experiment

my coworker runs, and i was jealous that someone was enjoying something that i wasnt, so i tagged along. apparently, this crew runs every wednesday and havent missed a wednesday for longer than i've been alive.

i got lost immediately, following what i thought were flower trails. dirty fucking hippies putting flowers all around the city. turns out, this was a misunderstanding. i ended up in the mountains with another lost soul, and we trecked through the undergrowth wiht her headlamp. all i could think about were snakes. lzyk is doing some work on snake bites in taiwan. running through undergrowth after dark is not ideal for avoiding snakebites. we survived. she outran me, after we descended the mountain.

they partied at a baichenwan place after, but i walked home. i photographed and logged a few good skatespots. it wasnt a total waste.

wringing out the pips

i didnt have anything left, but sukkotto learned *****s and i wanted to go see him get some at the bridge. but I promised I wouldn't skate the impressionist board at the bridge, so i changed it out for the other postmodern one. turns out, that one is way better shape. too bad i was so tired. I hate steep tails. this one is the perfect shape. 

it was pouring rain so i wasnt surprised that thirty people were skating there. we mostly talked, sukotto and i, because we were tired, but the other guys formed a megacrew, like when multiple pods of dolphins join up together, and they went out into the city as the patchy concrete dried. 

i think i can safely say i didnt leave anything on the table today.

Fading holiday

Skate alone

Theee stair mini park. *********, ****, *****  ** *** ***,

High school flat ground, some bleachers

Under bridge in rain, yellow jacket two stair wide ledge, kinked

Flat ground and bombing stair curbs to a new permanently dry stone curb that's 50 yards long

Fans feeble. Old man chewing binlang came out to explain to me about the bridge. He was really excited bc he though l don't know about it. He described the box bench and rails perfectly, so I asked him for more and more details. He was extremely pleased with himself for helping me. 

Linsen mini bank to granite ledge. Old woman pushing a cart cursed me out . Crowd of people watched me try ** **** ** ******** for 30 min, I lost faith in my self before they lost faith in me.

Sun came out. Got a Kirin on zongshan at the ATM minihubba, hit a ******** crusing by and was met with some fish faces. Too bad the city is filling back up with people, these curb stairs are so nice but the traffic is ferocious and a river of people are walking by on the sidewalk. I think the holiday dam has burst.

Zhongshan dream line: whore bank, street and traffic, metal stairs, kickers, three stair, mini Jubba, regent plaza. About a one km line

Xingtian temple, two close calls with panicked pedestrians with noses stuck in cellphones. Fuck em. This spot got a lot of skating since the last time I was here. Hidden gem but I won't be mad if it blows up. Too good to stay secret forever. 

Fading light. Stinking overcrowded city. Deserved buzz on the way home. Dying battery. People taking selfies everywhere. 

Favorite board ever. Not gonna take it under the bridge ever. May the shadow of the bridge never cross its theshold. 

Clouded up again, hot slut on the elevator, on the roof stoop, rain all around. Lucky day

dragonboat festival

We went home to eat baazan and watch autoracing. These activities went well. I also squeaked in a solo trip to the round curbs by the house, and quickly had a handful of kids learning how to push on my board while I rested. I learned **********s but only on at curb height. I went for a walk up the mountain and found a series of old style houses that I would love to live in. They're only five minutes scooter ride from the city, but up there, you can only hear birds and the wind in the leaves. Because it's a few hundred meters up, the air is much cleaner. Taiwan is really beautiful if you can get away from the places people actually live. Now it's noon on the last day of hte holiday and Taipei is completely empty. Should be a good afternoon.

perks of teaching

on a couple of days a week, I get paid to have coffee with my friends. yes, this means I'm sleezy and untrustworthy. last year, a couple of them were successful and went off to northern america to find fortune and meaning in baltimore. they're back in town visiting and i met up with in twatutia, which has the trendiest bars in Taipei, and they bought my drinks. afterwards, my current student and i walked back across town to linbeiru and ate a smorgasborg of pig parts on the sidewalk. also, i quit my dayjob today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w43uSMJntgw

Shortest Session Ever

I didn't have much time. I have to meet up with some former students at a bar in Twatutia, but I really wanted to land a ********* today. I went across the street with the monet board. It's a small slate grey park, with three stone steps all around the outside and dangly air root trees all around it. It's just big enough to get one good push in and grind the stairs. It started sprinkling as soon as I got there, but the trees kept the water off the ground for enough tries to land exactly one **********.

tea twee

I suffered through work and went ot the plaza afterwards. sukotto was already there but had homies up with to meet in another area, so he dipped on out shortly. rmj showed up and busted about a dozen new tricks. it's energizing to skate with someone who is in that part of the learning curve. I hope to catch up one day.
it took me three beers to believe i could even skate at all, and somehow, i made it six hours. my new deck has uncircumcised grip tape, because i didnt have a blade. turns out, you just fuck up enough flip tricks, the grip tape comes off on its own accord. the plaza wasnt special, except that it is a mecca of skating, and a rat tried to eat some leftovers someone left there. it was a big rat.
anyway, we went in search of some spot that we didnt find, but the effort took us to a new section of the city. not new for rmj, because he knows the city like a fundamentalist knows the old testament, but it was unexplored for me. we cruised the sidewalks, curbs, kickers and assorted weird spots, for hours. we found (rediscovered) a section of metal flatbars on the backs of bus benches. also, we found the slappy curb of all slappy curbs; a black marble curb taht is barely high enough to grind at all. i love micro spots.
eventually, i got home. the 90 year old homie was on his stoop, drinking tb. i have to work in a couple of hours, so i didnt have to hang out. i just yelled 'good night' and he gave me a wrinkly knuckled peace out as i tore on by down the tiles. he is a quick learner.