In the morning the GF, the Woodland Creature and I took the MRT down to Shilin for the first of our Chinese lessons. Shilin is in the next ring in towards Taipei, a proper city neighbourhood, with a mix of international shops/ department stores and small hip cafes on the other. We stopped first for […]
Tourism in the time of coronavirus
Yesterday we went to what is normally Taiwan’s busiest tourist site, the mountain village of Jiufen, formerly a declining gold mine site, which took off after a clever marketer realised that it is very similar to the setting of the Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away (or perhaps it did inspire the setting for the film, […]
Last sunny day
Yesterday, Saturday, was the last sunny day, with today and the next few days to be cold and rainy, It was also the first day of this year’s official sakura festival, so we decided to visit Chiang Kai-shek’s old summer home in Yangming park and called an Uber (along the way we saw a man […]
Back at last
The GF arrived last night, after our longest time apart in years. It was lovely to see him, though there is the inevitable need to learn to live with someone else again – no more leaving the curtains drawn overnight as he doesn’t like light in the mornings. This afternoon I cancelled all my phone […]
Da’an town
Apologies for the tortured pun. As readers familiar with Taipei will gather, we (the Bodhisattva, Woodland Creature and I) went into town today, to one of the nice parts of the city. Started around Yongkang Street, which is a slightly touristy but nice street with plenty of tea shops and a startling number of umbrella […]
East of the world
I am in Taiwan, and will be here for at least the next two months, perhaps longer. The rest of the journey was fairly smooth though it was notable how the density of masks skyrocketed – on the flight itself, there was only one small family without masks and they were European. The air of […]
Old haunt
Here I am in KLIA in the middle of the night, a place I’ve passed through many, many times at this hour, when the flights from Pakistan typically arrive. This time I’ve made my way to the lounge as my connecting flight is several hours away, and am just about to doze. I wore a […]
Left behind
Last night I went to a dinner for Lahore’s beautiful people, a crowd I was not particularly interested in when I lived in Lahore, and even less so now that I feel so far away. It’s funny though how one can feel sad about not fitting in, even with a group one doesn’t particularly want […]
Grumping and growling
I was grumping and growling all day yesterday and much of this morning, largely thanks to my father who is getting difficult as he ages, and never more so than when he is unwell. I am worried he has some sort of lung infection, as this is the fourth or fifth time in the past […]
Salt
I have just taken a sip of tea and realised that what I’d thought was sugar was actually salt. Happily I don’t take much sugar and enjoy salt Kashmiri tea, so will continue drinking it. But a shock, nonetheless. This morning I went to collect my renewed identity card which is now valid for 10 […]