. You just have to wander around looking for something else and accidentally come across one.

Fortunately, coming out of the system is a little easier than finding one's way into it. Unfortunately, once you find your way out, you have to figure out where you are. Fortunately, I have a decent sense of direction, and I like the challenge of getting lost and finding my way home. There must be some deep meaning to that, yo.

That word on the ground is 慢, meaning "slow". It's on small streets everywhere, and it really sucks to get stuck on that word on a test when you know it's written on every small street.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Blue Chair (single) (Elvis Costello & the Attractions)
2. Tabako ga Suitai (Sekiri)
3. Quicksand (David Bowie)
4. Who Stole the Soul? (Public Enemy)
5. The One Who Has Disappeared (The Black Heart Procession)
6. Yes, My Heart ("Carnival")
7. No Language in Our Lungs (XTC)
8. Spain (Kristin Hersh)
9. I Don't Blame You (Cat Power)
10. Holloway Jail (The Kinks)

two from the riverside bikeways

August 4, 2006

Xindian River. Having a bike is great for a Friday afternoon getaway down the riverside. Especially when relationships are cooling down with classmates, and you need to get away from them.


There's my $10 second bike under that tree. I haven't found anywhere indoors where I can practice shakuhachi, so I usually end up in the park across the street from my apartment to practice. I often take my shakuhachi when I head to the riverside bikeways, but when I ride, I tend to just ride. But sometimes I find a nice place to stop to blow a few notes.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Crime of the Century (Supertramp)
2. Vocal Shrapnel (Archers of Loaf)
3. Torokel Lady (Bubble Gum Brothers)
4. Break It Up (Rocket From the Crypt)
5. One Million (Versus)
6. Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer (Nat King Cole)
7. The Game (Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan)
8. Perfect Sunset (Vytas Nagisetty)
9. Something Just Broke ("Assassins" - Sondheim)
10. A Cure (Blonde Redhead)

what a lomo recalls

August 2, 2006 - Starbucks, Ximending section of Taipei. Summer memory from this last frame on this roll. My hanging out with a certain Korean classmate has had many inexplicable, probably manipulated, crests and troughs. It's a manic relationship. This was the end of a crest if I remember correctly, ending one of the periods where we hung out too much - almost all of our spare time. We were in Ximending because she had just gotten her Alien Residency Card (ARC) from the main police station there. I bought a new backpack there.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Daughter's Down (20 Minute Loop)
2. Bitter Suite (Marillion)
3. Who Can I Be Now? (David Bowie)
4. Jump for Joy (Duke Ellington)
5. The Bell (Mary Timony)
6. Thinka 'Bout It (Paris)
7. Piano Concerto No. 2, I. Maestoso (Chopin)
8. Robbery, Assault & Battery (Genesis)
9. The Prince of Humbug ("Barnum")
10. Union Square (Tom Waits)

3 Cats on a Pile of Rubble

July 31, 2006 - Um, yea, that's all there is to it. Fuxing South Road, I think. For some reason, this roll has taken forever to post. There's only one more worthy shot left and I can get to a roll that has been sitting around for a while now.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Shakin' All Over (live) (The Who)
2. Don't Pass Me By (The Beatles)
3. Hear My Heart (Edith Frost)
4. We Do Not Belong Together ("Sunday in the Park with George" - Sondheim)
5. Cakewalk Into Town (Taj Mahal)
6. Moonchild (Cibo Matto)
7. Cello Suite No. 1, V. Menuett (J.S. Bach)
8. San Francisco (Kristin Hersh)
9. Snail (Smashing Pumpkins)
10. If I Had a Fine White Horse ("Secret Garden")

