#182 Tianmu Monkey Trail in Taipei

Transcript

Hey yo, so last episode, which was yesterday for me, I got caught in a big crazy rainstorm. One of the hardest rainstorms I've seen yet. And it was kind of funny, like, oh my god, I can't believe how insane that got out of nowhere. Like, holy shit, it was five minutes ago and now it's like a torrential damper. Like even just trying to cross the street was a...

It was like walking through a tiny lake, you know, like...

I was sloshing through water, it was crazy. So yeah, that was just kind of like, oh, what a wacky thing I had to go hop on a bus. I didn't really think about what would have happened and what if I got going earlier that day? What if I was an hour or two hours out into the woods and then that happened? Man, because that rain didn't stop for a long time. That actually would have been fucking terrible. That would have been super fucked. I mean, the hiking around this particular part of Taipei, it's like I don't think I could have got too far away from town. But I would have been trudging through the rain for at least an hour. And when you're up on a mountain ridge, you know, there's limited options for getting off of it and I didn't actually know what the exits were and stuff. It would have been really bad.

So it occurred to me, maybe I should chill out until these like thunder storm warnings. It's another couple of days of this. I should at least wait until these are over. And so far today's been really similar where I went outside and it was like danger level heat. Like the kind of heat where just the littlest bit of sun exposure just felt wrong. Like I should be out of this. I should not be in this weather at all. And just in the time it's taken me to go start doing laundry. It's only like an hour later. Now it's clouded over and it's gloomy and doomy and it hasn't started raining yet, but it could at any time. Like it's crazy how fast the weather changes and how severe it is from like 100% pure sunny, like too sunny. Like summer times too, unpleasant summer to doom. It's so eerie and gloomy now.

And it's also good to, this is where, just because I somehow managed because of my washing machine at my Airbnb and the humidity in the air, just not being able to properly clean my stuff. I got stuck with two. Both of my pairs of pants smelling smell and funky at the same time. So this was my solution. I washed one pair of pants the other day and now I'm just doing more laundry midway through twice as quickly as I normally would have done laundry.

I'm just doing a second batch to clean the other pair of pants to get everything back in order. Because my clothing is a very small ecosystem that all fits in one little bag. And if anything goes wrong with it, that's trouble.

So it's good to just do laundry anyway.

There's actually some mountains just in this neighborhood, very close by. I don't know how to get up onto them, but there are some buildings. There must be ways. But even if I just wanted to do a teeny tiny little mini hike just in my neighborhood, I think there's stuff. But I don't know how to begin, how to get to a trail.

But that could be cool because yeah, I mean there's mountains here that are just like I'm kind of at like a school and right behind the school are a bunch of mountains.

So I could do some little mini hikes where if it does start raining, I can immediately bail out, not passing to the edge of town and out into the wilds.

Speaking of, University of Taipei is apparently where I am. Cool.

But I'm also surprised how quickly I'm getting used to the giant horrible cockroaches because I was saying there's this, and I've had a couple of encounters in my Airbnb's with these cockroaches that are enormous compared to North American cockroaches. They're giant size, they're like four or five times bigger, they're so big. And how it just seems like dealing with a disturbing alien, you know, it just gets stuck in my mind. My mind plays on me about this fucking cockroach and just like, oh, I just hope it's not around. I hope it doesn't get into my room and I'm asleep, even though I don't think it could do anything. I don't think it's like dangerous. It's just creepy and weird and unpleasant and uncomfortable. Anyway, I saw it again last night in the little bathroom of the two bathrooms, the one that I usually use. And I've been trying to just like capture this thing in some Tupperware and let it out of the building. But I didn't have Tupperware with me, I would have had to go to the next room and I've learned that if you take your eyes off these things for a second, they just disappear. 5:00 So I just got a bunch of toilet paper in my hand, like four layers. And I just used the toilet paper, I just literally picked this thing up. But I didn't use enough pressure because as much as I'm like creeped out by cockroaches, I still am like, well, I don't want to hurt it. I don't want to just deliberately crush it, but it is a cockroach. I probably could have used a lot more force and it would have been fine. But since I picked it up so lightly, so gingerly, it squirreled away and squirmed away. But then it ran off into the little kitchenette and I grabbed a broom and it was kind of cornered in the corner. And I was trying to like sweep it out. I opened the door that leads out to the balcony. And I was trying to sweep this thing out, but the problem is there's the little lip. The door isn't flat with the ground. So I had to do it like hockey style. I had to like it was a puck. I had to try to flip this fucking enormous nightmare cockroach up over the lip and out the door. And I just couldn't. I managed to flip it upside down for a sec, but I couldn't get it out. And I'm just like, you fucker. Come on, bitch. It's like I'm playing fucking air hockey or something. Foosball at this fucking thing. It's like we're having a horrible little game.

