It looks like shooting will be confined to weekends. With afternoon classes, there's no time to go shooting during the week. I bought an old clunker of a bike this week and today I went exploring for the first time in daylight hours. Actually today I was supposed to go to a one-day retreat, but I missed meeting up with other people to catch the bus, so I went riding and shooting along the riverside bikeways.

It's difficult to fathom these bikeways. I think Taipei tried to copy the Japanese model of turning riverbanks into recreational areas that double as flood zones, but where the Japanese are ingenious about civic engineering, Chinese, and by extension Taiwanese, have no idea what they're doing and for whom, as long as they get money and/or political favor.

But that's just my first general impression in regard to how difficult it is to get to these bikeways in the first place by bike. It's not like you can ride to the river and find your way to the bikeways easily and conveniently. You have to know exactly where the access points are, what kind they are (if you can just ride in or if you have to go up a footbridge – not something I'm willing to do on this heavy old clunker of a bike), and you still have to compete with motor scooter traffic which also have roads they can use along the rivers. The bikeways themselves are really nice, but access to them seems to have been an afterthought.

Riverside shots: I put the 28-200mm zoom lens on the Pentax ZX-5n for today. As much as I love the 50mm lens, for wide open spaces and subjects, the flexibility of a zoom lens was absolutely dreamy.

I recall being told this is Dadaocheng in Datong district, a popular place for photographers to shoot sunsets.

raw scan. The closest riverside access point from my apartment. Gongguan, I think it's fair to call. 

Just north of the riverside access point, also a raw scan, eventually this would be developed into an expansive multi-recreational use park along the riverside.

7:32 a.m. - I think they were going for "Caution!". And instead of designing a safe intersection, they just warn you a lot of accidents happen and you might become one of them.

8:58 a.m. - Dadaocheng in color.

4:35 p.m. - Nifty maps of the riverside bikeways are posted at various points. There is a "You Are Here" indicator showing where this was shot. Dadaocheng is off the map a little to the north.

4:50 p.m. - On the map this is Huazhong Riverside Park. But I should point out that from the map pic to this point would not take 15 minutes just riding. More like 5.

4:59 p.m.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)
2. Warm Valley (Duke Ellington)
3. On A Plain (Nirvana)
4. Force Ten (live) (Rush)
5. Many Too Many (Genesis)
6. Freak Fest (Charlie Hunter Quintet)
7. Dos Gardenias (Ibrahim Ferrer)
8. Strange Magic (Electric Light Orchestra)
9. Bring the Noise (Public Enemy)
10. Forgotten Sons (Marillion)