ride-by shooting

July 30, 2006 - Danshuei Riverside Bikeway. At the end of the second day of extended riding (for Taipei, at least), my knee was killing and I needed to rest. At least I was in familiar territory, near Taipei Main Station, and not god who knows where on the bikeway system. Taipei Main Station isn't a stone's throw from where I live, but it was manageable at a limping pace. If one could limp on a bicycle, I was doing it.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Believo! (Enon)
2. The Plan (live) (Built to Spill)
3. There Is a Sucker Born Ev'ry Minute ("Barnum")
4. Matchmaker, Matchmaker ("Fiddler on the Roof")
5. You Must Meet My Wife ("A Little Night Music")
6. What You Don't Know About Women ("City of Angels")
7. All That Jazz ("Chicago")
8. Nothing ("A Chorus Line")
9. How the Other Half Lives ("Thoroughly Modern Millie")
10. If My Friends Could See Me Now ("Sweet Charity")

industrial Taipei

July 30, 2006 - I rather like this shot. I was out on a ride along the Key Lime River on my second bike when I saw this and fancied it for a fisheye. I even went out a ledge to get it. The ledge of the riverside levee, that is. If I remember correctly, this was close to where the Key Lime River meets the Danshuei River, when the wind picks up as you turn south and wreaks havoc on a chronic knee problem when you unwisely go for an extended ride for a second day in a row on a bike way too small for extended rides. If I remember correctly.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Hairless Heart (Genesis)
2. Aladdin Sane (live) (David Bowie)
3. Itsuka Mata (Kodo Drummers)
4. Mystic Rhythms (live) (Rush)
5. Hammer Horror (Kate Bush)
6. Re Ya Dumedisa (Mahlathini & the Mahotella Queens)
7. Kanashimi wa Namida ni Tokete (J-Walk)
8. Mechanical Angels (20 Minute Loop)
9. Ant's Dance (Mary Timony)
10. Among the Americans (10,000 Maniacs)

global warming

July 29, 2006 - Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world, with sun flares in the fisheye lens around noon. That was a great week. Sunny, blue skies for a week. And as people have been saying the constant rain in Taipei hasn't been normal, they also said that week was far from normal. The Taiwanese are good at pointing out what's not normal, but they're not so keen at pointing out the cause. You and I, we know better. *wink*

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Ue o Muite Arukou (Kyu Sakamoto)
2. Bernadette (The Kinks)
3. Revenge (Archers of Loaf)
4. Our Time ("Merrily We Roll Along")
5. Once Upon a Daydream (The Police)
6. Koufukuron (Shiina Ringo)
7. Indigo Chiheisen (Spitz)
8. Before You Cry (Camera Obscura)
9. M1A1 (Gorillaz)
10. Stop the Show (live) (Built to Spill)

classmate flashback

July 28, 2006 - Ah, Summer term. I hated that term. Why I continued hanging out with those people, I don't know. Well, yea, I do, and she's in this lomo. Fortunately, she's the only person I'm hanging out with this Fall term, but I'm thinking that's gotta end, too. Don't want the attachment, don't like the emotional pull and push.

This is at a Japanese restaurant on Yangkong Street, a quick shot that took Hyun Ae by surprise, as she didn't have time to put her fingers up in a V. I guess Naoya, across from her, was pretty cool, too. Just no connection.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Father Ruler King Computer (Echobelly)
2. It's Too Late (Carole King)
3. Helden (David Bowie)
4. Holiday (Madonna)
5. Heroes (live) (David Bowie)
6. Disarm (Smashing Pumpkins)
7. Happy Together (The Turtles)
8. Can't Get It Out of My Head (Electric Light Orchestra)
9. High Society (Enon)
10. Los Endos (live) (Genesis)

I See Dead People...

July 21, 2006 - Shida Mandarin Training Center, sixth sense floor. Rounding out school shots, here's a shot of what should be referred to as the "place of great evil". Students armor up to go in here to battle the school registration/administration bureaucracy which makes the New Jersey DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) look like a cafeteria lunch line.