But it ran off again and it went and ran underneath some, like under the fridge or whatever. And I'm like, all right, well, whatever, I tried. But yeah, I just went from this horrible creepy, like I just don't want to get near it feeling, to just like I've literally had it in my hand. I touched it. I picked it up. Then I fucking had a little broom battle with it. And it just, it does take away. Now it just seems like it's a bad roommate. It's just this annoying, or like an annoying pet. Like do what I want. You little fucker. But it definitely takes away the like scaredness. Now I'm just like, you're just annoying. Fucking go out the door. You stupid fuck. Just get out of here. I don't think you want to be in here either. I think you're trapped, too. I don't think you know how you get in this house. And I don't think you want to be here. Go the fuck outside. Stupid. But I couldn't, I couldn't get it to go outside. Uh-oh. Just felt a little bit of raindrops on my hand. But I'm just waiting for laundry to dry. So I'm just, just on a little laundry stroll.

But yeah, hopefully even just this will just put the fear of, fear of humans in it a bit. Because I don't really give a fuck about this thing. I'm only here for 10 more days. So I don't care if there's a cockroach. Live your life cockroach. I don't give a shit.

But it's just the brazenness of this thing. It's just strolling around in the bathroom while I'm in the bathroom. And it's just strolling around in the hall outside of the bathroom. And it's just like, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude. And it's like, bitch, you're just breaking the social contract here, motherfucker. 99% of the time, no one's in this washroom. 99% of the time, no one is in this fucking little kitchen area. All you have to do is have the good graces as the tinier being that when the lights turn on and you hear someone clumping around, just go hide under the fridge. Just get out of sight. That's all. And the other 99% of the time you can have this fucking whole place. You can scurry around and scavenge and do whatever you do. All you got to do is just don't visually be in my fucking in my world. I got my human world. You got your cockroach world. Just keep the two worlds separate. Don't try to just blaze a lays about in my fucking world. And like, that's how I managed to literally pick this thing up is because it didn't even react. I like dropped the toilet paper on top of it. And it was still just like whatever. It wasn't until I physically picked it up that it started squirming and freaking out and it finally realized, oh fuck, this thing is a giant to me. I can't just let it do whatever with me. And then it made a concerted effort to get the fuck away from me. That's all I'm asking for, cockroach. Just don't make yourself known. Just don't pretend you're a person. You're not a fucking person. You live your life. I'll live my life. That's all you got to do is that one percent of the day is just get the fuck under something and get out of sight. That's all you need to do, cockroach. Then I'll move on to somewhere else and we'll both be just that's fine.

But anyway, yeah, I've definitely moved on from the existential dread of the cockroach. Now I'm just like, you little fuck fuck you. So that's nice at least. Now I just feel like, I don't know, I wonder if the size of it adds to that too. It does kind of weirdly humanize this thing more, you know? 10:00 I mean, it's closer to like a pet rat or just a tiny pet than it is an insect because it's so fucking big.

But yeah, it just makes it clear once you've literally picked one of these things up. There's no malice in the cockroach. It's just very fucking stupid. That's all. It's trapped in a place and it's so dumb, it doesn't even know that it would be better off if it would just let me put it outside, but it doesn't know that. It thinks I was trying to kill it.

So hopefully, yeah, hopefully I freaked it out enough that it'll at least just stay away. Just stay hidden.

