The Tombsweeping Holiday Tour of Taichung

I'll post something about actual Tombsweeping Day later. It will have plenty of complaining, but no skateboarding whatsoever. This post however, will have mostly skateboarding and probably minimal complaining, because it was an awesome trip.

The slow train took me a couple of stops over to Taichill City. I got there a couple of minutes before RMJ, and stocked up on water and an 18 Day. Just as I cracked it open, a half dozen dudes skated up, under the blocked parking lot of the station, which was shady. It's a big smooth area, with a curb, rising to about three stairs high drop, over a maybe 100m. I skated over to shake hands and realized we had all met before: it was the Indonesian crew that mw and I had met in the streets here a few months back. "Apa Karang" was all I could remember, but they had gotten better at chinese and at skating, so it was a pretty cheerful reunion. With those dudes and the shop owner I met in the streets back home in Taipei, I feel like true street skating has a healthy future in 台中. 

We went on a spirit quest to find the long long stone bench plaza. On the way, we ran into a young man carrying a skateboard. He was just learning the craft, and we chatted fro a while. He said the benches were still skatestopped, and worse, he had recently been accosted by the thought police and photographed, so he was afraid to ever skate there again. My plan was to pretend I didn't understand why they were taking our photos, and try my best to politely take photos with them if they kicked us out. As it turns out, I didn't need to bother. 

We wandered to the spot in due time. Taichung doesn't have as many people as Taipei, but it's a huge sprawling city. Skating to spots is an ordeal. Distance is the worst part, it's like skating through interstellar space, just a void of no spots for hundreds of millions of km. The surface is also mostly terrible and rough, filled with trash and debris, and riven with cracks. Also, they have no MRT and only nominal public transit, so the roads are overflowing with cars and scooters, at least on the same level of Taipei, but with a less dense distribution of civility and respect for human life. We survived the passage.

Happily, the spot wasn't a bust. It's got a perfect long downhill run, with reasonably tall marble benches on both sides. Each bench is about 200m. It was once a majestic place. Animal Chin was there, probably in his early childhood. Since then, the man has tried to cleanse the spot from skating, but it hasn't work. A team of young people were there. Most where skating, but some where freestyling and there were some hangers on, like an eight year old kid who adopted me and ran from one of the spot to the other as I skated, jabbering at me in Taiyu. I kept asking him if he wanted to try skating, but he just wanted to run. Each to their own. 

The benches end with a minibank/steep kicker. The Taiwanese Marine was getting some on there. RMJ got a *-***** to ************, and some ***** ** and ***** *****s. It was saf, but he didn't have on a blue jean jacket, so Taichung hardly noticed. I wish I had my old jean jacket, it's the only excuse I could have for wearing one in adulthood. Maybe I'll get one anyway - I've had no such compunctions about wearing camo everything for the last couple of years. 

The Benches are a pilgrimmage spot. If you're in Taichung, it's one of two that you absolutely have ot skate. It might be mostly stopped for now, and the crowd might be so thick that you have ot skate the waves of people like how surfers treat waves at the beach; crowding out away from teh break, waiting for the right moment, then trying to pounce before someone snakes them, but one day, with good government, they will divert the pedestrians around the spot and give us 150m of sidewalk and solve all the problems and complaints from those whiney assholes. The city doesn't need to build a skatepark, they already have a perfect one, they just need to fence it off with some orange cones to keep keep morons from wandering in there. I barely got a ** ***** and the Black Bastard cracked under me on a *******, so I took it easy after that, because breaking it would mean walking all the way home or taking a cab, and I refuse to support taiwan's murderous taxis. 

I got asked about my relationship status and we moseyd on. The other pilgrimmage spot is the yellow brick road park. It's a giant park, surrounded by amazingly perfect quarter pipe with granite coping. 

After a point, skating ability comes and goes. You gain some tricks, you lose some tricks. On an x y axis, after a point, you start to roll downhill. I might already be there. You probably don't notice til you're already well on the way down. I think RMJ and myself have plenty of skating left in us, but neither of us got the tricks here that we were going for. A couple of years ago, shwasted, he did a massive ******** here. I've never gotten the *********** that I always wanted, but this time, we both came close without the cigar. On my closest try, I had popped over the lip and was back onto all my wheels and just fell off the fucking skateboard. It's been four years of trying now. I can't accept never getting this trick. I'm giong to start training for it. If it's the last thing I do on a skateboard, I'm going to fucking learn how to do this. 

Come back behind your shield or on it.

I was so frustrated that I nearly focused the board, which was cracking completely through anyway. I held my temper, because I am a man, and I failed to ride away from the trick, because I am a pussy. Also, I'm afraid maybe I don't have the ability. It's been years of trying. I hope this wasn't the high water mark. I hope that wasn't as close as I ever get.