August 10-11

Over the weekend I mostly relaxed as I had to work on preparing my final presentation speech. But I made sure that I left the apartment to go outside and stretch my legs. Taiwan's "Old City" is known or having five gates for each corner of the Old City area. I know what you're thinking, five gates around the Old City area (which is a rectangle) that has four corners. I'm not exactly sure WHY this is the case, I was told earlier, but there is a South, East, North, West AND a small South Gate.

Saturday August 10 I went out to go visit all of the gates and take pictures of them, those that I didn't see Saturday I saw on Sunday. Come to think of it, it probably wasn't one of the most exciting expeditions that I have taken during my time in Taipei, but it definitely felt nice to just go on a walk outside and see little corners and neighborhoods. I started North and went counterclockwise. During my walk I ended up taking a few bonus stops so I actually finished seeing all of the gates on Sunday August 11.

From the top left counter clockwise the gates in the pictures are: North 北门, West 西门, Small South 小南门, South 南门, and East 东门。

The things you see when you are just wandering are always kind of interesting in some manner or another. Over my time here in Taiwan I've found the Ximending shopping district is always home to something fun and exciting happening.

Lately there has been a lot of protests happening. Most of them pertaining to the Hong Kong riots. The guy on the left was merely just trying to bring attention to something, what caught my eye was how he looked like a character from "The Purge" films. Ximending is known for having street performers. Here a guy was spinning a giant cube. Oh wait, you can see that. During my time in Taiwan I think I realized how much I find empty streets interesting. The concept of vanishing points for some reason just seem incredibly intriguing to me. Not exactly sure why.

If you look really closely at the bridge, you might be able to see rows of tripods lined up taking a picture. I'm not actually sure what they were taking a picture of, however, I decided to play their game and take a similar picture. It is relatively dark, but the image on the right is a large road in Taipei facing Taipei Main station. The skyscrapers in the back are in New Taipei City. In addition I happened to wander and find a man playing the accordion in an MRT station.

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Overall, I had a fairly relaxed weekend. The stuff that I saw just exemplifies how important it is to go out and seize the day. You never know what you may find when you just go on a walk to explore. Just five more full days left in Taipei to blog about, my time here is coming to an end. :(