For the tiniest little bits of your life that there's a fucking person around. That's all.

All right, it just starting to rain kind of significantly.

Shades the yesterday. I hope that doesn't happen actually. I hope it doesn't rain like it did yesterday.

But the other cool thing is that I've got my next Airbnb book and it kind of worked out really well. So there's a bunch of options in Taipei in the summer. Lots of options, all very affordable. I don't know if it's just that way in Taipei in general or if it is because it's this crazy summer weather. It does seem like a very bad time to come visit this part of the world. If you have a limited vacation time, you don't want to spend it with this kind of heat. So I found one place that was like 400 bucks for the whole month and I'm like, that's pretty good. Just a room, 400 bucks, whatever. There was a little minor discount because I booked for the entire month.

But it didn't have air conditioning. Oh, here that. Thunder. It didn't have air conditioning and this is going to be from September to October. Presumably things will be a little cooler, but how much cooler will they really be in just 10 days from now? It seems like they're probably still going to be pretty bad well into September if I had to guess. And I just didn't really want to risk it. It's just like, I just don't want to not have air conditioning. I don't need to save money that bad because there's so many options around here. There's so many comparable places. I can spend a little more than 400 bucks. That's fine. Honestly, anything under $800 for a whole month, I consider a very good deal. And these are Canadian prices I'm talking about. You know, 400 bucks Canadian. What even is that? American. You know, the vaunted American dollar. It's essentially free. So yeah, these are real good prices.

Wow, there's instead of just like a water fountain in this park I'm walking through, there's like water machines like at the airport. Like a big, there's two of them next to each other. Like a big, you know, five foot tall, like a mini fridge looking thing. And this one has not just cold water, but also hot water, which I have seen before, but warm water. I've never seen one that has warm water as well.

This is extremely fucking fancy. It's pretty cool. And it's in a little like a bus shelter looking thing because it's such a fancy water fountain. That's pretty cool.

But yeah, I figured I should look around more because I shouldn't take a place that doesn't have air conditioning unless I have no option. And I have lots of options here. So one thing I realized in South Korea is that it's kind of better to leave all the Airbnb stuff, leave off all the checkmarks, just search for everything and then sift through it on your own. Because I found that I was missing out on, you know, I wanted private rooms. I didn't want to share bunk beds and stuff. But I was missing some private rooms if I chose the private room option because not everyone had their listing properly set up. You know, they might not have it set as a private room even if it is. So I found it was better just to leave things open and do it yourself. But there's so many options here in Taipei. It was just overwhelming. There was too much stuff. So I did start adding options. I was like, okay, give me a private room and give me air conditioning. I like distinctly searched for both.

And I still found a bunch of places. And with searching for a whole month, there were various monthly discounts. So like some 400, some 500, some 600. Again, all of this is like whatever. That's all fine to me. I don't, I don't know, the difference between 400 and 600. Who cares? Just stay somewhere for a whole month. If the place that's a little more seems better, that's fine. That is still a wonderful deal. But I was just having such a hard time choosing. And there was no particular neighborhood that I wanted because Taipei is so small. I was like, alright, there's over here by the 101 or there's over here by where I am now, a little bit north by the National Park. There's over by Shimen. There's just like whatever. It's just all, it's all close enough that I could get to any of the other places from wherever I was. Like it just doesn't, that wasn't really relevant too much. 15:00 So then I had the idea of, you know, some of these were only slight discounts for staying for a month. But I thought, why don't I just look at what's the deepest discount? So that's what I went with is there was a place that it came out to be about $600 Canadian. But without the monthly discount, it would have been over 1200. It's a legitimately expensive Airbnb. Just a few, book it for the whole month. It comes down to the normal price. Where the other ones would be like, I'm supposed to be 600, but now it's 500. You know, a small discount. So I took a look at this one that's the massive discount. All the reviews were good. Private room. Has air conditioning. And it's right across the bridge from Shimen. So where I started off this Taipei adventure. Uh oh. Rain's getting harder. Head back to the laundromat. Do I have the umbrella with me? I think I do. She's all windy too. Gotta cannot believe this is the same day. That within like 90 minutes, the weather got this different. This is fucked man. This is like, it always makes me think of the end of Ghostbusters. Just the impending doom. Fuck yeah, I'm getting rained on like crazy. Shit.

