Most people you talk to separate Taipei from "The Real Taiwan," which begins somewhere between Taichung and Kaoshiung, and definitely ends before the monstrous wasteland that is the tourist strip of Kenting. In my opinion, Taichung isn't quite a part of it, but it is a huge step in the right direction. The city is a little less of a scooter city than Taipei, and a lot less of a pedestrian city. Taichung has more construction cranes than anywhere else I've ever been. More high-rises are going up in Taichung at this moment than all of the combined construction in my entire life back in my home town. Any skater who knows about Asia knows what that means: stone.
We got off the bus and pushed down the road. It was a beautiful day, so even though we had planned to take a taxi to our first stop, we kept going one block further, again and again, just to see the city. We came to an intensely crowded park, and heard the crack of someone underflipping on a skateboard. No other sound in the world is like that noise. However, it was so crowded that it took a minute to spot them in the seething maelstrom of people. The spot was beautiful: perfectly smooth ground, a slight downhill, with several 100 ft long granite ledges, and the ubiquitous double stacked orange cones. Sadly, the entire thing had recently been semi-skate stopped. I say semi, because nothing is ever permanent, and also they had really shown their inexperience in skatestopping. There were D-shaped metal bars over entire length of the ledges, but spaced far enough apart that each section was still skateable. Someone had gone to the extra length of removing one of them from the ends of two ledges.
Later, we went to the Yellow Brick Road, one of the most famous spots in Taiwan. It's a large park, surrounded by brick transition, with granite coping on top. It was the only real skating I did on the trip, owing to the flu. I was so determined to skate it after day dreaming about the trip for a month that I didn't care if it meant being wrecked for the rest of the trip. It was worth it.
What wasn't worth it was the skate back home. Totally lost, in a city that completely shuts down after midnight, we finally wandered into a police station, where I was able to charge the phones, and observe a man on a drug not unlike what the media seems to think bathsalts does to people.
What wasn't worth it was the skate back home. Totally lost, in a city that completely shuts down after midnight, we finally wandered into a police station, where I was able to charge the phones, and observe a man on a drug not unlike what the media seems to think bathsalts does to people.
The next day, we ended up in Tainan. Somewhere in between, we had crossed the border into the Real Taiwan. Tainan is much harder to skate than Taichung, especially when you have the flu. We checked into one of the sketchier hotels into which I've ever checked. To our delight, the advertised double bed was a single, and it had a rather rapey shower bubble that stuck out about three from the peeling light blue floral wallpaper. As inarguably horrible as this all sounds, the piece de resistance was a Lovecraft-brand window that opened into an interior court yard so tight that we couldn't see the ground or sky, and so eerily dark and somehow yellow tinted that I could only assume it was a portal into another dimension, even worse than the room we found ourselves in. We named it the NFRH, which is an acronym for words that can't be repeated, even on the internet.
Understandably, we went out for some skating around town. They made me turn in our key when we left. This detail would be of utmost importance in about 8 hours.
It was a hot, lovely day, so I could hardly push down the street owing to influenza. The entire town had erupted into some kind of all encompassing Taiwanese religious celebration. For the uninitiated, this involves lots of powerful fireworks. Pedestrians were plugging their ears and ducking. I used to live by a temple in 大同, and thought that I had become immune to fireworks. To my consternation, this was not
so. Under a steady rain of burning debris and deafening blasts that would make a Marine Corps
mortar NCO wince, we ran up the street to escape, and immediately found that the entire city
was engulfed in fireworks. Like a music video, big red jeeps with stripper poles and strippers on
top appeared out of no where, and started blasting Taiwan techno (think off-brand kpop).
Then the heavies showed up, the gods themselves, dancing the techno and deep (independent)
drum blasts from the somewhat more traditional drums. I'm told that in the old days (1990s),
the strippers would have been naked. Times have changed.
We ducked into an alley, and were met with yet another parade coming towards us. One of the
gods, a 9 ft tall mahogany one with a fearsome face, stared me down for the five minutes or so
that it took to greet the other gods in the temple by dancing furiously, then came straight over to
me and gave me a high five. It was the first time I have received a high five from a god.
After all this chaos, we made it out to a deserted beach. We made a camp fire, listened to some
Tribe Called Quest in memory of the departed, and had some TB's. Then we went home. This
took some time, as we were basically skating across the city for the second time that night.
When we got back to the NFRH, it was some time after midnight. This was unfortunate, because
the front doors of the hotel were closed for the night. Like fish on a hook, we tried to charge our
phones, call the staff, bang on the doors, yell, smash the skateboards around for a bit, but nothing
got us inside. So for the first time in Taiwan, after many near misses, I actually slept outside on
the street like a hobo. At first light, we woke up and went back to the hotel to take a nap on the bed
until check out.
The last day was in Gaoshiung. Too exhausted to skate, we pushed around and looked at spots
and met another insane person at our airbnb. Balking at the 6+ hour bus ride, we decided to take
bullet train back home. I came back with two phone numbers, the symbol for marriage, and NFRH
in sharpie on the bottom of my skateboard.
Understandably, we went out for some skating around town. They made me turn in our key when we left. This detail would be of utmost importance in about 8 hours.
It was a hot, lovely day, so I could hardly push down the street owing to influenza. The entire town had erupted into some kind of all encompassing Taiwanese religious celebration. For the uninitiated, this involves lots of powerful fireworks. Pedestrians were plugging their ears and ducking. I used to live by a temple in 大同, and thought that I had become immune to fireworks. To my consternation, this was not
so. Under a steady rain of burning debris and deafening blasts that would make a Marine Corps
mortar NCO wince, we ran up the street to escape, and immediately found that the entire city
was engulfed in fireworks. Like a music video, big red jeeps with stripper poles and strippers on
top appeared out of no where, and started blasting Taiwan techno (think off-brand kpop).
Then the heavies showed up, the gods themselves, dancing the techno and deep (independent)
drum blasts from the somewhat more traditional drums. I'm told that in the old days (1990s),
the strippers would have been naked. Times have changed.
We ducked into an alley, and were met with yet another parade coming towards us. One of the
gods, a 9 ft tall mahogany one with a fearsome face, stared me down for the five minutes or so
that it took to greet the other gods in the temple by dancing furiously, then came straight over to
me and gave me a high five. It was the first time I have received a high five from a god.
After all this chaos, we made it out to a deserted beach. We made a camp fire, listened to some
Tribe Called Quest in memory of the departed, and had some TB's. Then we went home. This
took some time, as we were basically skating across the city for the second time that night.
When we got back to the NFRH, it was some time after midnight. This was unfortunate, because
the front doors of the hotel were closed for the night. Like fish on a hook, we tried to charge our
phones, call the staff, bang on the doors, yell, smash the skateboards around for a bit, but nothing
got us inside. So for the first time in Taiwan, after many near misses, I actually slept outside on
the street like a hobo. At first light, we woke up and went back to the hotel to take a nap on the bed
until check out.
The last day was in Gaoshiung. Too exhausted to skate, we pushed around and looked at spots
and met another insane person at our airbnb. Balking at the 6+ hour bus ride, we decided to take
bullet train back home. I came back with two phone numbers, the symbol for marriage, and NFRH
in sharpie on the bottom of my skateboard.
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