Day-to-day

Small roadside temple. It’s right by the base of a steep hill (the road has switchbacks) so I used taking this picture as an excuse to take a breather.

I figured I would write a little bit more about what my daily activities have been, although they are still pretty scattered with trying to “figure things out”. Regarding my research, I’m waiting to talk to some people about data for one aspect of it, but also I’ve spent a lot of time traveling to different places in the city to meet with people. In the meantime, I fully engaged in looking for apartments this past weekend, which has been exhausting but also interesting. (Walking around endless, randomly numbered and labeled alleys looking for a specific building in 90+, sunny heat was kind of a downside. But an unexpected treat was that I got to  ride on the back of a moped for my first, but probably not the last, time.)

Otherwise, I have been appreciating living on the outskirts of the city because it means that it is easy to get out into the mountains every morning. Well, by any metric, they’re more like large foothills, but they still get called mountains by the all of the hiking trail signs. In any case, it’s out of the city and it’s definitely not flat.

I have to admit, I was a little bit amazed when I first discovered that I could actually visit tea farms every day. I didn’t realize it would be so easy to find them, but there is actually Baochong (包重) tea grown about a mile from where I am currently living. It seems like tea of varying qualities really is grown all over the place.

Sometimes I climb Jiuwu Shan (九五山), which has this view of the city.

Looking at Taipei from Jiuwu Shan – a small peak in the southeast of Taipei. Most of the people that I see there in the morning are probably coming from this direction (the west, closer to the center of the city) whereas I approach the ridge from the east.

Sometimes I just go off on small roads that leave the city (this is my favorite thing to do. The biggest downside is when people have scary unleashed dogs. I slowed to a walk and carefully passed through a pack of about 4 large black dogs on the road this morning. They followed me for several yards, growling and barking, which has been the scariest encounter yet.)

If I go the right direction in the morning, the air literally becomes sweeter as I leave the city. It smells fruity, a bit like apricots, but not in a cloying way. I am not sure if it is actually fruit being grown in the small farms near the road or if it’s a plant in the natural forest patches, or both. It makes it a little bit harder to convince myself to turn around and run back to the air pollution.

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