Here's a little awning. I'll just hop under there. Get my umbrella out.

But yeah, basically, when I walked across the bridge from Shiman, the first time I went to New Taipei City, and there was like a big park that just kind of rolls along up through to the west and then curving up to the north, it's basically right over there. I'm basically going to be right across the bridge from classic Shiman. So basically, back in that neighborhood, near a train, too, so I can just go wherever. So yeah, I thought that seemed like, I don't know, this is a nice, situation to be in. This is the first time I've been traveling that I've had this many options, you know? Taipei is so flexible that I've never been able to do this before, but when I thought of it, I'm like, oh, that was a good idea. Find the one that was initially the most expensive. And then go with the deep discount. So yeah, for my 600 bucks, I'm staying in a $1,200 Airbnb. And it is one of those things, like, I don't know when a discount is that deep. I used to feel a little weird about it, about booking the whole month, like, are they really okay with this? That's a lot of reduction in the price, but then I realized, I think I realized this when I stayed in Amsterdam, in Oatthorn, where I stayed at this one guy's place for, like, three weeks maybe, that I was there every day, but his other room was only ever rented on the weekend. So he was getting more money out of the people who stayed for the weekend. But because they were only staying for the weekend, I think he was still making more money overall from me being there all week. And you're really not losing out on anything in those situations because the room would just be empty. People just don't need Airbnb's during random days of the week, you know? Everybody's working for the weekend. So yeah, even though they are, quote unquote, missing out on $650 or something, if they had rented the room out at the full price for the entire month, they wouldn't. They would not be able to rent out the room for the full price for the month. It would just be little drips and drabs, intermittent bookings, probably just on the weekend. So they're probably still coming out better by renting to me for the whole month. Aren't the very least, you know, comparable. And you don't have to worry that someone's going to book it or not. It's just booked. September's decided. But yeah, this is what I always liked about Airbnb that I have missed greatly in North America. This is what I think is cool about it is just relatively low to the ground, relatively simple accommodations. Just rent to somebody for a relatively long period of time for a relatively small amount of money, but it's just nice and stable.

And I love the, just the basically review-based system of it, you know? I feel like I just have a string of reviews that I don't know if anybody even checks, probably not. They're probably just like, hey, this guy wants to rent the room, that's fine. But should they want to, all my reviews are good, you know? It's just like, there you go. I have a nice paper trail where, man, the last apartment I got on my own in Vancouver, like what a disaster. Like, oh, you got to call my work and you got to make sure I got a job and you got to make me jump through all these hoops. And I got to sign a lease for all year and the place sucked balls. And it wasn't even cheap and it just sucked. And then during COVID, I just moved in with my cousin, but it was a very strange situation where he then moved out. So me and my other friend were just on this lease that we'd never signed up for in the first place that we never actually... 20:00 Actually, I don't even know, I think my cousin inherited it from someone else. I don't know, anyway, I just remember once things had to switch over, it's again just so many hoops in such a pain that I know like rental people want to protect themselves. But I just hate it. I hate dealing with all this stuff. It's so many hoops and so tough. And especially, I mean, at least when I was in Vancouver, I had a job. During COVID, I didn't have no fucking job. I didn't do shit. It's hard to convince someone you're a citizen. I love the Airbnb method of like, let's just forget about all that shit. We don't need all of these assurances and paperwork and calling bosses.

We know you're not going to fuck us over because you've been within the air. You've been working inside this Airbnb system for years and years. So you're trusted within this system and it just works so much better for me. It's like, you know, let my actions speak, not my fucking place in society because I have no fucking place in society. I'm barely a citizen. They won't give me a proper credit card. You know, it's like it's annoying. I hate the bureaucracy of like North American society. It's the worst because I didn't go to university after high school and I didn't take out a credit card or take out a big student loan debt. And I just was never a citizen ever since. It's like, I don't fucking count in the system because I didn't do the thing everybody does. And it's fucking annoying. And I didn't hold down a consistent job either. It's just always different jobs and then quitting them at a whim. But fuck you. I don't want your life. The Airbnb was a great thing for me. I'm just like, awesome. I can just go get a room, different places and just, uh, it's great.

