word got out that a session was taking place at a new station, so I skated over. I had to stop several times on the way, to catch my breath. the permatrip has been going for about a week now. it's like being in a car with the windows downs, and hitting the just the right speed to make your head turn inside out with the whump whump whump pressure wave. Only, this one isn't from pressure, it's from an attempt to restore homeostasis. Usually, my head is spinning like a sparked bowl but sometimes I blink and it's like lifting off all over again. This is not entirely unpleasant, but sometimes I don't have the balance to skate and certainly not to ride a motorcycle. The vertigo and body load also happen when I shift my head after holding still for a few moments. I'm not really complaining, it's just a very strange experience.
rmj was on the platform when I got down there, and we went out to Loose Mountain Station. I had heard that like Borneo or the Oaxacan montane, a breathtaking variety of skatespots exist out there, some of them entirely new to science. Our small expedition team was not to be disappointed.
Like the Crystal Cave, it would be immoral and irresponsible to describe the exact location of these natural treasures, because unethical people might pillage and loot the spots, ruining them for generations to come. However, I can say that we fought through the native throngs at
饒河 to secure essential supplies for the expedition, such as a meatball fireroasted inside a pizzadough like crust, and bottled water. We weren't sure if the water was safe to drink, so far from civilization. You can't be too careful.
The first spot was like a tiny jeweled hummingbird. Each one was a little mirrored marble bench, about two curbs high. The sidewalk there is extremely rough, and the benches were hitherto untouched. Technically still within the borders, we skulked down the border wall, looking for an unguarded post. Within a moment, rmj had found a long series of pebble dash, square pyramids, next to a pink marble ramp, about 45 degrees and knee high. I could easily ******** it, and rmj did some *****s. We didn't realize that the local tribes worship this bank, which in their religion, was the original skate bank, and when Skreet, the god of wallrides, broke off the top, the tiny pieces of pink marble exploded away, all across the world, and that is where every bank today came from. Conseqently, it is taboo to skate the original bank of banks, and a local woman stopped and glared at us for a few minutes. She called someone to tell them what we were doing, and we left before we got any blowgun darts in our backs.
We immediately had to cross a deep, rushing street, and soon found ourselves face to face with more unique and intriguing terrain. We didn't have a geologist on the team, so I'm not sure what sort of natural processes might lead to the creation of such a sight; it was a huge smooth wallride, well over 100 m in height. At about head height, it transfers to vert, but below that point, it's maybe 70 degrees. Adjacent is an undated religious complex, now abandoned. It was clearly made to honor the slappy goddess, Almaniguanilia, because the wax was still on the corner of it. The ledge itself went from flatground and stayed level as the ground dropped away - an amazing engineering feat for such an ancient people. It could have been there for thousands of years, who knows. Maybe aliens helped them build it. It was clearly a religious complex because although it had sacrificial wax on it, it was still a virgin and bore no marks of having been skated. This is presumably because 14" from the edge is a rough vertical wall. It wouldn't defy the laws of physics to slappy it from ground to waist height, over about 10m, but with that ferocious wall right there, you may as well jump into a volcano. Some spot historians believe that it served a similar grisly purpose - human sacrifices to
Almaniguanilia had to bomb the hill try to slappy to the end of it, doomed to bump either their ass or tehir face into the rough wall, unless they can slappy with perfectly straight posture. We saw no tangible evidence of this practice, and our expedition's scientific opinion is that this theory is purely speculative.
The density of species and cultural sites in this area is one of the highest on earth. wihthin a few minutes, we had encountered a species of spot rarely seen in person. Unable to be bred in skateparks or zoos, this is a huge thick metal snake, not unlike a metal python mixed with a very large lamppost. It prefers the hidden recesses of the area, and protested with very loud clanging, unique to its species, when we skated it. It has evolved a security light that comes on whenever there is movement. Maybe this adaptation helps it feed on smaller rails. We were quickly chased away by the high priest of security, who invoked a spell of some kind about a spirit he called Sleep. He lit incense and gestured towards the sky. In his belief system, there are people who live up there, whom he believes are sleeping, and will one day wake up again. According to our interpreter, he believes that skating the metal python will angry the people sleeping above us, and they will curse us, and all sorts of bad things will happen. Although we remained skeptical about the specifics of his tribal belief system, we tried to hide our skepticism and continue to show respect. It worked, and he threw some voodoo dice on the ground and raised his hands to the sky people and mumbled an invocation.
We only rounded the corner and found a long black mirror stone sidewalk on a perfectly inclined downhill. No need to push or maneuver to slow down, for hundreds of meters, all in a perfectly straight line. On the side of the walk way were various species of marble steps, banks, curbs, ledges, and gaps. Lovely as they were, we identified them an as invasive species from Japan. Everyone knows that Japanese skaters have the quickest feet, and this spot would test even the best of them.
We waded across a dry roadbed (in this region, cars are almost completely unknown. We could only hear crickets and the wind for most of the session).
On the other side, we discovered a large ceremonial plaza, all stone of course, with black mirror ledges. it was very well lit, and we skated it until we were too tired to continue. I got the line of ****, ***, ** *****, ** ***, *****, that I was hoping to get on the night . Then, like Indiana jones, I came around a corner and my breath was taken away by what I saw.
