Dual Dinners

I finished a period of long and annoying work. My sister came to Taiwan. We went to Gaoshiung. It's a fanstastic city. It's somewhere further down the spectrum of intensity from Geelung and Taipei; if Keelung is a miniature Hong Kong, then Taipei is a lot more laid back, but with the sky dragon arrogance. Even with a beard and eccentric shirt, few people bat an eye on the street here. In 高雄, any foreigner is an instant celebrity. It's a far more cheerful and pleasant than Taipei, and although it seems like there are more skyscrapers, they are so far apart that you could fit an entire Taipei in between each one. We rode the slow train back for the scenery.
My sister really didn't enjoy our recent spate of earthquakes and hadnt slept well since hten, so tonight, we had supper at the old noodle shop (they remembered me after a year) and she fell asleep early. Lzyk got off around ten, one thing led to another, and I had to eat a second supper at a yakitorish restaurant in the neighborhood. At this point, any skating became a herioc mission.

I managed to waddle outside at the stroke of midnight. I cruised over to Rplaza, expecting to get booted or vomit from overfilling myself with chicken skins, but all went well. I even found a new way to skate the mellow bank to flat ledge, and did the first few flatground tricks. I didnt even try to skate the ledges though. Just north of there was a pristine and delightful and fast grinding shiny silver curby stairs, but it's now hidden behind a construction wall. I went up z shan to the lil hubba and did what I could with 5kg of extra meat and beer ballast, then went east to the temple. Things got a little better there, doing ***** **** ****** on everything I could find. The black marble ledge was grinding after a new sheen of wax,  but a construction crew was in the road next door, and made me nervous about getting kicked out. I never did. I kept going until I had all the staples. It was cold and windy and I didn't have a chance to rest because I got sweaty. On the skate home, someone jumped out in front of me, bellowing about stopping, but I kept going. He followed, changing his shouting to English, and I realized he was worried that I didn't have on a coat. "You cold!" he shouted. "You cold!" I shrugged and tried to ******* for him as I crossed the zebra. I didn't make it.

Situation Report

It's been cold and raining for a month. I've been working 14 hours minimum almost everyday. The handful of sessions that happened were pretty down tempo. Better things are coming. I may have just gotten home at midnight and I may be about to go back to work in a few hours, but this is the last day of this nonsense. Soon, Lunar New Year's will be here, and then a work schedule that will allow for some human comforts, like skating, and getting drunk. This was bleak.

Blinded by the Light

They cleaned off the lights at the bridge. Now they're so bright that it's hard to look ahead as you skate. That's ok, I skate so slowly that I only need to look at my toes anyway. 

I hadn't had the chance to skate in a while, mostly because of the cold, the incessant rain, and the need to work and make money. Tonight, I squeezed in a two hour session at the bridge, on a night meant for the bridge. It's been raining for days and days. I showed up with two jackets and tight pants because it was the second coldest night I've skated in 20 years. It poured rain the whole session, just like it has done for weeks. I know I'm mentioning the rain too much, but fuck, it's been nothing but rain. Endless rain. 

Anyway, the bridge had about 20 skaters there, which surprised me, for a cold cold sunday night. A few of them were learning how to ollie by standing still in front of the box, but most were not very annoying. A few even shyly came up at the end to shake hands. 

Another foreigner was there, I'll call him dn. We didn't talk much til lights out, but we shared an earthquake that made the green street sign shake and then a beer at a new bar around the corner from the bridge. Hopefully, we'll have another in the streets when the weather clears up. 

I'm still charging through the 411 back catalogue, because I have to wake up in a few hours, and stressed, and it's pouring rain. Also, it's as cold as it ever gets here.

This particular vm is chock full of vert footage. I don't see how vert survived. It's not that it isn't a fierce thing to do, it's just that it looks so boring on video. Although, when I see how much of this video was filmed in a shitty indoor plywood park, it's kind of surprising that skate filming survived in any terrain. At least it doesn't have the incredibly annoying editing that was about to come thanks to what I think is transworld. I tried to watch some transworld late 90s video and it was so fucking awful with the editing that I remembered my pilgrimage from one end of 411 to the other, so matter the cost.

The Great Migration Has Begun

Sometimes in nature, we are confronted by a spectacle so spectacular that we can only gaze on amazement. The aurora borealis, tornados, the wind gently winding across the mud puddle come to mind. In this pantheon are the great migrations of the world; the bison and monarch butterfly of north america, the wilderbeest of the serengeti, and the noble penguins who swim from north pole to south pole and back each year. Usually these migrations coicincide with the spawning of young. This is no different in skating. Every year, dozens and dozens of week old skate fry arrive at the bridge just as winter vacation begins. Today was no different. I didn't really feel like skating anyway. Good luck to their survival.

Windy 板橋

After a hellish week of work, the pink marble of Banciao was calling. I got there with a hand sized bruise on my ass from the last time I skated, but I don't even know how long ago that was. The Ledge was lit up this time, but filled with dancing grannies. Instead, I skated the down ledge and three stair with guy I hadn't met. Then RMJ and ZW showed up, with a flood of righteous  new tpc skaters. We ripped and tore through the plaza, and I got my first *** on the ledge and my mandatory **** ***** and ****** ****. Then RMJ and I went street skating, and found at least one spot per block. Such is skating in 板橋. The streets and sidewalks are wide and smooth like the water of a still, black lake. Because of the extra space, drivers are less furious and are almost civilized. We beered up and went to the King's Stoop, which is another giant open plaza with ledges all around. The wind picked up and it got colder. We sat in the forest, or at least nearby some trees, and the wind whipped the branches around overhead. We couldn't hear a single scooter there. The ghostly shadows of the leaves on the ground never stopped moving, tracing vague math on the marble for hours. I took a cab home and it was like coming to Taipei for the first time. Car people live a different life than I do.

A two trick session

It was raining so when I got off work I went to hte dogpiss ledges and smashed myself on the second attempt. then I went home.