But it doesn't feel that way in North America anymore. It's a pain in the ass in North America now. It's expensive and hard to find places. And not very fun. Or yet, Taipei is bringing the fun back and South Korea. Just book a weird little place. Hey, a tiny amount of money.

Live in a shoebox, the size of a prison cell. But that's fine with me. That's all I need.

Well, darn it. This is not like, epic crane like yesterday, but it's not small rain. It's pretty big rain. And I've wandered away from the laundromat. So I guess I'd better get my umbrella out and try to make it on back there. Wish me luck.

You Oh, so friggin' annoying. God damn it. This fucking rain. See, it's not as bad as yesterday, but it's real bad. So just because I get caught on the rain yesterday. Just trying to keep my boots, you know, again, because things don't dry in the humidity around here. I managed to get my pant legs yesterday and my boots dry because I realized in the entryway the apartment that one of the other people's rooms, their air conditioners there. So the exhaust that blows out of the air conditioner, I have no idea what the quality of air blows out of the back of an air conditioner. It's probably gross. But whatever, it was air, you know, that it was kind of warm and was moving, you know. So I put my pants, hung my pants, and put my shoes by that fucking thing just so it would dry them. And just today, they're just fucked again. It's this awful gross feeling of like my socks are completely wet. Everything inside my boots is wet. My legs are wet. And even my book bag is surprisingly wet. And like, even if I put my dry clothes in this book bag, like shit. You know, fuck. I wish I had a plastic bag or something. I don't want my dried clothes to get wet on the way home. It's just fucking annoying. And this is reminding me of, I mean, I like rain conceptually just to stand here at this open doorway of the laundromat and look outside at the rain. This would be great if I didn't have to go back out in it. I got quite a long walk home. And there's awning, you know, some of the way.

A bus did just go by, but then there's the awkwardness of that. Then I got to figure out when the bus is coming and you go wait for the bus. Buses seem very, very infrequent around here. I mean, my main example was that mountain road. That was extra infrequent. 25:00 But every time I walk by a bus stop, I glance up. And it's always, it always seems to be like 26 minutes till the next bus.

Anyway, I guess it's a minor problem. But yeah, this does remind me there was one of the years I was trapped home in COVID times that was especially warm. And that's when I do remember realizing how much I prefer snow to rain. Because I would always walk across town like once a week just to go see the fam. And walking through the snow is no problem. You get bundled up. It's pretty. It's nice. When you get to the other end, you just brush off the snow. Everything's great. If you walk for two or three hours through the rain, it's just a miserable life. It just sucks. And then you get to the other side and you're just wet. And things again aren't going to dry in time by the time it's time to leave. It's just the worst. I hate the rain. It's fucking sucks.

And what I need is, I don't know if this was ever a real product or if it was just one of those wacky internet things. I do remember seeing an umbrella from Japan where the umbrella had like a shower curtain around it that hung all the way down around your body. Because yeah, this shit was coming down sideways partially on my way here. I also did a little research on humidity and I basically learned that it's not worth trying to learn. There's so many variables. So it's like does 100% humidity mean it's going to rain? No, not necessarily. It can mean that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the humidity number is based upon the current temperature and various factors such as wind and yada, yada. Essentially, the percentage of humidity, it just means nothing. It's not relevant. I mean, you can look it up and say like, oh, it's higher, it's low, but it's total meteorological stuff. It's not for the average person to understand or be able to figure out in any way. So I guess that's good to know at least. Don't bother trying to learn. That's enough of my cranky ass for today.

Let's call this to a close and hope for a less rain drenched adventure when I fade out and fade back in again.