Everyone who works there needs to be fired, shot, or sent to multi-cultural sensitivity training classes. They're rude to you even when taking your money. And when you give them money, don't entertain any idea of ever getting it back for any reason. Sucky tutor? Too bad. Useless "cultural" class? You're stuck.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Pneuma (50 Foot Wave)
2. Going to California (Led Zeppelin)
3. Chelsea Bridge (Duke Ellington)
4. Getting Closer (Wings)
5. You and Whose Army? (Radiohead)
6. String Quartet No. 8, V. Largo (Shostakovich)
7. Nirujarini (Shoukichi Kina & Champloose)
8. Da Da Da (Elastica)
9. Funkytown (Lipps, Inc.)
10. A Place to Call My Own (Genesis)

3 Inside

June 23, 2006 - Shida Mandarin Training Center. Hanging out after class on the 7th floor, waiting to go to lunch. Left to right is Pierre, Naoya, Takako, JC, and EMma.


June 2006 - The 7th floor atrium from the 8th floor. Not bad architecture, not a very good language school. It's not just me being negative, I hear from various English-speaking people how frustrated they are with the administration, policies, teaching quality, and the elevators at this school. I even got a tutor this term, hoping that one-to-one attention will improve my listening ability and sentence generation. Nope. If you have bad teachers, and you make them into tutors, it just means you get a bad tutor.


June 9, 2006 - Same place on the 7th floor as the first lomo. From left to right, Naoya, Takako, and Matsubara-san.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Queen)
2. Innocent When You Dream (78) (Tom Waits)
3. Bitter Suite (live) (Marillion)
4. Abacab (remixed) (Genesis)
5. Tales of a Scorched Earth (Smashing Pumpkins)
6. Bee-Beep (Puri Puri Summit) (Princess Princess)
7. Candle (Sonic Youth)
8. My Mummy's Dead (John Lennon)
9. You Started Laughing (live) (Supertramp)
10. The Voyeur (I Like to Watch) (Fish)

good morning

July 10, 2006 - This is the morning after the World Cup, when for some stupid reason, my ex-classmates thought it would be a good idea to watch the game which aired at 2 in the morning. The things we end up doing when we don't think things through. Oh, my life. At least I got this shot on the Daan Park footbridge after taking a taxi home. I don't think I've been out this early since the few days after I arrived and was jetlagged. Taipei is nice in the morning, before the people come out.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. In the Light (Led Zeppelin)
2. Bee (The Sugarcubes)
3. Hazy Shade of Winter (The Bangles)
4. Aorta (100 Watt Smile)
5. Maximum Consumption (The Kinks)
6. Air (live) (Talking Heads)
7. You Like Me Too Much (The Beatles)
8. Ocean of Wine (Helium)
9. Melt the Guns (XTC)
10. Oddfellows Local 151 (R.E.M.)

The View from Starbucks

July 21, 2006 - the corner of Heping East Road (和平東路) and Jian Guo South Road (建國南路). Daan Park (大安公園) is on the upper left corner, and my apartment is down Heping East Road on this block. When it rains, I can get to Starbucks with barely getting wet. Great.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Dear Prudence (The Beatles)
2. You Can't Hurry Love (The Supremes)
3. Symphony No. 21, II. Andante (Mozart)
4. Childhood's End (live) (Marillion)
5. What How When Where? (Why Who?) (Ani DiFranco)
6. Rubber Bisquit (The Blues Brothers)
7. D-Natural Blues (Wes Montgomery)
8. Sysyphus, part II (Pink Floyd)
9. MIB (Will Smith)
10. Ripchord (Rilo Kiley)

Starbucks

July 21, 2006 - Corner of Heping East Road (和平東路) and Jian Guo South Road (建國南路). In San Francisco (舊金山), I never went to Starbucks because there were always alternative coffee places, but in New Jersey and in Taipei there isn't much choice. Starbucks is the place to go for a reliable cup of coffee. It doesn't help (or hurt, depending on how you see it) that this Starbucks is on the same block as where I live, and has a nice upstairs area that only gets crowded on weekend noontimes.

