Urban Exploration - Jiuzhiciu

Like a great Naturalist or explorer, I set off today to explore the urban jungles of Taipei. With me on my journey was my trusty camera and travel companion Nate. We headed off to Jiuzhiciu MRT and proceeded to spend a good hour in search of a non-existent bike rental spot. After venturing further we found a tempting set of stairs which carried us over Keelung river and back into Taipei proper. The landscape of Taiwan is really beautiful and the slapped together quality of outlying burroughs gives the area a really forbodding atmosphere. One highlight was the urban agriculture fenced in by old matresses. Within sight of two overpasses sat a small plot of land growing small vegetables.

As we hiked across the freeway span we felt a slight tremor at almost the precise midway point a sign of structural failing or minor earthquake. As we went further clinging in the most tenuous of places lay a series of bonsai trees atop the guard railings of the freeway. Some greening projects are more successful then others and those trees must capture quite a bit of toxic emissions in areas where cars pass by. We descended into Longshan temple area the old timer residence of prostitutes and monks. As our hunger grew the quest for an elusive McD creature proved to be a growing challenge. It was when we came upon the signs of corporate advertising and KTV partyworlds of Ximen the teenage dominated shopping district just north of the old-young dividing line of Longshan that we found release. Satiated we ventured into the women's clothing store masquerading as an English bookstore of Eslite 151. Exhausted and tired we took one of the local buses from Ximen back to our residences in Zhongshan where this story ended in a great long nap.