Alright, it's the next day and it is kind of, it's like a weirdly groundhog day-ish where I woke up and checked the Taipei weather. And yeah, it's just a cascading index of reasons you should not go outside. You know, it's like heat wave warning. I saw some additional warnings about like, hey, if you're outside for too long, you have a chance of dehydration. I don't know, maybe that's been a warning that's been around and I never noticed it before because I don't know why they wouldn't just kind of say that every fucking day in the summer.

But I noticed it today and then also the thunderstorm warnings. And as I was walking like I left the house and it's beautiful. It's exactly the same where it's beautiful, blue skies and occasional little white puffy cloud. But then as I'm walking I can see the grainess on the horizon. The grainess is not as bad today, but it's there, so we'll see. We will see. But basically I'm ready for it. I'm deliberately walking into the fray today. So I got an umbrella, I got a raincoat, I'm all set to go. So I'm staying closer to civilization today. Still going on a hike, but yeah, not a out in the middle of nowhere hike. This is the Tianmu Historic Trail. This is this kind of little mountain range I saw yesterday that it's like, how do I get there? It turns out if I leave my Airbnb and I just turned left and walked and I got to the entrance to the Tianmu Historic Trail. So I'm on my way up and so far it's very South Korea feeling where there were a lot of places in South Korea where a path or a little road or whatever would just kind of pass by some very very old houses. And that's happening here. It's like stone steps and little walkways, stone walkways. It's all really well. This is obviously a pretty famous thing because it's very well. Again, I guess everything has been extremely well maintained here in Taipei. The only thing that's been kind of like a rough and rugged trail so far is up by Sochow University that I can't get back to. Because the sky keeps opening up or the heat destroys me. The weather has not been good enough to go that far out, but everything within the city proper is like super well maintained.

And yeah, just walking up these steps next to some houses and I'm into someone live here. It's number 39. It's like a little, you know, kind of like a country shack sort of almost like a lean to. Just like a real simple house with the corrugated steel roof. The kind of thing like you just kind of can't do in Canada because it's too cold like this place obviously doesn't really have insulation. But in this climate, you can just have a very simple house. I'm sure it sounds offensive for me to call it a shack or a lean to. I'm just thinking back to my King's Quest youth. I don't know. Those are the words that they used for the ancient dwellings. That's kind of what it feels like. Oh, hey, Cat. Didn't even notice you. Hey, buddy. I'm afraid I got nothing. All I have is I've been buying lately for like to have a little snacky snack while I hike. The dried fruit is my favorite. Dried plums or dried apples or dried various weird berries. Just got dried mango today. But that's all I got today. It's dried mango that it didn't open. Sorry, Kitty.

And yeah, now there's a massive set of steps ahead of me. So I'll probably turn this recorder off, but I did want to mention, I mean, I think if I just wanted to boil down why I like being in Asia more than North America, if I just had to put one thing on it, it is just the mountains, just the fact that it's so hilly and mountainous, that you can't just leave your house and walk up hundreds of steps in North America, unless you do it in a super artificial way. Like when I worked at the Scotia Bank movie theater on Barard Street in Vancouver, I was a projectionist back when that was still a job. I was one of the very last before it went digital, and I used to, instead of taking the elevator, I used to walk up and down the steps all day. You know, like you can take the steps in an office building, or you could go to a gym and go on a stair master, but that I don't want to do either of those, those don't feel good. Going outside and walking next to a stream and up through all this lush greenery, it's just beautiful. And it's right outside your door, and there's multiple 7-Elevens on the way here. Like this is the perfect, perfect kind of exercise. And I did notice like when I woke up, I thought I got a pretty good amount of sleep last night, but I woke up just feeling a little like, oh, it don't feel great today.

And I bought a couple coffees on the way here to try to battle it back or a coffee and a, and a matcha. And I even took a little half an aspirin. I usually just break my little painkillers in half when I don't really need them. Like I don't really have a headache. It's kind of more of a placebo thing, but I'm like, let me just take half a one. Maybe I'll feel better. But I just wasn't. I was like, geez, yeah, I'm having a tough time today. But then I get to these steps and I start walking up them and it does just shift your whole physiology. Your body just has to transform into a stair walking machine.

