#197 Winding down in Taipei

Transcript

So time is wrapping up pretty quick in Taipei. I think a lot of it is the all-the-rain. It's kind of thrown me off, where I was like, I read, I got an extra month, I'll just extend this final air B&B for, I guess it wasn't a full month, it's like 24 days. And then because of the rain, it's kind of stuck inside quite a bit. And then I realized all of a sudden, like, oh shit. I have like just under two weeks left. I mean, it all makes sense, of course, I mean, you know, time passes. But it felt like it kind of came at me sideways. I was like, oh fuck, I didn't, I'm going to be gone soon. Damn it. And it's just kind of a weird thing because I just don't know. I just don't know. I mean, I guess it's always weird. Transitioning to a new place just feels weird. But I don't know how valuable it even is to Yammer about because like two weeks in Taipei, you know, that would be the whole trip for most people. If they're lucky, you know. So this is one of these like boutique problems, boutique situations, like I'm just lucky that I can just travel around like this for a year and a half or whatever. You know, and maybe, maybe some of this podcast is kind of handy of like, oh, this place or that place. I don't know. Maybe somebody will Google a semi obscure place and they'll find my podcast and find something useful or interesting about going to that place. But the larger premise of this podcast, I feel like it's probably extremely unrelatable and not really useful because not many people are able to just do this. So I mean, it feels like I feel bad even voicing my trouble. So like, oh, yeah, oh really. You're amazing, wonderful thing that you get to do is it feels a little weird to you who cares. Shut up.

But yeah, I guess it always is this way, you know, like when I was leaving Japan, it's like, ah, I'm not really ready to go. Could use some more time. Here, it's like, ah, geez, I'm not really ready to go. I could use some more time. Like, I just noticed the other day when I was crossing at a stoplight, the little grooven man on the walk signs is cool, little schlep and cool. I don't know. It's like, it's like a guy's doing a moonwalk, but forward is what the guy on the walk sign looks like. It's so cool. And I remember how much that stood out when I first got here. And I realized the other day, like, oh, yeah, I don't even notice anymore. It's just how the walk light looks. I have been here a while. But yeah, I would certainly stay a little longer if I could. But then I think about South Korea where I did get to stay longer. I was there for six months. And it still wasn't quite enough. I would have stayed a little longer. I would have gone back to Busan. So, I've three months isn't enough. And six months isn't enough. I mean, what's going to be enough? I don't know. I was thinking about, like, when I lived in Toronto. About four years in, that's when I finally was like, alright, time to get moving again, you know. I've been here too long, but it was hard to leave. I stayed for an extra year before I could really get up the gumption to get moving and get going and moved out to Vancouver. So, I mean, I guess if that's anything to go by, between four to five years, that's what it's like, alright.

Alright, time to go. But as a random traveling visitor, that is not an option.

But then I wonder, like, what to do with myself two weeks. I'm just not sure.

So, I feel like all I can do is just not worry about it. Just try not to think about it. Like, who cares? I've explored Taipei pretty damn well. And I did the tallest mountain. You know, that was kind of the one big... You know, there's always the one big thing to do. And I generally don't manage to do it. I guess in Jeju, I transferred instead of trying to go up the big mountain. I transferred to walk all the way around the island. And I did manage to do it.

But yeah, I don't know. I guess all there is is some garden variety self-help counter at the drug store.

You know, variety of philosophy of like, you know, it's just trying to hold on to things, having expectations for things, having desires. Just make sure less happy. Don't worry about trying to squeeze in more stuff. You did enough stuff. Don't worry about specifically what you do on these days. What if you do nothing? What if it just starts raining again? Who cares? Just don't worry about it. Just don't think about it. Just soak in the vibe. Just soak in the environment. You did it. Consider the mission complete and just whatever else happens happens. But, you know, as with all things, easier said than done. But I decided for today... Let's just go to the Tianmu Historic Trail because that was such a cool place. So yeah, I hopped down the train, went back to my old neighborhood where my last Airbnb was, got to stroll through that hood, walk up these awesome steps where it's like six zillion steps up the side of a mountain. 5:00 Now I met the little part where they weren't about monkeys, where I did eventually see a monkey higher up the mountain, but not here. And today I also suspect no monkeys. I don't believe there's going to be any monkeys, but just a nice walk.

