My first real weekend here, and despite what I said about needing to change my hours to more normal times, I woke up early this morning to make it to a monastery I visited almost a year ago for their Saturday morning "international group" session. Having already been there last year for a one-day retreat, I had no problem getting there. It was a 30 minute MRT ride to Beitou. From there, I needed to transfer to the Xin Beitou extension, but since it wouldn't come for another 13 minutes, I decided to just walk it.

The session finished at noon, and I had the whole day ahead of me, but since I'll probably go to Xin Beitou regularly on Saturdays, I decided to hold off on exploring that area until later. It was good to make that connection with a monastery, even though I don't care about schools and "masters" or this way to practice or that. Stick with one thing long enough, and it will become dogma.

In fact, I live right next door to a church which I think has Sunday service in English, and I think I'll check that out at some point. Not for the preaching, which I fear will be more of the same old Pauline re-interpretation and bastardization of the Christ message, which I'm sure is good internally, but not so much externally since the rest of us are gonna burn in hell, but just to keep an open channel to the many ways people are trying and striving to make an intangible tangible.

So I took the MRT to Taipei Main Station and spent the rest of the day exploring and shooting. I covered the photography shops at the "Han-Bo" (Hankou-Boai sts.) intersection that a local told me about, walked around the Ximending area, which is Taipei's answer to Japan's youth-oriented Shinjuku, and from there walked to the Longshan Temple area which I was familiar with from last year when I bought a meditation bell for a cousin. I ended the day of walking by taking the MRT to another section of town where my flickr friend gave me a tip about a music store. By then I was pretty tired and not shooting so much, though. I walked home from there, too tired to head out again at night as I'd planned.

Last night I went to the Shilin night market. I wonder how long it would take to hit all the night markets in Taipei.

1:01 p.m. - Rooftops from Xinbeitou MRT extension, after morning int'l meditation group session.

3:59 p.m. - MRT brown line, Fuxing South Rd.

4:18 p.m. - Taipei 101, street shooting

Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super film:

Xinbeitou, actually I think the whole area is just Beitou and "Xinbeitou (new Beitou)" is just the name of the extension MRT station. Exiting Xinbeitou station, there's a long park that follows a stream that probably has something to do with the hot springs the area is famous for, that leads to the Dharma Drum Mountain facility.

Ximending area, but not the "youth" indicated in "youth-oriented" Ximending.

MRT brown line, Fuxing South Rd. at Zhongxiao-Fuxing station.

Near the Taida campus.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Get A Hold (A Tribe Called Quest)
2. Procession Towards Learning Land (XTC)
3. Better Things (The Kinks)
4. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (live) (Genesis)
5. One Headlight (The Wallflowers)
6. Airbag (Radiohead)
7. Red Shoes (Throwing Muses)
8. Exodus (live) (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
9. Break It Up (Rocket from the Crypt)
10. In A Space (The Kinks)