The saga of Nangang skatepark

I woke up with some things to do. I didn't end up doing many of them. One of the things I did do was skate at the skatepark at Nangang.

When I arrived in Taipei two years ago, I tried to find some skatespots on the internet. One of the best ones was apparently in Nangang. It's about 30 minutes east of the city, but the MRT goes there. So I rode out there, and was greeted with a destroyed skatepark, and a sign saying it would reopen in a few months. There were promising stacks of masonite. A few months late, I came back, and nothing at all had changed, but I learned to appreciate the best bowl in Asia, hidden up on the hillside. I gave up for a year, and came back. Nothing had been done. Somewhere around two years later, the park has been finished, but only in the Taiwanese sense of the word. It is still roped off, and you still get kicked out if you skate there (sort of). The problem is apparently that the Department of Skateboarding Health and Safety (apparently a career path in Taiwan) hasn't found the time to approve the new park as skateable. When it had metal fences all around it, we climbed over and skated it anyway. Now that it only has some yellow caution tape blocking it off, we aren't exactly treating it as though it isn't open for business. However, the Thought Police thought differently today. Admittedly, this is because Mr. Important came to visit. I wasn't there to witness the spectacle, but I heard about it later: the gendarmes kicked everyone out for an hour or two, and then the Main Dude and his crew of lesser dudes came up with helmets on and checked off some things on the checklist, and counted how many mosquitos were breeding in the pond nearby, and then left. By the time I arrived,  all was well again in Nangang, but the Leuitenant Inspector came by to make us all sign some paper work that I couldn't understand, so I signed it Willie Nelson.

Afterwords, I went to the bridge and taught a kid how to kickflip. This was satisfying. Then, he showed me a video of myself cursing in Mandarin, to ask if it was me or not. I am the lowest level of celebrity possible.