SQJ Taipei

DAY 1 - RIDE 1 - VEHICLE 1

Bethanie attends dance class on Mondays (ballet) and Thursdays (traditional Chinese). Angie takes her on Mondays and I take her on Thursdays. When I take her, we leave about 5:15PM and she has class from 6 to 7:30… actually it is about 7:45 before she is done and ready to leave. I don’t always want to stop what I’m doing and make this little trip… but I’m ALWAYS glad that I did afterwards.

I’ve used that time in various ways… most often to go get some coffee and read. The forced downtime is nice. A couple times I’ve gone running. This past Thursday I decided to throw my bike in the back of the van and go ride by the river after dropping Bethanie off at class. I didn’t really have a plan… I’d ridden a bit where I planned to start, but never got very far because I had already ridden a ways to get there. This time, I just drove there and parked… yanked my bike out of the back of the van, strapped on the new camelback Keevin brought me (Thanks!), popped in my headphones, and started my riding timer. I decided I’d ride 30 minutes and turn around and come back. I had no idea if the path went that far or not.

Turns out… it DID…

I ran out of time before I ran out of bike path. I’ll DEFINITELY be going back on this path. I’m not ready for many hills yet… and this was totally flat and was a really great ride for me at this point. It wasn’t hard at all, but it was long enough that I felt good about it. Besides my just getting started… my speed is somewhat limited by the fat trail tires I have right now. I need to do something about that because I’ll hardly ever ride on trails. Anyway… I rode 22km in an hour and 2 minutes. Makes for easy km/h conversion, huh?

It was fun to ride as far as I’d ever been on that particular path and see that I still had about 20 minutes before I had to turn around! Every revolution of the pedals brought me to a place I’d never been. Only thing was… I had NO IDEA where I was until I got home and checked the map. I wasn’t lost, I just didn’t recognize any of the bridges I was riding past and I didn’t even know what direction I was heading. I knew the general direction of the river, though. It was fun.

Here’s a screenshot from Google Maps of my route from right to left and back again.

Here’s a link to the route at Google Maps.

Here’s a link to the route in Google Earth.

DAY 2 - RIDE 2 - VEHICLE 2

My guitar got a great tour of Taipei in the rain today. Here’s how it happened.