It must be one of the dozen best ledges in the world. The precision of its engineering is as perfect as the monolith in 2001. Doubtlessly, it was made by the same species. It's bench high, 20m long, and curved. Currently, it's blocked by cables that are hodling up the new trees. We got a bit on it anyway, until another Security Priest came out and began to invoke a demon from the security camera; gesturing and gibbering in an unknown language, while manically gyrating and fingering the Sacred Microphone. So we agreed to leave, in the face of this hostility, and on the other side of the building, we were greeted by yet another astonishing sight.
An enourmous white marble cloverleaf garden sat untouched, about knee high to shoulder high off the ground. it's possible to ollie up, and then pump around the curves of it. In all my experience as a skate explorer, I have never sampled anything like this species of spot. We never saw any more like, this, so we reported it as highly threatened/endangered. Contained within the same skate ecosystem, are a series of impossibly smooth ledges with slightly rounded edges. We wore ran out of supplies of energy, but apparently this site is a profane one. No security priests so much as batted an eye at us, and eventually we wandered to a family to resupply.
Around the corner was huge shiny bendy steel sculpture, whose base is a many pad and curb. It was slicker than pig shit, even though it was virgin, and we skated it until security came out. We feigned to only be participating in a flatground ritual, mimicking some of the moves and words of the priests we had encountered already. This one took us for one of us his own, and after watching our ritual for a few moments, went back inside, apparently satisfied.
At this time, our expedition noted something rather unusual, even eerie about this new continent, this Atlantis of skateboarding: although there is a fami mart literally every 50m, there are no other species of convenience stores whatsoever. We theorized that like early liverworts and other species identified in Upper Ordovician formations, Family Marts are probably the first species to leave the ocean of Taipei and colonize the new environment. Without competitors or predators, Family Marts were able to spread quickly and colonize all of the available area. Isolated from the rest of the world, this Family mart subspecies has evolved to be much larger and nicer inside, but with truly terrible beer selection - even worse than the common Family Mart found throughout Taipei. Further study of the region is needed to confirm these theories.
Onwards we rolled. Pushing into completely unexplored area, we had to break out the machetes hack through the undergrowth. Leeches fixed themselves on our legs, and mosquitos and poisonous snakes attacked from every angle. It was during this ordeal that our four porters were lost to misadventure. One fell into quicksand and was sucked down before anyone could help him. Another was gobbled up by a man eating plant, shrieking hideously as it closed over him. he tried to climb out of its verdant maw, but only his hand made it. We could all hear the bones crunch as it finished its meal. A third porter got gangrene and we amputated all his limbs. Unable to provide further service, we left him at one of the family's. We lost our last porter just as he drew the hanging vines aside. He arched his back and rigidly turned, a quiver of native poison tipped arrows protruding from his chest. "Look," he gasped, tears in his eyes. "It is here. The Promised Plaza. We have finally found it." With that, the last breath of life left his body and I ********ed over it as a mark of respect.
The Promised Plaza is centered around a fountain like structure. That this was designed and built by aliens is indisputable. no humans were anywhere around, and its Lovecraftian geometry was a dead give away to the sick twisted Old Ones who are responsible for its existence. In some dark corners, the intiated claim that this plaza predates human settlement completely. If the legends are true, the plaza's designers must have been creatures with one leg shorter than the other, because the whole place is on an incline, away from the ledges. Through some kind of twisting of space time itself, the technologies that created this ledges, maybe thousands or even millions of years more advanced than our own, made them some able to
gain speed as they grind. It was uncanny. I felt like I was losing my mind.
At this point, I slammed coming off the end a ledge, and it was a full body slapper, mostly owning to not having accounted for the sloping ground. I managed to turn my face as I fell and touched my jaw on the ground ever so slightly. I'm glad it wasn't my chin or teeth. I lay there stunned for a bit, and got back up and made it next try. Then I tried to **** **** and landed primo at speed, and this new skateboard, this wild, untamed, unbroken bucking bronco turned on me like a wild animal and lept at my face. I blocked its attack with my forearms, but its fresh grip tape mauled me. Now I had ripped the crotch out of my pants, garbled both wrists, was bleeding from both knees, had twists my back ankle, and run out of batteries completely.
Just to end on a strong note, I ***** up the "fountain" and down, then we met a dog god angel at seven, whom I petted a lot as we drank and talked next to a semi-civilized tribe who drank and played majong.
We crossed out of fami only territory and found a perfect manny pad and a unique species of metal curb, apparently made out of aluminium cans, and about as thick. It bent so much that it actually started sliding.
Nanjing is arguably the best cruise in the city. It's well lit and it goes for several km. It has kickers, and stairs and ledges and curbs and banks, and the most satisfying skating happens when your pick up those objects on radar, chase them down and hit them first try as your cruise, and then keep going. and going and going. we skated all the way back home.
we stopped at a red light and piece of shit in a white german car (always the worst people in Taiwan) blasted through the middle of a red light at 180kph. He nearly hit a taxi (no great loss) but had we been crossing the intersection, it would have been certain death. fuck that dude. I hope he didn't make it home.
we made it home to Good News Stoop, and stooped up. Then I went to sleep, because my body hurt too much to type this.
