Dragonboat Festival in Changhua

Lzyk and I went to Changhua to stay with the family over the long weekend. It's been raining the whole time, so no skateboarding, but we ate a lot of food. Taichung's nightmarket seems like the size of the entire city of Taipei. In actuality, it is probably about 1 km squared. We ate at least a dozen Good Taiwanese Things. The artery of the market is what Americans would consider either an exceptionally busy four lane road, or a moderately busy interstate. At midnight, it was teeming with scooters, cars, and a people, but by 2 am, only the Taichung low-rider's club was left. Their car decorations were pretty authentic to 1994 redneck truck culture, except for the cheerful hello kitty and assorted bubble faced cartoon stickers on the windows. It was a pleasant 45 minute drive back through the rabbit warren of small streets and canyons of five to ten story apartment blocks that make up the deep countryside here. The population density of Taiwan's countryside might not be as dense as Manhattan, but then again, it might be. Every apartment is dreary communist grey cement, with prison bars in the windows. Although crime virtually doesn't exist here, I'm told it's to prevent break-in's. I didn't argue that if someone is determined enough to climb up five stories, flimsy hollow aluminum bars probably isn't going to slow them down much. But then again, maybe the vigilance of the bars is why there's so little crime here. It's also why so many people die from smoke inhalation during house fires. They were kind of beautiful, reflecting the flashing red, blue, green, yellow patterns of the bin-lang stalls.