And then at the other end of this walk, that's where I discovered a waterfall. One of the waterfalls I really liked.

For whatever weird reason in my stupid brain, I tend to find waterfalls a little underwhelming, but this one was a great waterfall.

So I was like, what a nice easy little thing to do. What a nice afternoon. Like, don't worry about doing a new thing, don't worry about finding a new spot to go. I did yesterday just to check it out. I went on the blue line to Dingpoo, D-I-N-G-P-U. And I just walked around there for a couple hours, and I didn't really find much. There are mountains and stuff. There might be trails if I looked harder. Didn't really find any. Just wandered around for a bit, just to check out one at the ends of the subway I hadn't been to. So it wasn't like... Shin-Dien, where everything was just like, wow, every direction this is awesome. I love this fucking place. Dingpoo not so much, just a random place, but it was still nice. Just still a nice little stroll, nice little afternoon. But I guess I'm hitting that point now where random exploration is not automatically paying off. I've hit a lot of the heavy hitters, the highlights. So yeah, even if I just sort of replay the hits now, why not? And then if it just again start raining and shit, and I just can't do anything else, who cares? Just trying to give himself not to care. Because what am I even caring about? I don't know. Again, glass half empty glass half full, right? I should just focus on how cool it is that I've spent this time in Taipei and seen all these things. Not worry about what else I can see in the last week and a half. That's just so gluttonous. Just squeeze it in, fit in all the experiences, relax, you did it already. You did plenty. You had a great time in Taipei. Just let it be that.

But one thing this nice, now that it's almost mid-October, it is finally cooled down. All the rain really helped, I think. And then coming out the other side of the rain, it's overcast today. I felt little sprinkles here and there. But the weather is finally below 30 degrees. You know, it's still hot. I'm still sweaty, but this is more like Canadian hot. Not the center of hell hot. And even last night, just sitting around my room for the first time ever. I put on a t-shirt while I was sitting at my computer. That just seems unfathomable. Before this, it's like, are you kidding? Even with an air conditioner and a fan and stuff. No fucking way. So yeah, the weather is normalizing to something resembling sanity. So that's cool.

And then I wonder, too, again, so little value at some point in psychoanalyzing what's going on in your own brain. But with this just a little bit of time left to go, then I'm heading back to Japan. And I do think like, I don't know, it's like you'd think the more you do this stuff, the easier it would get. But that's not necessarily how. It's not necessarily the evidence I have to work with. Where going back to Japan, it seems like it should be fine. I should be able to get another 90 day visa. But because I haven't been out of the country for a full year, it's not totally assured. People seem to say on Reddit or whatnot that it should be fine, but I guess it's not necessarily something people do that often. And there's no specific law about it that I could find. So I'm just going to come clean at the airport and just say like, hey, I've only been gotten nine months. I hope this is okay. What do I need to show you? I got a bank balance. I can prove I'm, you know, I don't know. Again, I'm Canadian. They probably don't care. Probably don't give a fuck.

But I'm just thinking of like with leaving Jeju where I was feeling pretty good about stuff. I got right. Cool. I'm feeling quite confident. And then the typhoon hit and I had to reroute all my flights and stuff. And I still, after rerouting things, was like, I think I'm still confident. I think I still feel okay about this. And then I got to the airport the next day and everything really fell apart. And my rerouted flights didn't work and I had to change everything to the last second. And I had to overstay my visa by a day. And I just, I mean, I don't know how else to describe it. I just mental collapse or like total anxiety bomb just exploded inside me.

