My cough of death is back and I have to work early in the morning, so I nearly cancelled the skate session. Ultimately, sitting around teh house watching videos while lzyk plays her balloon game on her phone sounded boring enough that I risked my health and met up with rmj at the little three stair park. Within 20 tricks, or at least attempts at tricks, I was pouring sweat. The air was as still as a tomb, and the humidity was turned up to maximum. Last I checked, it wasn't really that hot though, but the combination made it almost unbearable. It's a hard spot to skate; the stairs aren't waxed enough to grind well yet (for a year, I was worried about making enemies with my neighbors, but now I don't care) and there are big 3ft by 3ft slabs of granite, set unevenly. Some are flush, others have big gaps. It takes a little local knowledge to keep from eating shit just pushing around. Also, the ground is engraved in some places with things I haven't taken the time to read (my reading is less accurate than google translate if you have to write the characters yourself). It's the new warm up spot, because it's outside the front door. It leaves a few things to be desired.
We cruised a couple of blocks east to a micro spot. It had a long, curb high manny pad, which I spend the most time on, with a kicker going the other way. It also had the ubiquitous marble curbs, but the kind we would usually ignore, since the bottom surface is grey square clackity tile. This time we got mesmerized by the spot and kept going about 45 minutes.
Somewhere nearby, we ducked in a sidealley and rmj found a pair of curbed pink marble ledges, which he *********** in short order. Unbelievable, no one kicked us out, or even turned on their lights.
We pushed further east and made it to what might be my favorite stairs/curb spot. Each stair is capped with super strong bronze and slide like no tomorrow. The challenging bit is there is a brick wall on either end, so you don't have much time to fuck around in the middle. The metal cap doesn't dent, even though it's a sharp angle, so it's easy to lock in and offers so little friction that a **-** feels like just rolling on top of the ledge. The crowning glory was the accessibility of lots of empty bicycle holding racks on the sidewalk, which can be **** ******, and rmj did it both up and down. While we were skating the spot, a lot of scooters stopped at teh red light right beside us. They starred silently, mostly, but one of them cheered and clapped when I failed to land a ************ and rmj tried and missed a **** ***. At least he eventually got his. I want to find out where to buy that bronze stair coping, it's the best grind I've ever felt.
I was about to insist we turn around because I could feel myself getting sicker but we were already right across from the arena. It's a super modern spot with lots of ground lights and various species of stone and black marble ledges taht go from the ground to about waist height. The last time I was there, they were sliding pretty good, but this time, they wouldn't grind at all. I think some vandals cleaned the wax off of them. Normally, I would repair the damage, but I was so tired I insisted we turn back. Sorry rmj.
On the back side of the arena is the only hill in taipei. He bombed it.
On the way back, some drunks at one of the late night restaurants stopped us to let us know how good looking and cool we are. I had already gone by, and I mistakenly thought they were giving rmj shit for skating by their store entrance (which means through their customers' tables) but it turned out they just really wanted to let us know we are foreigners. I think they were pretty drunk. Much love.
We ended the night with our own beers at the three stair park. I came home and threw another day's filthy skate clothes in the washing machine, on top of the last ones. The smell was so bad that I decided it all had to be washed. This was a mistake. Lzyk was downstairs screaming at me for waking her up faster than hornets attacking when you throw rocks at their nest. Sorry Lzyk, I honestly thought you'd rather have to listen to clothes being washed than smell clothes being dirty. It smells like wild animals are bivouacing in my living room.
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