This morning we moved to Da’an. We called an uncle who has one of those gigantic taxis and loaded it up with all our belongings: two suitcases each (one large, one small), assorted backpacks and handbags, and a few bags of household stuff acquired here: lamps from ikea, mugs, the GF’s basketball, the Woodland Creature’s ninja sticks, condiments, a lettuce, that sort of thing. All of these were brought down from the flat in a shopping trolley and taken out to the van where the trolley promptly tumbled off the pavement and crashed onto its side. Luckily all that broke was a single bowl and one of the lamps which however is still working so we’ll keep it.
Then down from the hills and onto the plain into Taipei and Da’an, where we found the quiet street where our new flat is located. It’s an old building, one like many, many others in the city, with a metal door and tight, grilled balconies. The flat itself is quite spacious, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, so we have divided it up so each couple gets one nice big room as a bedroom and one smaller study. The kitchen is unfortunate: it’s clearly not to be used, and the cleanliness of the flat was not ideal.
With coronavirus, there is some mistrust of new people in the neighbourhood, especially foreigners, and we’ve been advised to carry a photo of our passport and entry stamp to show we’ve been in the country for a good long while and are unlikely to be carriers, at least from abroad.
We dropped off our belongings and then, as the flat was still being cleaned (so to speak), we went off for lunch at the same restaurant the Woodland Creature, the Boddhisattva and I went to on my first weekend here, just off Yongkang street, followed by coffee. Then return, and I went to work as I have a terrible deadline looming with much information for it still pending. So I had a fairly late working evening, while the others watched a film (Children of Men). I suppose this is the place where, for now at least, we will weather out the plague.