Felt motherfucking terrible. God damn, I was stressed. And I just have to accept that that's me. That's how it works. I am not especially resilient when I don't quite know what's happening with the plan. Things are up in the air. It stresses me out greatly. So I've tried to mitigate that as much as I can. You know, I've got just a quick relatively cheap flight to Japan. 10:00 It's pretty close. It's relatively cheap. Everything should be fine on the other end. But if it's not, you know, I've only got like I set up the whole first week just at Norahiko's place in Chiba where I've already been before. A guy that I know, a guy whose house I know how to get to. If I do have to like pull up and cancel everything at the last second, I didn't set up because I, you know, that's way longer than I would normally stay. I would stop in for a couple of days and say hi to him. But I didn't want to set up all kinds of different stuff all over in case I needed to cancel it.

And even in this case, you know, I don't want to cancel it. I don't want to just suddenly yank the rug up from under this guy. Probably I would just not cancel it. And I would just, as a way, as goodwill just say, I don't know how you would feel about that, but I'd just say, whatever, keep my money, I don't care. But I didn't want to have to untangle a whole bunch of bookings. So I tried to set it up as easily as possible. This all seems pretty easy. And if, for whatever reason, they don't let me in. Again, I don't know what happens in that case. But I guess, I don't know. I guess then I just go to a flight counter and get a flight to Vietnam and fucking set up some shit there. I don't know.

But it's like, that's like sitting in the back of my mind now, just knowing like, hey, hey, you know what's going to happen if things go wrong, right? You know what's going to happen if this gets tricky. And if that does happen, and if you can't get into Japan and if you have to reroute stuff, even just the idea that this could happen, this is going to stress you the F out bitch. Because you don't have examples from like five years ago or something. You got examples from three months ago. How totally badly you handled that shit. How terrible it felt to have to reroute plans at the last second. Like, it's enough that I would just wait three more months to go back to Japan and just do avoid any of this ambiguity if I could, but then I would just be sort of stuck in the same loop of then I would be trying to fly back home when flight prices are expensive. And I'm probably going to be expensive anyway. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen.

But yeah, I guess I can't lie to myself about it. I can't lie to myself now and just say like, it's fine, I'm confident. Everything will go fine. Everything probably will go fine, but I'm not confident. I have no faith in myself at all. Once things go sideways and get squirrely, I freak the hell out, man. My internal autumn nut. Was it the autonomic nervous system? Like my body just hates that. Hates it.

So that's probably got me feeling a little weird too. Just like uncertainty in travel. Not nice. Oh, that's nice though. It's been quite overcast today, but the sun just came out. Nice blue skies, still lots of clouds, but nice blue skies. Anyway, yeah, no monkeys on this trail.

But the waterfall. Now here's the thing is there was two stairways. Because I remember there was a stairway with a dog on it that I thought was the stairway. But it wasn't.

While coming the other direction, I had to go to the second stairway, so this must be them. This must be them. So now I'm heading down these stairs to the waterfall.

But yeah, also in just like having to wrap things up a little at the end of a stay somewhere. I have about 20 dollars on my transit card, so that's pretty perfect. I don't have to worry about that too much. That's at the point where obviously I'll use some up while I'm here. But I don't think I really need to worry too much about trying to get money off of the card or whatever. I'll just leave that on the card. Who cares? That's an acceptable loss. It's hard to tell again because my...

understanding of the conversion rates is still pretty shaky. So I was looking at my card and it had like, you know, $500 on it, but it's not $500, it's $24 bucks. So that's not bad, and I got some cash in my wallet, but it's probably enough to get me to the other side. I'll try to use it up, but I don't know. Maybe I'll just actually convert it at the airport on the other side this time. Whatever.

Everything should be fine. But yeah, I guess as far as final plans, I think I have none. Really just getting up to the top of the main peak was the plan. The one thing I really wanted to try to do, and I did.

So anything else I do now is a bonus, and I'm just trying to not think about it, I guess. So low traveling.

I mean, I guess I can't say for sure I'm not getting better at it. Maybe I am. I must be. But getting better doesn't mean everything just is like easy.