And as I mentioned before, I mean, I'm just glad that I can do it. It feels good that I'm good at this, that I can't just walk up steps. And I mean, my cardio is good enough at this point. I can do a dang podcast while I'm walking up stairs. But it also just feels good because it actually feels good. Like this is the only thing that could sweep away that just, what's the like, how do I describe how I was feeling?

Just, well, just like I didn't sleep enough, you know, that's all. Just everything feels kind of fuzzy. Like there's a big fuzzy ball in my head. And everything feels a little bad. And it just washes it right away. You know, my body's like, alright, forget all that. Pump the system full of whatever it needs to make this happen. And now I feel fine. And yeah, it's literally that simple. I think I would be, I would have such an easier time settling in North America and just be in okay with my North American life. I just had easier access to mountains. You know, Montreal has Mont Royale. Vancouver has a bunch of stuff, but it is a little bit of travel to get to it. Where Asia, it's just mountain town. It is, it's ludicrous. Thousands of mountains everywhere. And I just like this lifestyle of having to walk up mountains. It just makes my whole day. It just, this is how my day works. Well, this is how I feel okay about stuff. It just makes a huge difference. It feels like my body is doing what my body is meant to be doing.

And yeah, all the other stuff that's neat about traveling and stuff. I mean, it's cool. It's neat to experience other places and learn about stuff and try different things. Even though in my case, it's mainly just trying different things at a convenience store, you know, it's pretty shallow.

But yeah, it's literally the mountains. Mountains are my super preferred method of exercise for sure.

Alright, I'm a ways up. I don't know exactly where. I found a little map. Oh, I see somebody drew on this because you have this map doesn't say where I am currently, but somebody made a little circle with a marker. So I think that's where I am. So I'm like a third of the way. Apparently this trail is 2,600 meters in length and it takes about two hours. Elevation diagram of the old trail. I see as I'm done the steep part. So that's nice. Till I get toward the end and then it goes up again. Not down? Hmm. Well, we'll see what happens. Yeah, this, uh, Tianmu Old Trail guide map. There's a little bit of English. Tianmu Old Trail is an old trail connecting Tianmu and Yangminshan near a large water pipe. The beginning and end of the trail are steep. Tropical phenomena can be spotted such as buttress routes, cauliflower and asphyxiation. I feel like maybe that's a translation problem.

A whole bunch of people just passed by. The cliffs here provide a home for the Taiwan Makauk. And it does say up here do not feed monkeys, do not disturb monkeys, do not contact monkeys. So this might be, you know, it's okay if I don't see a monkey. It's probably better if I don't. But yeah, I was always curious about monkeys throughout my journeys and I've never seen one. But this seems like it could be a place.

Oh, this is actually handy. This map is useful. It only shows one washroom and I think it's right where I am. I have to go off the trail a bit. Good to know. Good to know that I can go swing by the washroom before I do the massive trek.

And there's another trail partway through to the Kuifang Trail, CU, IFE and G. I don't know what that is, maybe on another day.

But then this map, it's funny because all the sections on the map are titled in English, but then they're just in simplified Chinese. So let's try Google Translate. Let's see what we got. In English, we got old trees and old houses, the historical footprints of our ancestors. So yeah, I think it wasn't coincidence that those houses I saw seemed extremely old. Okay, so let's do the Google Translate. At the beginning of the trail, in addition to the cement bungalows built in the early days, there are also some older red brick houses, which are obvious that they were settlements in the early days. So yeah, maybe people do not live in those houses. They're just maintained because they're very old. Then for most in rock monkey, I'm a cock endemic to Taiwan Island. The water pipeline trail is the easiest trail for Taiwan monkeys to be seen in Taipei City. It has the name of Monkey Cave since ancient times. You can often encounter a family of monkeys and occasionally you can encounter male monkeys who are single. I see and they've even got a part the Formosa Monkey activity zone is coming up.

The secret of big water pipe, the grass mountain waterway.

A large black water pipe can be seen on the left side of the trail. In the past, the Kaoshin waterway system brought together the water sources of the first and third water sources. Okay, so anyway, this was, yeah, ancient waterway and now there's a big pipe completed in 1932.