• 8:15AM I woke up late… been up LATE every night this week.
• 8:50AM Pulled away on the scooter… guitar riding up front where kids usually stand when they are with me.
• 9:00AM took the cemetery shortcut and take the river road to Gongguan.
• 9:15AM passed CKS Memorial Hall (I know it isn’t named that now, but I don’t care)
• 9:25AM the guitar and I safely arrived at Shanghai Bank at the corner of Zhongshan and Minquan. My friend Kungyi (the guy who sent me the link I posted here) works there and I needed to get him some money that I owed him plus change some money.
• 9:34AM Kungyi asked if I had an extra scooter helmet. “A kids helmet” I say. “Can you take me to a place on Dunhua South road?” “Sure! I can just take Keelung Road to Yungho.” “OK… I’ll be right back.” He heads to the elevator.
• 9:40AM Kungyi returns with two sacks. I immediately think of Jack Handy’s Deep Thoughts, “To me, it’s a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, “Hey, can you give me a hand?” You can say, ‘Sorry, got these sacks.’” He asks why I’m laughing… I say, “Who is pukii?” I’m asking because I saw this obnoxious PINK PUKII PROMOTION all over the inside of the bank and now here is Kungyi… tall… handsome… very nice suit… carrying a PUKII gift sack in each hand.
• 9:41AM Then he puts on the kids helmet.
• 9:42AM We are on the scooter. Things to remember. We have a guitar. I am not small. I have a backpack. Kungyi is not small. Kungyi is wearing a nice suit. Kungyi is wearing a kids scooter helmet. Kungyi is carrying 2 PUKII sacks. Although this scene will make me laugh when I think of it the rest of my life… in Taipei… on the streets… we are completely insignificant and irrelevant.
• 9:52AM I drop Kungyi and the PUKII sacks off at the corner of Dunhua South and Xinyi.
• 10:01AM I park at Jen’s apartment and ring the door buzzer. I’m here for music practice. I’m in a band… temporarily. With 3 ladies. We are the worship band for the TMF conference in Taichung next week. Jen is leading… I’m playing guitar… Cherry on piano… Molly singing… we are trying to pressure Casey into playing bass or percussion.
• 10:10AM we start practice… Friday’s songs… Tuesday’s songs… Monday’s songs…
• 1:45PM my left hand is cramped and my fingertips are almost bleeding but I’ve had a great time. Jen has picked some great songs… fun to play and good for the body, mind, heart, and soul. Now if she would just update her blog sometime.
• 2:00PM I visit Craig to get a couple documents chopped and talk a bit.
• 2:10PM I strike out for Banqiao to the Foreign Affiairs Office to renew our family’s 6 Alien Registration Certificates. I was up late the night before filling out all the forms and making copies and getting pictures ready and all the other things we need to do every year for this renewal process. I thought I had everything in order, but you never know until you get there and see what happens.
• 2:15PM The sky looks really dark in the direction I’m heading.
• 2:17PM All the people driving on the opposite side of the street… coming from the darkness… are wearing raingear. I contemplate stopping to don mine. Decide not to yet… I’ll wait for a red light.
• 2:18PM Red light… I decide to just drape the raingear over the guitar (I bet you forgot I still had that!) and my front and I should be OK just to get to the FA office.
• 2:19PM The floodgates of heaven are unleashed. I stop and actually wear my raingear while leaving the guitar covered with Angie’s. But there is no amount of raingear that can protect from this rain. It is insane. We get a lot of rain here… I’m used to rain. I’m used to riding my scooter in the rain. This was the most rain I’ve ridden in. The rain was pelting my face and it hurt… my pants from the knees down were soaked… my shoes and socks sopping… rain was pooling in the folds of the raingear and leaking through in all sorts of places… I can feel water sloshing around about my elbows as it has seeped through the raingear and pooled INSIDE my raingear. I don’t know why it didn’t seep out.
• 2:30PM I finally arrive at the corner where I think the new, temporary FA office is located. Only it sure looks like the phone company. I park and grab my guitar and take shelter under the roof overhang outside the building. Before I strip off all my raingear and my guitar’s raingear and drip dry for a while… I decide to call Craig since he had been to the new location. He helps me learn that I wasn’t in the right place. I knew the place he told me to go to though.
• 2:35PM I pick up my guitar to head back out in the rain with Noah, his boat, and the animals. But as I turn to leave, I hear a person say, “Excuse me. Could you help me change US$1 or US$2?” I figured there probably weren’t any other obvious foreigners around so the words were directed at me. There is a high school student (a recent graduate I found out later) who came to pay his cell phone bill and the amount was NT$2066. He only had NT$2000 but for some reason was carrying a few US bills in his wallet. Before I left the apartment in the AM, I grabbed some stuff off of my dresser. I *hate* carrying coins around and hardly ever bring them with me… but this day I saw NT$66 in coins and I thought… I’ll take these today. I think it was because there was a 50 and a 10 and a 5 and a 1. It just looked cool there on the dresser so I grabbed them. Now this kid needs NT$66. What? And he has 2 US$1 bills and the exchange rate is NT$33:US$1. What? So we make our transaction and he says, “Thank you. Jesus loves you.” I say, “Jesus loves you too brother!” and laugh. We had a nice conversation there in the rain… me… Mr. Su… and my guitar… and my raingear.
• 2:40PM We exchange phone numbers and I head back to my scooter and he goes inside to pay his bill.
• 2:42PM I arrive at the FA office… shed the raingear… go inside the PACKED office (never seen it so full) and when I take my number I see there are 44 people in front of me! My guitar and I settle down for a little sleep and reading until our number is called.
• 3:05PM My number, 222, is called. The employee to help me is one who has helped me before and is sympathetic to me for having to mess with renewing 6 ARCs and who also can’t believe that missionaries have to renew every year… it should be 3 years she says. I say… “Yes. You would be a good president!” She laughs and all of the paperwork is handled efficiently, professionally, quickly, and properly. We are now legal to stay in Taiwan until July 7, 2008 and we have multiple re-entry permits in our passports should we need them.
• 3:23PM I call Angie and tell her the good news… success at the ARC office!
• 3:25PM Guitar is wearing raingear… I am wearing raingear… we are driving in torrential rain again. I only have 2 goals: get home safely… be reclusive when I get there. My introvert tank is on empty and my sick of rain tank is overflowing… just like the sleeves of my raingear and the puddle of water in my lap.
• 3:50PM Home
• 4:30PM I light the grill
• 6PM we are eating cheeseburgers… foil packs (shrimp, pineapple, and peppers)… and bbq tofu squares (don’t knock it til you try it with an open mind)

Here’s a link to the route on Google Maps.