This morning we went for an American brunch. It was not bad, nothing to our meal yesterday. Run by a Taiwanese-American and with plenty of other Taiwanese-Americans filling the tables, and the decor and feel was also very American. The GF had a French toast with hash browns, salad and an egg; I had a burger with garlic fries and iced tea (unsweetened – I suppose they had to bend to Taiwanese tastes). All very well made but just not comparable to the finesse and quality of yesterday. The brief chat with the owner as we paid brought to mind the US conception of service which is quite jarring if one is not American – the extreme friendliness, and the way it switches off when no longer required – not to become unfriendly, but to be no longer interested, like a spotlight framed by gleaming white teeth has moved away.
We walked over to a place found on Google Maps, called the 321 Art Street. This is an old military settlement, a set of bungalows returning to nature, overgrown with trees. At some point, and perhaps even now, they became one of Taiwan’s ubiquitous art and design spaces and had exhibitions and galleries and film studios. Maybe they still do as the signs were quite fresh, but there was certainly no one there. The best of these, perhaps, was a derelict roofless house grown over by banyans, caged in an immense white iron grill, of the sort that encloses balconies all over the country. It was completely quiet other than some playful sparrows, and empty.
The next stop was Tainan Park, one of the larger parks in the town. Tainan doesn’t have Taipei’s many tiny neighbourhood parks; I wonder how the latter came about. Perhaps a relic of the war? This park was where the migrant workers hang out and there were many clusters of men and women, Indonesian and Filipino for the most part, chatting, eating and dancing to music. One cluster appeared to be a martial arts troupe, with men and women alike in bright red kit, the women wore hijab and wore robes which looked very hot and also exotic in this country.
There is a lake with a meandering white bridge over it; we crossed and came to the Taiwanese side of the park where, instead of chatter and music there were quiet, unsmiling groups of old men playing go. Quite a contrast.
The next stop was a cafe, of the sort where the owner hand-selects beans with chopsticks (and was engaged in sorting green beans exactly so when we entered). The coffee was some of the best we’d had – I had a lovely Kenyan peaberry – and it occurred to me that I like my coffee, when filter, best when it tastes nothing like coffee and is in fact closer to juice. The sharper the better.
We found a taxi and returned and since I realised that I had quite a bit of work, I have been working ever since.