It's still tough and weird, and it will probably always be. Wow, yeah, just going down these steps I can already hear. Watch her folly sounds in the distance. Sweet. This is such a good walk. Holy shit. Tianmu Historic Trail. Along the monkey route. 15:00 I'm going down to sweeping falls on GZ. I just checked on the map. I'm like right by it already. TSUI FENG Falls. But yeah, see previous episode for details of my first discovery of this waterfall. But yeah, this is a primo 10 at a 10 walk, and it's so easy to get to. Like it's so city accessible. It's crazy. Back down to the bottom today. They were replacing a bunch of pavement on the street outside of this trail. It took me three attempts to get to the stairs. I almost thought I wouldn't be able to because it was just city stuff. Like the second you step off those stairs, you're just in the city.

But right now, I mean, again, I've only been how long to take me to get up those stairs. I don't know 20 minutes. Maybe a little longer. Then you walk along there. Then you walk along the monkey path. And like at this point, I can't see city. I can't hear city. I'm in the goddamn jungle. Do you know where you are? Oh, there's a monkey. Hey, monkey. Well, I saw a monkey after all.

All right, see you later, monkey. Luckily, the monkey's on the main trail. But I'm right at the point where I got to go to the little offbeat trail.

Over to the waterfall. Man, there we go. There we go. Now I feel like the world is kind of.

You know, while I'm talking it out, talking out my little vague apprehensions about wrapping up my time in Taipei and moving on to the next thing. And then just for the world to just not only send a monkey to greet me, but at the exact point where I was going the other way anyway, that would actually be a little tricky. Like that happened to me in Vancouver in Burnaby. I was trying to go up a little mountain trail there. And there was like a wolf right there. And I was like, fuck. Pretty cool to see. But I guess I'm not going on that trail today. Similar thing here. I would not want to approach the monkey. I don't want to anger any monkeys. But it was exactly at the point where I got to go the other way anyway. Perfect. Perfect weather. Perfect monkey sighting.

Heading down to this perfect little waterfall.

All right. Well, I'm not going to stand around and describe a waterfall again. Again, I already did that last time I was here. So, thank you for listening to this ramble.

What will happen next on my Taipei adventure? Probably not much. Probably not much.

But that's the plan at this point. Take it easy, chill. Oh, I said I was going to say my stupid boots. My pee smelling boots. I'm happy to report that it was only because I went out on a day when it was like crazy rainy. Like rainy out of just it was cartoonish. It was insane how rainy it was. That was the day my boots got wet enough to smell like ammonia. It hasn't really been a problem since then. Even if they get a little bit wet, it seems like it's okay. And I really don't want to get rid of these. Like I just like to keep my footwear or keep my anything until it's fallen apart. Like the audio recorder I had before this one. I had it for like 14 years.

I really want to keep these boots till the soles come off. You know, it comes separate from the boot which might not take that long. But the fact that they're all busted up and shitty looking like I like that. That's a point of pride to me. I earned that.

So I think I am going to try to hang on to them because boots are not especially affordable. Nothing's especially affordable in Taipei. Similar boots. These ones were $7b in sole. Similar boots around here are like $200 and up. That was some actual people today. Last time I was here there was no one.

But if something does go terribly wrong with these boots. If they pick up some ammonia smell that doesn't go away or whatever. There's a shoe store, a sporting goods store, between my place and the train. So on my last day as I exit to go to the train.

I'll be walking right by that place. I can buy a pair of shoes from there for 20 bucks. Toss these boots in a dumpster if I have to.

But I think I can hang on. I think I can hold on to these fucking boots even a little longer still.

There's the boot update. Fascinating.

This trail down to the waterfall is longer than I remember. I can still hear it. Still can't see it. Still don't see the bottom. But yeah, this is getting pretty tricky. So let's turn off this motherfucking recorder so I don't tumble down a mountain. That would be some excitement to end out my days. Yeah, I went to the hospital in Taiwan because I fell down a mountain. Let's not do that.

