I woke up near noon today because I went out last night, meeting up with a cousin of my sister-in-law's cousin (on the other side). The weird part of it is that cousin in the middle was an acquaintance of mine from San Francisco who I met completely independently of any family matter. She worked for NAATA and we had a mutual filmmaker friend.

Last night was a mistake. From now on, a ground rule is to never randomly meet up with someone who hasn't been briefed that I'm a little on the off-beat side, that I don't want in life what most other people want in life, certainly not someone who went to business school. I once roomed with a business school graduate, and there is a "type" there, and it's not mine. They are my very definition of an ordinary life, ordinary aspirations, constantly suffering from always desiring, always acquiring, always needing more, always focusing on the next future score. And they look down on me because they find my interests and aspirations incomprehensible (that's not really fair about my roommate, who didn't look down on me and was plenty fun to hang out with once we got to know each other). Although that same character "type" also got us into a nightclub without paying the cover charge because she's outward enough to have known the guy at the door.

So I didn't get out until late today. My plan was to head straight north to Songshan Airport and watch/shoot airplanes taking off/landing, and I left it open how I would return home from there. I ended up finding my way to the Key Lime River, a tributary of the Danshuei, and also part of the bikeway system, and rode along that. My complaints about the riverside bikeways are maintained along the Key Lime River (Keelung River, actually). Access for bikes(!) is pathetic. Once you figure out how to get there, they're great, but I really think they had to go out of their way to make it so difficult to get to them.

The Key Lime River winds its way eastward then south, and the exit access I managed to miraculously find put me somewhat north of Taipei 101. But on the way home, I found the Raohe tourist night market, just setting up shop to open. Just because it's a "tourist" night market, doesn't mean it's not the real thing, and this one was pretty damn good. PDG=friggin' awesome shaved ice. It was the first thing I ate today, piled high with fruit and condensed milk. Proving myself the anti-foodie that I am, it didn't occur to me to take a picture of it until it was TOO LATE, yo'm sayin'? Oh well, next time.

Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super.

Bus stop right outside my apartment. Da'an Park is across the street to the right and the footbridge can be seen through the trees on the left.

Woman on a phone blocking the sidewalk. Of course I had to match the obnoxious by shooting a picture of her. Well, I didn't have to. I know now it's better for my own mind to just let people be.

Who doesn't love watching planes take off at the airport?

Shot from Dazhi Bridge

Dragon boat on the Keelung River

3:42 p.m.

3:46 p.m. - toxic sludge. the area around the airport is an environmental wasteland mess. 

3:54 p.m. - construction of a tunnel under the airport runway connecting Fuxing North Rd. with Dazhi Bridge. Unfortunately bicycles were prohibited from using it not long after it opened.

3:57 p.m. - Dazhi Bridge with color saturation heavily boosted.

4:05 p.m. - Crossing the Keelung River with Taipei 101 in the distance.

4:12 p.m. - Dazhi Bridge from the north bank and detail of a dragon boat under it. 

4:19 p.m. - Dazhi Bridge and Grand Hotel, heading east on the bikeway.

4:31 p.m. - I thought the riverside bikeways were quite adequate at this time, but in years to come they would be widened and improved. This area would later become my stomping grounds and this older picture shows how they wouldn't be adequate if they didn't improve them.

4:56 p.m. - Of course I didn't know at the time this would become my neighborhood in a few years.

5:54 p.m. - shaved ice menu. mango, strawberry, blueberry, kiwi and multiple toppings.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Do It Again (live) (The Kinks)
2. Cornflake Girl (live) (Tori Amos)
3. Night Shift (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
4. By the Way (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
5. Get 'Em Out By Friday (Genesis)
6. Powerhouse at the Foot of the Mountain (Peter Gabriel - "Birdy")
7. Clam Crab Cockle Cowrie (Joanna Newsom)
8. Flashback ("Passion" - Sondheim)
9. Symphony for Strings in A flat minor, II. Allegretto Furioso (Shostakovich) (how can you not like a piece that's performed furioso?!)
10. Complicated Life (The Kinks)