I think this was the only time I went there to study before my 10:20 class. Maybe I had a test, maybe I just wanted to break my usual morning routine.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Perfect Disguise (Modest Mouse)
2. Sleepwalking (Ben Lee)
3. The Emperor's New Clothes (Sinead O'Connor)
4. The Hardest Part (Blondie)
5. Re-Enact the Crime (Unwound)
6. Flores De Los Muertos (National Joy Band)
7. What? (A Tribe Called Quest)
8. Sweet Black Angel (The Rolling Stones)
9. Private Sunday (Casiopea)
10. Kuda Lumping (Javanese street musicians)

Dahu

In July, in the month between my first and second bikes, I got the idea to explore more of Taipei by hopping on a random bus and seeing where it went. I got on the 284 bus in front of my building at Daan Park, and took it over an hour to the Neihu district, on the eastern side of Taipei. I found this lake, Dahu, which was pleasant enough.


July 9, 2006 - pavillion on Dahu Lake. "Hu" is lake, so calling it "Dahu Lake" is really saying Big Lake Lake. Like calling the Yodogawa River in Osaka is saying Yodo River River. Or the Gobi Desert, Desert Desert.



This excursion to Dahu was particularly useful because my second bike was out in Neihu, and because of this excursion, I knew exactly how to get there and where to go stress-free. Can't say the same thing about my third bike, which was out in a place called XinZhuang, but that's another story altogether.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Sons of the Silent Age (David Bowie)
2. Annie (Elastica)
3. Poison (David Byrne)
4. Take Five (George Benson)
5. I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch) (The Four Tops)
6. Watashi wa Piano (Southern All-Stars)
7. She's So Cold (The Rolling Stones)
8. Deathly (Aimee Mann)
9. Dodo/Lurker (Genesis)
10. The Evening Bell (Tu Tai Hang)

Seconds and Steps Apart

June 22, 2006 - What I see everyday walking out the front door of my building. That bike belongs to someone in my building. Since then I've started parking my bike right out there, too, especially since I never know when it's going to rain in this town.

By the columns are bins where you can put your store receipts. I'm not sure how it all works, but every store receipt has a number on top, which is apparently a lottery number. The general populace can't be bothered with the hassle of holding onto receipts, which really would be a hassle, and checking numbers to see if there's a hit. So I gather charities put out these bins where you can "donate" your receipts. Clever. I have once seen a homeless person collecting receipts, ostensibly for the reason of hoping for a lottery hit.

Downstairs from me is a 全家 Family Mart Convenience Store, you can just see the sign on the right in the bottom lomo, but I opt to go to the 7-11 a few doors down the other way, because if you buy NT$77 of crap at 7-11, they give you a cute, collectible Doraemon fridge magnet. The current promotion is magnets of Doraemon in different countries, portrayed with hilarious cultural stereotypes. Like the Korea Doraemon has him in front of some cultural landmark, wearing a hat not seen in Korea for several hundred years, and barbecuing meat! I tell ya, hilarious.

Oh, and my internet is down again, which is why it's been so long since posting.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. In the Rapids (Genesis)
2. Freak Fest (Charlie Hunter Quintet)
3. It's Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It) (The Rolling Stones)
4. Abdulmajid (David Bowie)
5. Moby Dick (live) (Led Zeppelin)
6. Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) (John Lennon)
7. Slow Worm (Archers of Loaf)
8. Untouchable Face (Ani DiFranco)
9. Gypsy (Fleetwood Mac)
10. Maori Chant (The Neville Brothers)

riding to class

June 20, 2006 - Heping East Road, Taipei, Taiwan. Maybe this shot makes riding in Taipei traffic look scarier than it is. This is actually pretty tame. Er, but that's not to say that the drivers here aren't totally nuts. They are. In the U.S., I can usually get by with me doing my part to not get hit, and expecting drivers to do their part and not hit me (there's actually a little more to it). Here, that doesn't really apply.