Well, this is pretty cool. So yeah, it was a little tricky getting down down to this waterfall. That was a lot steeper than I remembered. Strangely would have been a bad time to be trying to do a podcast. But you know, not actually that bad. And it looks like I'm going to describe a waterfall after all because I hadn't even thought about this. This hadn't even crossed my mind. But because it's been raining endlessly for like weeks now, two or three weeks, I kind of forgot that that changes the timbre of waterfall. This waterfall is way bigger now than it was before. It's like crashing down. There's like two sides to it. There's like a smaller part. But that part is like really thick and wide now and just like the white water of water crashing down. And then there's a thinner taller part to the waterfall that just cascades down some rocks that is still thinner but is still like triple as much water as before. So this is pretty cool. The sun went away again though. So this is the spot where there's an iron oxidizing or whatever from the... I think it's from the sulfur springs up the mountain. Have I remember right? So it's all orange in direct sunlight, a little more golden orangey. But now that it's a little darker, it is just kind of a deep orange, reddish orange. So the orange part maybe doesn't look quite as shocking as it did in the sun. Still looks nice though. But yeah, the waterfall. Wow. I already liked this waterfall and now it looks awesome. It's so good. Yeah, this little grove, man. This place just feels good. I really like this one. It's so cool and so easy to get to. Just fucking magical, dude. Anyway, I'm not going to Yammer on and on. I'm just going to soak it in. Let's fade out to some nice roar of the waterfall.

Now this is kind of interesting coming down from, you know, just walked down the stream or the little wee river from the waterfall.

But I ended up somewhere different than before. Before I was on the river a lot longer. And then when I did connect up, that's where I found there's a little suspension bridge that was non-scary.

And I went and walked across. This time I got to a proper road way faster. So now I'm just walking down a road back to civilization, but I don't know how I did this or what I did different. But well, whatever. But I did see off in the distance on the horizon. There's this big temple. And it's like, oh, yeah, that temple. I kept seeing that temple back in this part of the world. And then I went over that way on a path that I assumed was going to this temple because it's so prominent. It's like right up on the hill and you can just see it from a million different angles. And I never did get to that temple, but instead I went to these aqueducts and I found a viewing platform at the top of that waterfall I was just at, which seeing it again from the bottom, it's kind of cool because you cannot see that viewing platform above you at all. It's like hidden by trees. So it's neat that it's there for people that are up there. But if you're at the bottom of the waterfall, it certainly doesn't hurt the view because you can't see it at all.

But this is a good example, I guess, of how it feels to be wrapping up in a place where it's like, oh, yeah, that big temple. But seeing it again, I have no inclination at all to try to get to the temple. 25:00 You know, the temple did its job of giving me a vague target to go hike over in that direction. But what I ended up doing in that direction was fine. Like I said, I found that viewing platform and the aqueducts and then, oh, yeah, and then that's when the first time I saw a monkey, it led me to a walking path where I saw a monkey. And then that led me up to the bus depot and the park at the entrance to the big national park and the big central mountain. So that all worked out perfectly getting to that actual specific temple. It's like, yeah, whatever. That's fine. I don't care about that. I don't care about the specifics. And I think that just kind of sums up how I feel, I guess, in general. I can't think of any more specifics that I really wanted to do. Or really, you know, there's so many little things of like I could I could hike up that big 1100 foot mountain again from the east or even more interestingly from the north could be kind of cool. Or even just from the south again on a clearer day.

And there's still stuff on the coastline on the east coast specifically that I could do. Obviously, I don't have time for this, but there's just other parts of Taiwan, you know. I'm sure next time I visit, I will not stay in Taipei the whole time. I'll go somewhere else.

But none of it feels especially pressing. It's like all of these places. They served me well at the time. And yeah, now that thing is so, so prominent. Man, so high up.

But I mean, that could be another case, too, of like it probably looks cooler from over here from the other ridge, you know, across from it. It looks amazing. The view actually being at that temple, who knows, might not be that great.

I've certainly seen enough temples in my time that that alone wouldn't draw me in. So yeah, yeah, that's just no more, no more pressing this.