And it is still in good condition because of the profound significance of the times the Kaoshin Riverway system is listed as a municipal monument. So that's not just a water pipe, that's the fucking mother of all water pipes.

Yeah, I don't usually stop and read all the little informational stuff. I guess I stopped because I saw the monkeys. But yeah, this place is just interesting, it's neat. Yeah, presumably there's a community on this side and there was a community on the other side and this was the trail to get between the two back in the day.

And now it's just a fun hike. Oh yeah, and I see there's little like monkey signs around, little monkey insignia on stuff. Yeah, they're all about monkeys around here. Who knows, man? Who knows?

Again, I don't know. I don't know how wild monkeys are. I feel like I've heard some fairly terrifying stories of monkey attacks. 40:00 But I don't know. If my cocks, I don't know where my cocks fall into monkeys. I don't know anything about monkeys, really. I'll be fine if I don't see any monkeys. Less encounters with wild animals are generally better than more, but you never know. Maybe it'll happen.

So this is pretty cool, the Makak trail of the Tianmu Historic Trail. I would recommend coming here to check this out just for the physical location of it. It literally is a trail, a really long trail, like a kilometer and a half, along the side of a cliff.

It's really cool. But it's also somewhat disconcerting, where at the start of it, basically I think my feeling that it might be better not to see any monkeys seem pretty confirmed.

Because the sign was pretty much all just similar to signs about boars and stuff in Japan or in South Korea. What to do if you see a monkey? And it's a lot of go on the trail on the other side of them. Don't make eye contact. Here are the signs that a monkey's angry. If you see anybody trying to feed the monkeys, tell them to fucking quit it. And the words they said were literally don't tease the monkeys. So yeah, it does seem like these are for sure wild monkeys. Maybe it's kind of neat to see a monkey, but I'll be all right. But the other thing that's actually kind of eerie, I mean I think this is still cool overall, but there's also a lot of falling rock signs. And then they combine sometimes, so it's a little cartoon drawing of a monkey running away from rocks. And yeah, I feel like I should have a freaking hard hat on because you're just next to this cliff side the whole time. Really steep and you can literally see big rocks and stuff sort of wedged into against tree trunks and things. And it's like, man, even if just like a normal rock fell and it hit you, you'd probably be pretty hurt. But if one of those bigger ones fell, I think you would die for sure. Yeah, it legitimately seems like, you know, I've seen a lot of falling rock signs all over the place, but this is the first time I've really felt like I actually could envision myself getting hit by a rock.

So yeah, eerie, very eerie, but ultimately still really cool. And I'm always surprised how there's just stuff like this that's like, this is so close to the city. It's just such an easy thing to get to. I never heard of this before. I had no idea this was here. I mean, to be fair, I don't do a lot of research, but it's always so weird to just be walking along and you're like, man, this is super accessible, super easy to get to. And then all of a sudden, you're in cliff side monkey world. Like, wow, what the heck? Cool.

And as an added bonus, it hasn't even started raining, so that's extra awesome.

Well, this is pretty cool. At the end of the monkey trail, I believe I may technically be inside Yangminshan National Park, but if not, I'm like very near, very close. But at the same time, there's a bus stop. There is a bus exit if I wanted to do that, but there's paths that keep going north up into the main national park. And I am a bit tempted, except that it is still crazy, crazy hot and humid and stuff. Though, again, it's the multi-weather, because I guess technically it's not super, super hot right now because those clouds are still rolling in. I just glanced up through some trees and it's like, oh, yeah, actually, the foreboding cloud is getting more and more foreboding. It's already 3.30, so it's later than it has been starting to rain lately. But if I've learned anything, it's that these gray skies are not performative. So far, they always mean a big rain storm is coming. 45:00 So I feel like that's probably in my future. So between either the heat or the storm, going deeper into the national park, not a great idea, but there's definitely paths there. And I suppose now that I think about it, the fact that there's a bus stop, because this wasn't a super difficult journey, but not super easy either. I mean, the steps to get up to that monkey trail, I wonder how many steps that was. It was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. It was so many steps.