In the U.S., I don't ride on sidewalks unless I have to (i.e., in New Jersey). I usually dismount out of courtesy to pedestrians. Here, riding on sidewalks is part of the routine. Pedestrians don't expect courtesy and don't give it. And motor-scooters regularly drive down sidewalks. I haven't seen an accident yet, but I've seen many close-calls, which is not helped by Taiwanese pedestrians who are apparently all near-sighted and don't notice something approaching until it's about two feet away, and then they jump in total surprise, "where did he come from?".

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Sea of Love (Cat Power)
2. Quiet (Smashing Pumpkins)
3. Scarecrow People (XTC)
4. Garden Party (Marillion)
5. Fumbling Towards Ecstacy (Sarah Mclachlan)
6. Rastaman Chant (live) (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
7. Fabricoh (Archers of Loaf)
8. Crestfallen (+/-)
9. The Double Planet (Michael Hedges)
10. Around the Dial (The Kinks)

Main Station

July 6, 2006 - Taipei Main Railway Station, Zhongxiao Road. Nice, rare afternoon sun, making Taipei prettier than I've experienced. On that day I was on one of several trips to the main police station to extend my visa. In Taiwan, they will always find something trivial wrong with what you brought, necessitating multiple trips to do something simple as extending a visa. I've learned to expect nothing from the Taiwanese bureaucracy, and it often renders getting something a hollow victory.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Where is Love? ("Oliver!")
2. Lady Blues (Yuko Hara)
3. Reflect (Frente!)
4. Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, III. Menuet (J.S. Bach)
5. Method of Sleeping (Shannon Wright)
6. Tamburitza Lingua (Ani DiFranco)
7. Pennies (Smashing Pumpkins)
8. Underground (Tom Waits)
9. Ziggy Stardust (live) (David Bowie)
10. Blinded By the Light (Bruce Springsteen)

Sad bikes

June 22, 2006 - Sad bikes in front of the Shida University Student Activities building, Heping East Road, Taipei, Taiwan. The one behind the red one looks embedded in that bush.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Form and File (Archers of Loaf)
2. Tinfoil (Rainer Maria)
3. Fascination (David Bowie)
4. Each Tomorrow Morning ("Dear World")
5. One of My Turns (live) (Pink Floyd)
6. Blue Serge (Duke Ellington)
7. Polythene Pam (The Beatles)
8. Down By the Water (PJ Harvey)
9. One Love/People Get Ready (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
10. Toga ("Haibane Renmei")

Self-portrait

June 22, 2006 - Just on the Shida Annex Campus, where the Mandarin Training Center (read: crap school) is.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Devotion (MC Solaar)
2. Frame By Frame (King Crimson)
3. Slowdive (Siouxsie and the Banshees)
4. Birthday (J Church)
5. Here Comes the Big Rush (Echobelly)
6. There Is a Sucker Born Ev'ry Minute ("Barnum")
7. Goodnight Goodnight (Hot Hot Heat)
8. Texas Flood (live) (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
9. Cello Suite No. 6, V. Gavotte (J.S. Bach)
10. Precious Love (Sakura)

Daan Park footbridge (Taipei, Taiwan) study II

Well, it's not really a study. A study implies putting some thought into it and coming up with something new, different, or interesting. These are just shots of the footbridge that happened to be on this roll:

June 22, 2006 - Looks like on my way to school, so it's about 10 in the morning. The edge of the bike basket on the bottom tells me this was the P.O.S. Enterprise, my first bike. Riding my bike to school shortens my 10 minute walk to about a 3 minute ride. Shooting from the southeast corner.


Shooting from the northeast corner - the corner I mostly shoot from with Bebe.



See, different day, same northeast corner. Later in the afternoon with the sun in the western sky.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. (I Was Born In A) Laundromat (Camper Van Beethoven)
2. Blue Angel (Marillion)
3. Brimful of Asha (Cornershop)
4. Hard Time (Phase II Steelband Steel Orchestra)
5. Jets (Blur)
6. Lounge Act (Nirvana)
7. Bli-Blip (Duke Ellington)
8. A Little Bit of Good ("Chicago")
9. Change It (live) (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
10. Day By Day ("Godspell")

Going to Yangkong St.