But then there's that other double weird side of my brain that's like, all right, well, I guess if I'm all wrapped up here in Taipei, just to get past the vague floating anxiety about going back to Japan before a year is up. Then there's that part of my brain that's like, I wish I could just do that tomorrow. I guess if I'm done here, I wish we could just go do that. So it's like, what the hell's wrong with you? First you were like, oh, I don't have enough time left. And now you're like, well, I guess I could just leave right away then. It's like there's no, there's no good answer. It's just neurotic nonsense. It's all just the brain worrying about things that are not worth worrying about. But it's just my little monkey brain cannot help it. No offense monkeys. I noticed actually. I looked at the picture I took of that monkey zoomed in because I really wasn't particularly close to the monkey. It's like, oh, that monkey is holding a little baby monkey. And you can see I took a couple pictures in the pictures. You can see the little eyes of the baby monkey. The mom did not appear to be paying attention to me. That baby was staring right at me. So it's extra good that I didn't get near that monkey. I feel like if there's any monkey that's going to tear your jaw off, it's probably an angry mama monkey.

But yeah, generally speaking, just getting out of the house, just going to a place who cares what it is. Just get out, go for a walk, go for a hike, go see some stuff. Definitely helps keep one's neurotic dumb little brain. Let's just focus on something else, relax a little guy, damn it. And if what you just randomly walk out of your house and go do happens to be incredibly beautiful with ancient steps, and then a beautiful walk along the ridge line of a mountain, and then down to an amazing waterfall, and with a bonus monkey sighting. And now just perfect views of an amazing temple in the distance, a magical temple that I'll probably never actually get to.

I mean, that's pretty fucking good, man.

But yeah, nothing better to do right now than to just not overthink it. Just appreciate where you are. Just soak it in. Easier said than done. But, well, I mean, I guess it's all just maybe that's the other thing to keep in mind. It's not an on or an off switch, it's not a zero or a one. It's not either. Oh, are you appreciating where you are? Or are you stressed about the future? It's like, well, you're both. You're just always both, so whatever. That's okay, too. Just let that be what it is. Maybe that's the ultimate, Zen. Don't fucking fight it. Fighting it isn't gonna help. Just let it be what it is. Let everything be what it is. 30:00 How's that for an unreleased Oasis album title?

Hmm, now I'm starting to recognize this road. So yeah, I must have come up onto this road just at a different point somewhere before. Eh, well, whatever.

All downhill roads lead to Taipei. That's all you need to know. Downhill equals civilization.

Oh, here's a little something. Here's a little story I got to tell. As I was walking down, just walking down this road still, walking back to civilization. Since this podcast releases, you know, sometime in the past, you know, like quite a bit behind what's happening to me in real life. It's kind of neat for it to be like a little mirror where I can kind of, it reminds me of stuff that I would probably not really think about or sort of forget about. And then I can hold the two things up against each other and just kind of see how it was going and how it is now, you know. So for example, what's happening round about now is I released the podcast is hiking up a mountain near Ome, that if I remember right was about 600 meters, freak me out a bit. Because again, it's all prominence and steepness. I've been a lot higher than 600 and it's been no problem, but if you're 600 and it's kind of steep, it's a bit of a problem. But after that, I started mosey and around in Saitama, but I had to stop because my hip was hurting so much.

And I see a rise that I must have messed myself up hiking, you know, pushed myself too hard because if I remember right too, that is like a day I was kind of pushing myself because I was running out of sunlight. I wanted to make sure I got down the mountain before it got dark. So maybe that was the right thing to do. Maybe I didn't have much choice but to push myself and have that I think about it, it'd be better than getting stuck on a mountain in the darkness.

Hey doggy, there's an actual dog behind a fence, an actual dog with a home. That's a rarity and he didn't even bark at me, amazing. What a good dog.

But yeah, it's just interesting now to look back all this time later with many more mountain hikes under my belt. And that has never happened again, this like weird pain that made it hard to walk. You know, obviously, obviously a consulting.

Is that a word? Disconcerting, but without the disc?

