It's times like this that I wish I had an illuminated keyboard (mental note - get money and buy a prettypretty macbook pro...) I'm wishing this as a result of insomnia...for those of you who are familiar with my sleep patterns, you'll know that I pass out at the drop of a hat usually. A hard time falling asleep means that I've had the time to think "gee, I'm never going to fall asl-" before becoming entirely immobile. Unfortunately, either caffeine (which I usually drink a very moderate amount of) or hard exercise late in the day can cause this kind of peppyness. Today, I carried Ingrid up the mountain. Enough said.

The mountain. To explain, the area of Taibei that I live in (as I've said) is an older part. You walk down the winding back alleys (some of which lead to nowhere) and you'll see laundry hanging off of any area which might catch a breeze (it's well-neigh impossible to get things dry here. The best you can hope for after a full day of hanging is a kind of clammy stiffness. It's actually kind of charming, and a damp sort of way). You'll see endless manga shops and haircutting salons (I saw one named "Chia hair" today that made me smile), holes in the wall selling house paint, yarn for knitting, really anything you could imagine anyone needing. But where was I again? Right, the mountain.

Anyways, you walk through these amazing back alleys (which I will try to do justice to later) and all of a sudden you see a wall, with a mountain covered in green rising behind it. This isn't a big wall, nothing "great" or "china"-y about it. just a simple wall with gardens set behind it, and clotheslines, the usual sorts of things one sees behind walls. Then you come to a series of temples. The first one is big and run down, the paint peeling and faded. The second - like everything else in our part of the city - is covered by corrugated plastic layered into a ceiling. You walk up the stairs and you see two rows of gods, sitting there at the base of their mountain. There are offerings of incense always burning, a kettle of tea and some glasses set beside a couch and chairs (vinyl so they don't get mouldy) and beyond that, another set of stairs. These wind up through a temperate rain forest, slowly at first, then sharply, with a hand railing to help those who find the unevenness of these stairs slightly unnerving given the space between you and the road below. This is the mountain that I have been slowly training myself to run up every other day. Granted, I can't do a full out run up yet, I still need to stop at intervals. However the views are so beautiful, and the altitude increases rapidly enough that I'm perfectly OK with my set rest areas.

At the top of the first plateau, you can see the city below you (often set into clouds that look like fog. from below at the city's eye-level you can't see anything. It's just that humid.) and 101 (the rainbow building as Ingrid likes to call it) rising up far above you. This is (or was?) the tallest building in the world. Most importantly (if you are a 2 year old) it lights up every night, with bands of neon color that change depending on what day of the week it is. It also explodes with fireworks on new years) You might see anything on this hike up, continuing toward that top of the summit. Little old men trotting past in their bare feet, whole retirement-communities laboring up to the first pass every friday afternoon, families in polo shirts with cameras and hiking poles (the entire mountain is stairs btw. No dirt trails here, it's all rock steps) laughing at the crazy white girl who is running up the freeking mountain.

It gets better when I have Ingrid on my back in the backpack. Cause then, I have the child-star of Taibei with me on my back. Now, not only is it odd to see such a beautiful blonde child going up the mountain, but seeing a young woman carrying her? Now that's just crazy-talk! I get a lot of thumbs ups, and chuckles. A couple people have taken our pictures. It's pretty funny. I have also decided that outside of pregnancy I am NOT going to spontaneously gain about 20 pounds overnight. Cause carrying that around is hard work. I have also decided to train prior to and during pregnancy so that when the time comes to carry around a baby every second of the day for the following 5+ years, I will be ready, and not die. Moral: Children are heavy, the end.

I was going to talk more about the city and some of the awesome people who run these teeny shops and feed me the best food ever, but I'm kind of tired now, which was the goal. So I will save it for another more awake time of day.

zaijian, byebye.