July 6, 2006 - Finally! People I all, more or less, like. Pierre, JC, Naoya, Hyun Ae, and Takako. All of them previous classmates except for Naoya, who is the only new classmate of theirs that I genuinely liked. It helped that he's a musician and we could talk music. Not everyone was as enthralled with him, as his personability was a bit specific, focused. And everything about him is focused. After six months of Chinese language study, he is pretty much fluent and can hold his own in complex conversations, and he's begun learning Taiwanese. He can even sing songs in Chinese at karaoke. After six months, he took a Chinese proficiency test, which indicated that he could jump 15 lessons in the textbook!

We were walking to Yangkong "snack" Street for lunch, which despite its nickname isn't the delectable foodie paradise it suggests. I had fallen back to take some digital shot, and as these are people I all like, they waited up for me when they noticed I wasn't with them. Suckers. As I approached I got Bebe ready in my backpack and whipped it out and shot this.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Said Too Much (Versus)
2. Forest Fire (Versus)
3. Santa Maria (Versus)
4. What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted (The Funk Brothers w/Joan Osborne)
5. Sweet Black Angel (The Rolling Stones)
6. The Ballad of Ladyman (Sleater-Kinney)
7. Ai no Shiru Shi (Puffy)
8. Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas)
9. Jubilation (20 Minute Loop)
10. Tamuke (Katsuya Yokoyama)

surprise!

June 21, 2006 - Former classmates class. I passed their class every day on my way to my class. On this morning. I was able to see into the class from the area outside the window in the back to see who was there. Then as I walked around, I took out Bebe and charged the battery for the flash which I knew I needed for an indoor shot. Then when I got to the door, I pointed the camera, probably made some noise to get their attention, shot, and continued on my way to the sound of Takako laughing. From left to right, Pierre, Hyun Ae, Spaniard, Naoya, and Takako.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Blood Tree (Mary Timony)
2. Gratitude (The Maupin/Williams Project)
3. Julia (The Beatles)
4. Marry Me a Little ("Company" - Sondheim)
5. Made-Up Dream (Built to Spill)
6. Give Up Your Love (Edith Frost)
7. Reason the Night is So Long (Rainer Maria)
8. Forgotten Sons (live) (Marillion)
9. The Bravery of Being Out of Range (Roger Waters)
10. Words and Guitar (Sleater-Kinney)

such a hater...

June 2006 - Hyun Ae with a line of her new classmates that I never got to liking. Actually, at the end is an Austrian guy who wasn't one of her new classmates, but was associated with them. I only didn't like him because of Falco. Next to her is a German guy whose voice didn't have a volume control. Next to him is a self-absorbed Swedish woman who acted like a princess and never shut up. Her whiny voice eventually became unbearable and I refused to stick around if she was present.

This was at our favorite Korean restaurant where Hyun Ae would often take over, and when the food was mostly done, she would do a Korean thing that the Korean proprietors also knew about, but most Taiwanese don't, and ask for fresh rice, laver, and kimchi and do a second cooking. It was like a second meal.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. I Just Want to See His Face (The Rolling Stones)
2. Woman (Sakura)
3. Sea Girl (Versus)
4. Sara Smile (Hall & Oates)
5. The Walk (The Aislers Set)
6. Lover Lay Down (Dave Matthews Band)
7. Dazzle (Siouxsie & the Banshees)
8. Jukebox (Ani DiFranco)
9. I Don't Need Anything But You ("Annie")
10. The Real Me (The Who)

more classmates...

June 2006 - Hyun Ae, Pierre, and JC, all classmates first term. Second term, we almost always went to lunch together, and at the beginning, I often tried to get them to go with me to get dessert. I didn't have to twist their arms much until they started worrying about losing their girlish figures. See what I mean about Hyun Ae being quick with the V? While Pierre and JC are just starting to realize their picture is about to be taken, Hyun Ae is way ahead of me.