Concerting. I think you'd say like concerning. Anyway, it's certainly something to keep one's eye on. It's like that's not a good sign, old man. But yeah, that has never happened since. And I think it's got to be like today, walking up the old historic steps, man, did I go slow? So fucking slow. Old ladies passed me, like a couple of old ladies passed me and I'm like good enough ladies, that's fine with me. I have no pride. I am in the zone. I am walking up one step, one step, one step, big deep breaths, slow and consistent.

You know, my policy is if you are going fast enough to get out of breath, you're going too fast. And yeah, I haven't had any of those like weird hip type problems at all ever since. So I just thought I'd bring that up to just add that to the docket, add that to the dossier of reasons why hiking up at an incredibly slow pace is the thing to do. I don't know what downside there could possibly be to it. I mean, it's slower. But again, like going distances across the land takes a long time. Going distances up just doesn't take that long. It can't possibly. The distances that you are able to go up on the planet earth are very limited. It's no problem. Like I said, it still took me like 20, 25 minutes. There's nothing.

What difference would it have made if I got up there in 15 and I hurt my fucking self? You know? It's I don't know, just interesting because I wouldn't have thought of that. I wouldn't even have remembered that I had a soreness from hiking. If it weren't for this very fucking granular podcast. I've also realized, which is another nice thing because I also have a bad shoulder because of schooliosis. I got a bad left knee and a bad right shoulder. But I haven't really been having trouble with my shoulder because I've just put no weight on it. 35:00 I always carry my day bag with the strap around my good shoulder.

I only ever carry a book bag when I got to go do laundry and all that's in it is my laundry and I still favor the good shoulder. As long as I don't put weight on the bad shoulder, it doesn't really hurt. I'm sure it will someday. All this stuff is getting worse and worse. But, but that's nice too. Just walking around like a normal person. My schooliosis is actually pretty manageable. It's not that bad.

And yeah, I guess that took a little while for me to figure out also because specifically I guess when I first got to Japan and I just didn't want to leave my stuff, you know, double duty. I don't really want to leave my bag here all day because I don't really have anywhere to put it or lock it up or whatever. And there was bed bugs at that first place. I was just carrying around a book bag all the time. And I had a sore shoulder.

But, trending away from these communal Airbnb lodgings, having somewhere to just leave my book bag, everything's been alright. It's nice. Hey, look at this. Apartment buildings and there's a traffic light down there, officially back in town. Oh yeah, and look at that. There they are. There's the people resurfacing the road. At the bottom of the trail. I made the loop. The loop is made. All done.

Oh geez, okay, well one more stupid little thing. There's these noodles that I found. I don't know what the brand is. Everything on them is in Chinese. There's no English at all. But, you know, just like the cool big cup noodles that you buy at the convenience store with like a million cool pouches and like stuff that is way fancier and way better. Then all of our stuff in North America. As is always the case in Asia. Instant noodles are the best. But this one had different cartoon drawings on it. And like one of them was a handsome anime cartoon man who is just like loving life. And that's, you know, to let you know like this one's just delicious. You're going to find this delicious. But then there was another one with like a screaming man who looked in like intense torment with tears running out of his eyes and not running out. It's like horrifying. And like the message is clear. If you eat this one, it's going to be very fucking spicy. So I bought it just because I wanted to take a picture of it for a little Instagram picture because I thought it was funny. It's just the cartoon was very funny. It's like this man is hating his life. I didn't actually want it. And yeah, and when I ate it yesterday, they weren't kidding. Bad stomach ache all night from the heat still felt a little rumbly today. It's like fuck. But I guess that's the thing I can say is like in general. If something claims to be spicy in Japan, there's a good chance that it's no big deal. They often exaggerate about the heat in Japan for whatever reason. Though if you go to Coco Curry, remember stop is the.

The gauge stops at five everything above five six to 10 is just is insane. Don't do that shit.

But for mass produced stuff at the convenience store, you're probably safe in Japan. Whereas South Korea, no surprise. But if they claim something is spicy in South Korea, you fucking listen. They're not kidding. That shit will make you see through time. It's insane.