It's the little things:

I love that my bed is always rearranged - usually with hugabear on top of the covers and my alarm clock hidden somewhere - from the way it was when I got up in the morning. Suspiciously small foot-indents in the covers lead me to believe that the culprit is of a rambunctious size, charming, and blonde.

It cracks me up that my alarm clock has become a telephone that Ingrid can make international calls on.

It amazes me that there is a mountain out my backyard. And that I am beginning to learn how to run up it.

I also enjoy the teeny old men that are beating me up ad down the mountain. In bare feet. In the rain.

I have become personally attached to the god of that mountain area. I bow every time I go past and thank him. He (they?) sit at the base of the mountain, under a rain cover where it is always warm and dry, and they are always shiny, golden and smiling. It's a good afterlife.

The fashion here. Oh my goodness, I feel like I should have my camera out and on every second of every day. Yesterday I saw a girl wearing a panda hat. (They got pandas in at the Taibei zoo, and every day they sell out of tickets by about 2 pm. During New years the zoo was filled to capacity. Every day. There were lines to get into not just the panda area, but the zoo itself.) Today I saw the guy who dresses up as a native outside the shmancy shopping mall district, dancing to "hey mickey". This alone would have been good for a little giggle. But the fact that he was wearing a fringe loincloth...and nothing else....well that was just beyond awesome. Down the walkway about two meters a man was casually strolling around with a bunny dressed up as Speed Racer - complete with a little vinyl helmet and coat - on his shoulder as he looked at straw art (as in you drink things through them), and the living statues. Oh yeah, this place is just COOL.

Multiple times a day, I get to eat wonderful things. In case you were wondering, pineapple juice and kiwi blended is pretty tasty. A little seedy and chunky though, and a very suspicious shade of green...

Multiple times a day, I also get to do things like dance around the room twirling a two year old in a quasi-waltz, while singing "tiny bubbles" or "the prince philip song" from sleeping beauty, wearing anything from my enormous electric blue sunglasses, to a sun hat or electric pink boa that I think has the face of a sheep or goat on one end. I also get to write incredible run-ons

basically, my life here is pretty cool. more specific sensory details to come...*wave*

I'm reading Billy Collins' collection of poetry called "nine Horses" right now, and I've fallen in love with this poem:

Aimless Love

"This morning I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor's window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.

The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.

No lust, no slam of the door -
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.

No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor -
just a twinge every now and then

For the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed up in its light brown suit.

But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripos,
ready for the next arrow.

After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone."

~Billy Collins~

Just thought I'd share the beauty, simplicity, and humor.
:)

We got back from visiting the sunny south about four day's ago, so I'm back in Taibei trying to figure out my way around.

We took the highspeed rail down south, taking us from Taibei to Gaoxiang (the equivalence of Seattle WA to Salem OR) in an hour and a half. I want one. We then took the subways and bus down to Kenting and into our little compound.

We stayed at a fujienese style compund that looked out over a cliff to the ocean.
The buildings were set up with multiple rooms arranged around different styles of shared courtyards. The details on the roofs were just beautiful. This kind of pointy roof was apparently made for VIPs.

We spent a lot of time on the beach, swimming and dipping our feet in the warm water and enjoying the sun. At night, the markets come out and the streets filled with people selling things everywhere! I learned quite a lot about Cho Dofu, pretty much the stikiest thing ever. The smell of this tofu frying smells like old full diapers and will follow you down the street, no joke. We ran to try to avoid the Cho fairly often in Kenting.

We rode the bus back up to Gaoxiang after a couple of days and walked aroun the river and looked at all of the lights. The city is being rebuilt for the 2009 world games so there are cute little light-up avatars everywhere doing jujitsu or rugby to prepare for the games, it's pretty funny.


Then home again to Taibei.

We climbed a mountain yesterday that was pretty awesome and sits about a 5 minute walk out our front door. Me and that mountain will be seeing a lot of eachother in the next few months I am fairly certain.

Anyways, I'm heading out the door to the markets to get some food for the soup Seanny is making for dinner. Zaijian for now.