As much as I bitch about the community college quality of the Shida Mandarin Training Center, I haven't found any place better for shaved ice on a daily basis than the Shida night market area. I have four places to choose from in that area. The Rao He Tourist Night Market is better, but it's also way crowded, and maybe 45 minutes away on bike.

This place is called Orange, and it's right on Shida Road. It was Pierre's favorite place and it had this nice upstairs area that never got crowded in the afternoon. For me, sometimes they cranked the air conditioner on too high.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. The Trial (live) (Pink Floyd)
2. Lullaby of the Moths (Helium)
3. Pneuma (50 Foot Wave)
4. Rocky Racoon (The Beatles)
5. Cherry (Smashing Pumpkins)
6. You Can't Always Get What You Want (The Rolling Stones)
7. Strobelite Honey (Black Sheep)
8. Grandmother's Love (Travis Terry)
9. Fierce Flawless (Ani DiFranco)
10. As Long As He Needs Me ("Oliver!")

classmates - Shida Mandarin Training Center

June 2006 - Pierre, Hyun Ae, and El Spaniard. Only Pierre and Hyun Ae were my classmates. El Spaniard joined their class after I left, so I never got to know him, never got to like him. He didn't speak English, so of course I didn't like him. What is anyone doing in the world not knowing English? I can say that because only English readers can read this!

El Spaniard left to go back to Spain last month, and that was good riddance. He was reported to be hilarious, but I never laughed. Pierre left last week to go back to France, and he was probably the most stable and sane person I know here, so he'll be missed. Hyun Ae may leave in February to go back to Korea, after she's sufficiently fluent in Mandarin. That's the nature of being a language student. By next February, I'll probably still not even be at a 1st grade level. I may leave Taipei at the end of November, but if Hyun Ae is definitely leaving in February, I might stick around for one more term before transfering to Kaohsiung.

For this shot I successfully executed my trick of not showing Bebe until the moment of shooting, ergo their looks of bewilderment. The telltale sign of success is that Hyun Ae had no time to react and put her fingers up in a V. And believe me, she's quick!

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Amor de Loca Juventud (Compay Segundo)
2. Gallows Pole (Led Zeppelin)
3. Happy Jack (live) (The Who)
4. Shane (Liz Phair)
5. Far East Medley (Bela Fleck & the Flecktones)
6. Male Model (Sleater-Kinney)
7. Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, I. Allegro (J.S. Bach)
8. Hold My Life (The Replacements)
9. Rape Me (Nirvana)
10. Tomorrow Belongs to Me ("Cabaret")

Daan Park footbridge (Taipei, Taiwan) study I

June 13, 2006 - Daan Park footbridge default shot. This is the point of view I shoot periodically, so that I eventually I have a whole series of shots from this same point of view. This is the lomo fisheye version.

For some reason I have a bunch of shots on this roll taken on or around the Daan Park footbridge. The above shot is from the southwest corner looking east along Heping East Road. If you walk halfway down the span on the right and turn left, looking north, you get this:

June 20, 2006 - Xinsheng South Road. South road, but looking north, so you're looking north on the South Road. Think about it, there's something deep about it. Or not.

And if you walk all the way down the span and turn left, you see this, with or without the guy there:

This is also looking north, obviously. Undated. I think I've decided to use mostly the commercial scans of this roll. The sharpness of their scans is winning me over, although since their scans aren't full-frame, if anything I really want gets cropped out, I'll use the home scan. The crops are minimal, but I'm picky like that.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Achilles Last Stand (Led Zeppelin)
2. When We Was Fab (George Harrison)
3. Sea to Sea (Matisyahu)
4. Spika (Shina Ringo)
5. I Want to Play for Ya (Stanley Clarke)
6. Hide and Seek (Dreams Come True)
7. (New Wave) Polly (Nirvana)
8. Making Flippy Floppy (Talking Heads)
9. You Might Think (The Cars)
10. Hellbound (The Breeders)