So I haven't eaten a ton of spicy stuff while I've been here in Taipei. I don't have a ton to go by. But it seems like judging by that. It seems like they probably air more toward if if they tell you it's spicy in Taipei, I suggest listening because I don't have as many as many examples as in Japan or in South Korea. I just haven't been eating that type of stuff. But if you see a cartoon man. Look from his eyes, not streaming from his nose, questioning everything he's ever, every choice he's ever made in his whole fucking life. Don't just eat that shit and expect to have an easy night.

But alright, I'm officially at the stop light now. There's a little, there's the little groove and man. But I'm waiting for my stop man to turn into a groove and man.

Look at that guy groove. And that's something I didn't notice until recently. At the end, the last few numbers of the countdown. The little green groove and man speeds up. He gets like triple speed and it's like, you better run bitch. Better run. Across the street man. Yeah, just look at this little guy. Like he really looks like he's moonwalking. It's such a strange little animation. It's so cool. 40:00 I can't believe in a mere two and a half months. I started taking that little man for granted. I love him. He's so cool. It's one of the first cool things that I saw in Taipei. Man though, isn't that just thinking back like from the moment I fucking arrived from the moment I arrived and I had just no problems at customs. At first, I was a little put off that my MRT card is an egg-shaped Sanrio character, but I mean, I got over it and that's undeniably delightful. Then I saw the little groove and man. And it's just like, everything has just been cool as shit. Pretty much the whole goddamn time I've been in Taipei. Has anything trouble some even happened to me while I'm here? I don't think so. I can't think of anything. Man. Pretty rad, dude. Pretty fucking rad.

Here's a little quick addition. It's the next day. I'm on the bridge, pardon the noise, the traffic. I'm right next to the good old scooter lane. But I'm just heading across the bridge from my Airbnb, a new Taipei city, over to Shimen. Shimen Ding. The first neighborhood I stayed in, and still one of the coolest neighborhoods, because it's the one that is just all the cool anime stores and touristy stuff, but it's really nice. It's just a cool neighborhood.

So I've actually been going over there a lot. Lots of days I've just gone over there to wander around that I haven't particularly chronicled, because I feel like I did a good job of that when I first got here. It's just more the same. I really haven't discovered anything new. It's just nice.

But walking across this bridge, today it's not overcast, but it is cloudy. Like there's lots of clouds, but it's also blue sky. So, you know, I'd say like it's a basically clear day. Chances are getting rained on are virtually nothing. But walking across this bridge, oh, there's a garbage guy. Look at that. That's how come Taiwan is no longer garbage islands. They're on top of it. Pick and help garbage. I respect you, sir. I respect it. And he has a pair of long tongs, which are pretty good. That's a pretty good method for picking up garbage. And I noticed those a lot in South Korea, especially every washroom has the tongs. I don't know that I ever brought it up, because I never saw them in use. But I guess if you just need to pick up a random piece of toilet paper that fell on the ground, I don't know, maybe you can even use it if something sort of clogged in the toilet or something. I don't know. But yeah, they always have those tongs. It's like, yeah, why not? Tongue it up, man. I'm not even quite sure. What do we use in North America? I know you can get like a little pokey stick to pick up just random pieces of paper I've seen that before. But I don't know, tongs seems good.

Anyway, walking across this bridge, it's this perfect view of the National Park. I'm just like parallel to it. So I'm just like walking along perfect vista out in the distance. I guess because I'm over a river, you know, it's a really good view. There's not a bunch of city in my way. And I'm looking at the whole mountain range of it, because you know, that is one of those things that I did technically get to the peak of the highest mountain in Taipei. But I didn't see anything. It was all misty and foggy up there. So that's a little bit in the back of my mind of like that would be cool to get up there on a clear day.

But with my time running out in Taipei, it does require getting up pretty early. I was actually even a little too slow last time.

It's not likely that that's going to happen, but it seems especially not likely because I'm looking at it right now. And yet it's a basically clear day, like a lot of blue sky, with just, you know, smattering of clouds around. And I'm looking at this mountain range, and over on one side, the more gradual side that sort of goes out toward the coast. That's nice and clear. There's clouds above it.